PALIN LOSING FRIENDS AS WELL AS MAKING ENEMIES

Yeas & Nays, Washington Examiner - Writing in this month's Vanity Fair, Todd Purdum catalogs just how rapidly Sarah Palin has burned through friends and confidantes. Walter Hickel, the former Alaska governor who chaired Palin's gubernatorial campaign in 2006, told Purdum, "I don't give a damn what she does."

And John Bitney, a junior-high school friend and former legislative liaison for Palin, said, "I find it's frustrating dealing with Sarah, because it seems we're always dealing with emotional crap, and we never seem to be able to focus on the business at hand. Check my feet for horseshoes if I have to sit there and listen to another talk show."

Purdum also catalogs just how rapidly Palin has burned her bridges. By the end of the campaign, he writes, several aides to her running-mate John McCain - Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace and Tucker Eskew - "were barely on speaking terms with her." . . .