• MICHAEL STEELE RESPONDS TO RNC-REROUTING-PHONE-CALLS-TO-DNC-GATE: A kindly news-scribe at CBS credits your Wonkette for first “flagging” the bit about how the RNC has been redirecting DNC-instigated calls back to the DNC all day, and then, comically, asks Michael Steele about this: “Steele, sounding angry, then said, ‘don’t sit there and think that you’re going to direct a bunch of angry liberals’ to the RNC … ‘To sit back and say that this is some Republican cabal is a bunch of baloney,’ he said. ‘And you can substitute that B for something else if you want.’” A barrel of baloney? [CBS]

We just received a lovely e-mail from a poor soul who had to participate in a conference call with Rep. John Shimkus, famous for, what… ah right, trying to sweep Mark Foley’s gay child sex under the gay child sex rug. Let’s let our operative tell the rest: “I sat in on a teleconference with Congressman John Shimkus, who has no speaking skills whatsoever. At any rate, he begins the teleconference with this gem, which I have attatched. Barack Obama is exactly like George Bush because of three things…” MORE »

What better surrogate for McCain to whore out to reporters during a financial crisis than Rudy Giuliani, who personally… uh… made Wall Street have lots of liquidity or something on 9/11, with his bullhorn. Today’s conference call sounds like it was even funnier than 9/11, and that’s saying something. MORE »

As you know, the worst mayor ever of anything, Rudy Giuliani, will deliver the keynote address at his party’s convention. Rudy Giuliani is a fucking stupid rat-demon whose pathetic 5th place campaign couldn’t even make it past January after 12 months of exploiting, for political purposes, the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians whose safety he, as mayor of the attacked city, was supposed to protect. He really is the most appropriate symbol for the Republican convention that follows eight years of George W. Bush, although probably not for the same reasons that the speaker selection committee chose him. Anyway he had a conference call today and just completely bombed on it, because he’s fucking stupid. MORE »

Expert Briefing to Conference Call in three Media Advisories. Beat that, Republicans.