Campbell Brown turns her back for five minutes and her stand-in Roland Martin wheels out Meghan McCain, fresh from her Larry King appearance, to trash the GOP.

Ironically his first question to her is ‘What do you say to conservative critics who say you’re being used?’ before going on to ask her a transparently mischievous question about Palin.

‘I don’t think that’s a relevant question,’ says Meghan, in which case maybe she should ask herself why she thinks Martin – who isn’t trying to use her, remember – brought it up.

CNN can’t get enough of this useful idiot so last night she got ten minutes on Larry King. 

Where she was asked, apparently with a straight face, whether President Obama was over-exposed. You know, popping up everywhere in an annoying fashion . . . 

Actually she made the fair point that the Twitter generation rather like having celebrities in their faces all the time.

She went on to repeat her line that she’d never heard of Laura Ingraham before their recent spat. Which is odd because she told Fox and Friends she was a devotee of the O’Reilly Factor. How can you watch the Factor and not know who Ingraham is?

What’s the quickest way to burn any conservative credentials you may or may not have had? Declare yourself a fan of Russell Brand.

Having already got into a fight with Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, Meghan McCain now has Michelle Malkin to deal with.

And she’s no match for Michelle.

Remember the lobbyist McCain was supposed to have had an affair with? Here she is, on The Early Show this morning setting the record straight. There was no affair.

Watch CBS Videos Online

She sued the New York Times and has now settled. The NYT says no money or apology was issued but has clarified the record with this statement: ‘The article did not state, and the Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain or an unethical relationship on behalf of her clients in breach of the public trust’

His name is Michael Goldfarb and he doesn’t say anything especially damaging, just leaves you with a cynical feeling about his decision to work for a campaign he always thought would lose with a brief he regarded as dumb.

There’s a whiff of Joe McGinniss’s The Selling of the President about it.

On Palin: he thought she made mistakes but was still the best option for the ticket. He rightly says that Romney or Lieberman would have brought their own negatives, and that when liberal papers like the New York Times report on Republican campaigns they’re reporting on things they have no instinctive understanding of and their coverage reflects that.

Slipping effortlessly into his old role of Everyone’s Favourite Republican we have John McCain.

First he goes back on Letterman, who as we know is not his friend.

Then he goes on This Week with Stephanopoulos and tells the RNC to pipe down about Blagojevich. “There’s a lot of corruption among Republicans and Democrats,” he reminds us.

Do he and Colin Powell have some kind of private bet going on over who can spout the most Democratic talking points?

The University of Kansas held an election post-mortem last week with campaign staffers from both sides.

From Team Obama: the only time they were really worried was when the Paris/Britney ads ran. Steve Hildebrand said: “I thought if they can brand him as a celebrity rather than as a serious leader then we’re in serious trouble.”

From Team McCain: suspending the campaign and going back to Washington was intended to neutralise the gaffe about the fundamentals of the economy being strong, but it backfired. “That was when [their] charge of ‘erratic’ really started to stick,” said Sarah Simmons.

The New York Times has a full report.

Well, why wouldn’t you want on board the guy who’s been “wrong on every isssue”.

And I thought his name was Bush-McCain anyway.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Did Gov Palin help or hurt McCain?

We said the day after the election that she saved him from a worse drubbing. Dick Morris said the same on the O’Reilly Factor last week, reckoning he’d have lost by ten points without her.

Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post agrees too. Check out his Five Myths about the election.

Now that he’s safely lost the election, John McCain is everyone’s favourite Republican again and can be patted on the head by Leno and co.

If my Sky Plus is to be believed the Tonight Show interview should air on CNBC tonight at 10pm.

It’s also on the website in parts one, two (the Palin segment, where he doesn’t give much away but if anything damns her with faint praise) and three.