McCain aide idled in vid link

Republican John McCain’s campaign suspended a staffer who sent out a provocative video linking Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama to the comments of his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The staffer, a low-level aide named Soren Dayton, sent out a link Thursday to the YouTube video, titled “Is Obama Wright?” on the social messaging Web site Twitter.

The campaign suspended him a few hours later, although it wouldn’t say for how long.

The video mixes Wright’s most incendiary remarks with snippets from Obama speeches and interviews, which are edited to make the senator seem to be sputtering and unpatriotic.

Court disbars Libby after convictions

A District of Columbia court Thursday disbarred Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, ruling that his convictions last year for perjury and obstructing justice in a White House leak investigation disqualify him from practicing law.

Libby will lose his license to practice or appear in court in Washington until at least 2012. As is customary, he also would lose any bar membership he might hold in any other states.

Libby was convicted of lying to the FBI and federal investigators about whether he discussed the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame with reporters in the spring and summer of 2003.

Spokeswoman gets twisted up

Who knew? President Bush wants to be unpopular.

Not really, of course, but that’s what his press secretary said Thursday.

“Both the president and the vice president have long believed, and it’s a part of what has made them the leaders that they are, which is not to chase popularity polls but to hold themselves to a standard that requires people not to like them,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said. Huh? Requires people not to like them? She put it a little better later on in her briefing.

“What I’ve heard (Vice President Cheney) say and what I’ve heard the president say is that regardless of how bad it could get in terms of your popularity rating, you can’t make decisions based on chasing popularity.”

$11 million raised for McCain bid

New reports filed with federal election regulators show that apparent Republican presidential nominee John McCain raised $11 million last month, and ended it with $8 million in the bank.

McCain also had $4.3 million debt, mostly for a loan that has become the focus of a stalemate between his campaign and federal regulators.

The reports were filed with the Federal Election Commission.

McCain’s $11 million total marked his second month of solid fundraising. But it still lagged significantly behind the huge sums raised by Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama has said he raised $55 million last month; Clinton put her total at $35 million.

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