Kristol Attacks Anonymous McCain Aides Dishing To The Press As ‘Paranoid’ And ‘Disloyal To John McCain’

With the final election results in, the traditional finger-pointing and back-biting of the losing campaign has set in at a furious pace. Last night, CNN’s Dana Bash reported that “three senior McCain advisers” were saying that senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann had been fired from the campaign last week for “trashing” other campaign staffers:

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading “disinformation” about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

Scheunemann, campaign manager Rick Davis and top adviser Mark Salter denied that he had been fired. McCain press aide Michael Goldfarb told Bash this morning that while Scheunemann wasn’t dismissed, he was essentially excommunicated by the McCain staff:

However, Goldfarb did concede that Scheunemann’s campaign e-mail was cut off, and his blackberry was taken away late Friday. Goldfarb admits that senior McCain aides were mad at Scheunemann, and wanted to fire him, but he insists they stopped short of that, and instead simply turned off his campaign communication.

McCain aides claim Scheunemann was providing “a constant stream of poison” to New York Times columnist Bill Kristol, who has also been accused of advising Sarah Palin behind the campaign’s back. On Fox & Friends this morning, Kristol attacked the campaign’s anonymous back-biters as “paranoid” and “disloyal to John McCain.” Watch it:

Though Kristol never mentioned Scheunemann, he appeared to hint at why the aide’s “campaign e-mail was cut off.” Talking about the last days of the campaign, Kristol said that some staff “were going through other campaign workers’ emails…to try to see who was allegedly leaking stuff, negative stuff.”