Today, McCain economic adviser Carly Fiorina bluntly stated that neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin were capable of running a major corporation (she said the same of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden). A top campaign adviser said Fiorina will be punished for her candid opinions:

“Carly will now disappear,” this source said. “Senator McCain was furious.” Asked to define “disappear,” this source said, adding that she would be off TV for a while – but remain at the Republican National Committee and keep her role as head of the party’s joint fundraising committee with the McCain campaign.

Fiorina was booked for several TV interviews over the next few days, including one on CNN. Those interviews have been canceled.

The AP reports:

With Wall Street in turmoil, the White House has canceled any press coverage of President Bush’s meeting with his chief advisory group on the reeling financial markets.

Bush was scheduled to make a statement Tuesday to a pool of White House reporters after huddling with his financial working group. That won’t happen now.

Spokesman Tony Fratto says the White House decided it would be best to limit public comment about markets.

The meeting went on as planned. The group is led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and includes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the chairpersons of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Defending Gov. Sarah Palin’s experience in an interview with MSNBC today, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) made the false claim that Alaska supplies 20 percent of the U.S. oil:

She does understand energy, not only as governor, but as someone who was on the commission that regulated that big industry in Alaska. Twenty percent of all our oil comes from Alaska.

Watch it:

In reality, Alaska produces 14.3 percent of the nation’s oil. Furthermore, Gov. Sarah Palin recently said Alaska produces 20 percent of the U.S. “energy,” when it actually produces 3.5 percent. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has used the same talking point. The Washington Post FactChecker gives the claim four pinnochios.

Last night, the McCain campaign made it clear that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) would not cooperate with the Alaska legislature’s investigation into “Troopergate,” which centers on a charge that Palin improperly fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. The campaign complained that the investigation had become “tainted” and politicized — despite the fact that the investigation was approved by unanimous vote by the eight Republicans and four Democrats on the Legislative Council.

This afternoon on CNN, McCain spokesman Ed O’Callaghan tried to spin Palin’s stonewalling of the legislature’s investigation by claiming she “is 100 percent going to cooperate with the Personnel Board inquiry.” Of course, what he doesn’t say is that the three-member personnel board is appointed by the governor. Watch it:

In July, Palin said she’d welcome the legislature’s investigation, but “after McCain picked her as a running mate,” her lawyer “urged that the investigation be conducted by the Alaska Personnel Board, which is appointed by the governor.”

Palin’s emphasis of secrecy first and cooperation only with loyalists is reminiscent of the current vice president, who has consistently refused to speak on the record or participate in various congressional investigations. Just like Cheney, Palin seems to put a high price on loyalty. As the New York Times recently reported, Palin “runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy,” choosing to surround herself “with people she has known since grade school and members of her church.”

Speaking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night, Monegan — the Commissioner at the heart of Troopergate — lamented Palin’s Cheney-like stonewalling. “She campaigned and she was all of I think Alaska’s hope for an open and transparent government. And now it’s being thwarted,” he said.

Transcript: Read more

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports:

Karl Rove, the former Deputy Chief of Staff and senior advisor to President George W. Bush, discussed presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama and gave his take on the legacy of the current president.

But hundreds of protesters greeted Rove before, during and after his speech. When Rove tried to leave the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, at least two people and possibly a third claimed they were pepper sprayed while campus officials said they were not. A bomb threat was also determined to be unfounded, campus officials added.

In his speech, Rove said he felt Bush was a “successful” president, but they had “done a lousy job of explaining” why he was.