It all started when someone noticed that Meghan McCain’s book “Bad Republican” wasn’t selling very well… to say the least. At last count, she had sold 226, which remarkably, puts her well behind the guy writing… never mind.

Steve Schmidt, the man who ran her father’s 2008 campaign explained why the book was not selling, he said Meghan McCain was a “spoiled rotten, entitled bully.”

When I kicked [Meghan McCain] off of the 2008 McCain plane, because of her outrageous behavior, I talked to her mom and explained what was happening and why. Cindy got weepy and said ‘I just want to say I raised two good sons’ I said ‘everyone knows you did.’ My daughter was three at the time and I made a promise to myself that I would make sure that my number one priority in life would be raising a child that never acted like [Meghan McCain], a spoiled rotten, entitled bully.”

Meghan McCain responded to the lines by liking a tweet that said Schmidt was running a “pedo-racket.” (One of the Lincoln Project’s founders abused underage teen boys. We really cannot stand the fact that “Pedo” has gotten such widespread use because it is a scientific-legal term for attraction to prepubescents. Men attracted to adolescents (13-18) are rapists.) The co-founder of the Lincoln Project, John Weaver, was removed after an internal investigation utilizing an independent law firm found that he harassed and assaulted teen boys. Steven Schmidt had nothing to do with anything Weaver did and Schmidt – rightly – was infuriated by the response. It upset him enough to write:

“I was the first adult that [Meghan McCain] ever encountered that she heard the word NO from. I told her she was unimportant and that the Presidential election wasn’t about her. I left her on the tarmac when she didn’t make the plane because as I explained to her, the 5000 people who were waiting to see her father speak and took the time to do it deserved to have him show up on time.

“That was the way John McCain saw it. He was appalled by [Meghan McCain] conduct on the campaign. Appalled and embarrassed,”

That would have been plenty, but because this is Steve Schmidt, he kept going, and boy did he ever go:

“The tantrums were beyond anything I have ever witnessed from any other human being. They were epic meltdowns that would test the range of Meryl Streep, Kate Winslett, Jodi Foster and Anne Hathaway on their best days. Raging, screaming, crying, at the staff, at the makeup people at Secret Service. Without any doubt it was the most rotten, entitled, spoiled, cruel, mean and bullying behavior I have ever witnessed.

In my mind, screaming at staff is the least forgivable. We working stiffs deserve to be treated with dignity just like anyone else, and nothing about Meghan McCain makes her better than any of us. John McCain had one aspect that – speaking for myself – is something that I don’t have, the bravery and the selflessness to stay in captivity, to be tortured, rather than used as propaganda and released. But that wouldn’t give him the right to speak down to anyone, either.

Schmidt still wasn’t done. He called out John Kelly:

“It was my job to confront it and I did. I talked to 24-year-old [Meghan McCain] the way an adult should have talked to the Trump kids. I talked to her the way a retired USMC 4 Star General failed to do in the WH with Ivanka, Jared and Jr. They are all the same people.

John Kelly was a four-star general who served as White House chief of staff and it was his job to tell all the Trump kids that the presidency was not about them and there were far more qualified people in the room to handle the real decisions. He would, of course, have been fired, but then he could leave knowing he did his job.

Yes, Steve’s comments are self-impressed. Yes, there’s some arrogance in his comments and he’s telling one side of the story. But it is a side that rings true, at least to a significant degree.

He still wasn’t done:

I told her that she was unimportant and that everything around her had nothing to do with her. I told her she was privileged and lucky and should be grateful. She told me and anyone else who would listen in response, ‘Do you know who the F*ck my Dad is’ It was the miserable anthem of the total chaos that was the McCain Campaign. It never stopped until one day when I said ENOUGH!

We are hearing that John McCain wasn’t that good a father, that is what we’re learning. Good parenting usually prevents attitudes like this from developing. Same for Cindy McCain. Thankfully, some of us working schmucks can turn to the 14-year-old running around listening to her phone and ask: “Is this you?” pointing at the “spoiled rotten, entitled, bully.” And have her laugh. (She’s a tiny bit spoiled, daddy’s girl.)

And to top it off:

I had a golden rule. Disrespect Agents of the US Secret Service, goodbye. She was the only person who was a multiple offender. That was the only entitlement I would grant her. She was a 24 year old 2 year old. Monstrous behavior. The real life Veruca Salt x 1000000 https://t.co/9oXIFfrBfQ

— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) May 8, 2022

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman