Per CNN:

Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator’s campaign last week for what one aide called “trashing” the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

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.

“He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain’s campaign message,” said one of the aides.

Scheunemann and others have disputed this to the NY Times or that he was leaking to his neocon pal, Bill Kristol.

Scheunemann was a charter member of PNAC last seen pushing McCain front and center against the Soviet dustup in Georgia, making his case as the most forceful foreign policy candidate. In addition to a dubious campaign adviser resume (Dole in ‘96, McCain in ‘08, Trent Lott in-between), he was a chief supporter of confirmed liar-profiteer Ahmad Chalabi and constant proponent of war with Iraq.

Apparently he was so smitten with Sarah Palin as the next Republican national leader he could mold to his twisted mindwarp that he sided with her against Team McCain insiders, finally getting him dumped after being a McCain insider himself back to the 2000 campaign. Aligned with Bill Kristol, he was seeking to remain relevant in the post PNAC world by hanging with the person he perceived would be the next great GOP leader in 2012.

Some great leader.

McCain’s friends are now revealing what McCain thought of Palin near the end:

An exasperated McCain has been telling friends in recent weeks that Palin is even more trouble than a pitbull.

In one joke doing the rounds, the Republican presidential candidate has been asking friends: what is the difference between Sarah Palin and a pitbull? The friendly canine eventually lets go, is the McCain punchline.

McCain’s joke is a skit on Palin’s most famous line after she was picked as his surprise running mate. Palin delighted the Republican base when she said the only difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom was lipstick.

She jumped the gun on a strategy McCain had not fully sorted out:

Palin launched her attack on Obama’s association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain’s advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

She pandered to the verbally violent:

The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. “Why would they try to make people hate us?” Michelle asked a top campaign aide.

And her habit of spending Alaskan state monies for her family’s travel expenses carried over to her costly fashion purchases at McCain campaign donors’ expense:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: “Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin.” [Kevin: a contradictory statement in itself]

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

Public office, to Palin, is apparently an opportunity to gain her own special family expense account. It’s not uncommon to see lawmakers treat themselves to travel, but they usually label that as ‘factfinding’ so their junkets have a modicum of official business as cover. However, to spend so much of a cash-strapped campaign for clothing, while bullying staff whose advice she occasionally rejected displays the type of bull-headed leadership that disregards the notion of teamwork under the direction of the actual team leader.

And Scheunemann’s disloyal embrace of her is further proof that a major weakness of McCain is in his judgment of who to hire for his team. Choosing Palin was merely the final bad hire of many that plagued his entire campaign.