WHAT STEVE SCHMIDT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND: YOU'RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO PRETEND TO HATE THE MEDIA

On the off-chance that you haven't already seen the angry commentary by CNN's Campbell Scott Brown calling for Sarah Palin to be removed from the Running Mate Protection Program so reporters can ask her a few questions, go here for the video and a partial transcript. It's well worth it.

I think the press's anger at the McCain campaign is real -- and I think what it shows us is that the campaign's chief thug, Steve Schmidt, didn't really learn all the tricks he could have learned from his mentor, Karl Rove. We know what Schmidt's doing now. What was Rove doing a little more than four years ago?

Bush's aides were upbeat as they traveled to Wisconsin to launch their postconvention tour. Normally inaccessible to the press, a succession of senior Bush advisers chatted freely while Karl Rove, the president's strategic mastermind, offered cream puffs to sweeten the mood among reporters.

Cream puffs, people. Cream puffs. Rove was offering tasty, fattening treats to the press pack -- along with increased access to top-tier Bushies.

This doesn't mean that GOP flacks weren't all over talk radio and cable television declaring that the press was monolithically liberal and therefore wanted Bush to lose. The difference is, four years ago Rove made sure that journalists realized that that was all for show.

Schmidt doesn't understand this. Schmidt thinks you're actually supposed to treat the press the way your wingnut rhetoric says the press should be treated.

Rove knew better.