talk about keeping your enemies closer!

Jake Tapper at ABC News has this about the McCain Campaign:

"Former officials of Sen. John McCain's 2000 campaign expressed shock and disbelief Monday to learn than the GOP presidential nominee had hired South Carolina political consultant Tucker Eskew.

Eskew, along with Warren Tompkins and Neal Rhodes, were key members of then-Gov. George W. Bush's South Carolina team during the 2000 primaries. McCain and his team long held Bush, Tompkins, Rhodes and Eskew responsible for the various smears against McCain and his family in the Palmetto state during that contentious contest."

I find it amazing that the campaign would hire the one guy probably the most responsible for the most egregious and nasty smear attacks on John McCain, or indeed, any candidate in recent memory. It is all a very classic pattern in GOP circles. Slime and retreat. Rinse & repeat.