Parenthetically, What?

In the beginning of Robert Draper's long article on the McCain campaign a few days ago I picked up on this jaw-dropping graf.

[McCain’s chief campaign strategist Steve] Schmidt in particular was a believer in these kinds of defining moments. The smartest bit of political wisdom he ever heard was dispensed by George W. Bush one spring day at the White House residence in 2004, at a time when his re-election effort was not going especially well. The strategists at the meeting — including Schmidt, who was directing the Bush campaign’s rapid-response unit — fretted over their candidate’s sagging approval ratings and the grim headlines about the war in Iraq. Only Bush appeared thoroughly unworried. He explained to them why, polls notwithstanding, voters would ultimately prefer him over his opponent, John Kerry.

There’s an accidental genius to the way Americans pick a president, Schmidt remembers Bush saying that day. By the end of it all, a candidate’s true character is revealed to the American people.

So said the man who had to have the '04 election stolen in order to win, the man who had to have both the elections that put him into office stolen for him because the "accidental genius" of the American people would have thrown the imposter out on his ass had the vote been counted honestly, and he knew it.

Pity poor Schmidt, a victim of his own propaganda.

Or don't.