FAIL-PROOF CONSERVATISM

(h/t Atrios)

It seems that once you are accepted into the Noise Machine, you can't screw up badly enough to get axed, with very few exceptions.

Exclusive: McCain Hires Controversial Syria Analyst Elizabeth O'Bagy
Posted By Gordon Lubold, Shane Harris Friday, September 27, 2013 - 3:37 PM
FOREIGN POLICY

O'Bagy, who is 26, was abruptly shown the door a week later, after it was confirmed that she had padded her academic credentials with a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. She also failed to disclose in her op-ed that she was part of a pro-Syrian rebel political group, the Syrian Emergency Task Force. 

O'Bagy claimed that she was a contractor for the task force, not an employee, and didn't participate in any of the group's lobbying efforts. But she acknowledged helping the group set up a meeting between McCain and commanders with the Free Syrian Army. 

Several media organizations reported that O'Bagy was enrolled in a Ph.D. program, but a subsequent investigative report by ThinkProgress found that was not the case. "Either O'Bagy was at one point enrolled a PhD program and dropped out, or she has been lying the entire time," the site reported.