Promoted from the diaries.

Kettle, meet Pot. Or, as he’s known in South Carolina, Adam Fogle.  In a poorly sourced and potentially libelous attack on a professor at Clemson University , little-known blogger Adam Fogle demonstrates once again that Hell hath no wrath like a paid hack scorned.

At PalmettoScoop.com, a thinly trafficked blog that follows South Carolina Politics, Fogle this morning accused Clemson professor James David Woodard of taking bribes in exchange for praising Sen. Jim DeMint and bashing Sen. Lindsey Graham.  “Professor May Be Running ‘Quotes for Hire’ Racket at Clemson University,” Fogle blared.  Woodard co-authored a book with Sen. DeMint and previously served as a consultant for several South Carolina lawmakers, including DeMint in 1998, Lindsey Graham in 1994, and Rep. Gresham Barrett in 2002.  Something must be amiss when a so-called conservative like Fogel frets that academia is just too darn supportive of conservatives.

Fogle’s proof of Woodard’s guilt in a seedy “pay-to-say” consists of the fact that…Woodard used to work as a consultant for DeMint.  In 1998.  But how would that explain Woodard’s attacks on Graham?  “[W]hen Graham stopped paying [Woodard] as a consultant, Woodard suddenly became his biggest and harshest critic,” answers Fogle.  Unfortunately for Fogel, Woodard’s praise for DeMint continued long after his work for him ended, suggesting that Woodard’s real crime against Graham isn’t that he’s on the take; it’s that he didn’t stay bought.  And staying bought is something Adam Fogle knows a lot about.

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From the diaries by Erick.

“The president was clearly frustrated with what was going on, but there was little he could do at this late hour. He went up to take a nap, saying he was beat. He looked it. I’d never seen him more exhausted. His hair was out of place and shaggy. His face looked drained and pale. Most alarming of all, he was wearing Crocs.”

So reads former presidential speechwriter Matt Latimer’s tongue-in-cheek description of President Bush hours before giving a national address to explain his Treasury secretary’s plan to save the country’s economy and banking sector from total collapse.  Crocs cracks aside, that the president had no idea how the financial plan actually worked is even more disturbing.  “Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?” Bush asked.  Good question.  Unfortunately, many of the former aides named in Latimer’s book have proven themselves far more likely to attack the book and its author than provide any real answers.

Released last week by Crown Publishing, Speech-Less details the rise of a native of Flint, Michigan (the inspiration for Michael Moore’s Roger and Me)  to the floor of a national political convention, to the halls of Congress, to the Pentagon, and, finally, to the Oval Office.  Latimer pulls no punches.  And although less than half the book centers around his time in the White House, the bulk of the rage directed toward the book has come from former White House staffers aghast at the audacity of someone airing their antics.

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