September 2008 Archives

Yes. Eddie Vetter speaks for me.

I knew Deadspin would let that Cardinals fan Will Leitch write the preview of the Cubs opening playoff series against the Dodgers.

Damn them! Because, of course, he writes something like this -- something that will, of course, give me night terrors for the week:

From the very first day of Spring Training, the general consensus has been that This Is The Cubs' Year. (This has caused me considerable frightened quivering, pretty much from the get-go.) It's not just the 100 years thing either. It's difficult to argue that the Cubs haven't been the best team in the National League, if not in all of baseball, the entire season. But it's the Postseason Crapshoot, and a strong argument could be made that the Dodgers are the worst possible first-round opponent for the Cubs. (It would have been tough for them not to sweep the Mets, for example.) Here we are, Cubs. We'll find out if it was all worth it.

Urgh.

Rep. Barney Frank has the only possible response to the Republicans' claim that they voted against the bailout plan today (causing $1.1 trillion in losses) because the Speaker was -- as my kids say -- a meaner.

(Hat tip: Talking Points Memo)

The McCain-Palin campaign may be taking its war against the media too far. They are beginning to notice the hypocrisy, as Marc Ambinder asks:

How is a pizza joint question about Pakistan from a voter an example of "gotcha journalism" when a ropeline comment by Joe Biden about clean coal gets turned into two ads?

Welcome to John McCain's world. Now the question is: will he be held accountable for it?

John Aravosis provides some perspective over on Americablog:

Dow on Bill Clinton's last day in office: 10,587.59 Dow today: 10,365.4

It would be even more scary if we tried adjusting today's close for inflation.

Yes, this is worth a watch.

(Hat tip: Americablog)

As Judd Legum explains in the Washington Note, debates are rarely won or lost solely based on the strength of the arguments the candidates make. Other factors some to play.

One of those factors last night, I suspect, is John McCain's absolute refusal to make eye contact with Barack Obama. That's an angry, disrespectful move. One that was obvious to those watching.

Chris Matthews hit on an important point in his book Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think. At the beginning of the second chapter, Matthews gives us his one-point presidential election model.

My model has just one variable: Look for the candidate you picture with the sun in his face.

Think Reagan-Carter. Reagan-Mondale. Even George H.W. "41" Bush vs. Dukakis. Clinton against 41 and Bob Dole. And, yes, drinking a beer with George W. "43" Bush instead of Al Gore and John Kerry.

Watch last night's debate again. Look at the body language. Remember the studies that show that what people see is far more important than what people hear when they are watching the television machine.

Even at the end, John McCain refuses to look Obama in the eye when they are shaking hands at the end of the debate. (See the photo Andrew Sullivan has posted.)

I suspect McCain's actions last night will play about as well as the horrible sighs Al Gore tried against George W. Bush eight years ago.

I think the "sun in the face" test is an important one to consider. On this point, for the first time since 1996, the Democratic candidate won in a landslide.

One thing that really jumped out at me in last night's debate: Barack Obama should not have allowed John McCain to claim any credit on the torture issue. McCain has flip-flopped on this issue, and voted against the ban on waterboarding in one of his rare votes this year.

And, yes, I think it was a very important moment to hear the Republican presidential nominee admit this nation has tortured people under the Bush-Cheney administration.

We have to do a better job in human intelligence. And we've got to -- to make sure that we have people who are trained interrogators so that we don't ever torture a prisoner ever again.

That's one of the few moments I found myself in agreement with what McCain had to say. Too bad his votes fail to follow his words.

Where was Sarah Palin last night? I saw Joe Biden all over the television machine.

Palin was absent, even though it had been 30 days since she was asked to join John McCain's ticket.

How is this not a major concern?

Greg Sargent notes that John McCain just told the Clinton Global Initiative that he had to "suspend" his campaign because there is no deal to work on the financial crisis.

But the Associated Press is reporting that a deal is imminent.

A deal that would have been reached while John McCain stayed in New York to blow off David Letterman, appear with Katie Couric, and give a campaign speech to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Folks, John McCain is not saving the world. Let's see if the media actually understands this.

James Fallows is wondering just how bad John McCain's tactic of "suspending" his campaign and trying to reschedule the debates is on a historic scale.

Now, maybe I am misjudging my fellow citizens. Maybe most people will say: Yes, it's perfectly understandable that John McCain, having traveled constantly for years on the campaign trail, suddenly can't make it down to Mississippi on Friday. We respect him all the more! But I don't think this is some mass-vs-elite type question. This involves basic "dog ate my homework" appearances that anyone can understand.

Jamison Foser is wondering if John McCain has really suspended his campaign.

Well, is he, really? Are his campaign offices around the country empty? Are his campaign staff and volunteers at home, catching up on their laundry? Is his web page rejecting attempted contributions?

"Suspended my campaign" isn't a vague phrase; it means something very specific. It means his campaign has stopped. If it isn't true, he's lying, and it exposes this whole thing as nothing more than a political stunt -- a political stunt designed to portray him as above politics.

After all, he delivered what was basically a stump speech at the Clinton Global Initiative a few minutes ago. If the campaign was suspended, if he needed to get to D.C. to work on the financial issues, then why is John McCain still in New York nearly a day after his campaign supposedly stopped?

I used to travel between Manhattan and Washington, D.C., regularly. It doesn't take this long. There are a variety of travel options in the Northeast corridor. I would think presidential candidates would have even more options than the average person.

Why couldn't John McCain take one of them?

We should be discussing not only whether this tactic was wise or stupid. We should be seeing if McCain is actually honoring his pledge -- or whether this tactic is nothing more a cynical photo-op and talking point.

You'd think that the McCain-Palin campaign staff would have made sure Gov. Sarah Palin had at least one example of John McCain's strong stands on regulation memorized before sending her to meet Katie Couric.

Couric: I’m just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

Palin: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.

That's really an awful answer. How could the McCain campaign not anticipate this kind of question and make sure their candidate was prepared?

At some point, I wonder if people a bit higher up the food chain will be held responsible for our country violating one of George Washington's rules and resorting to torture. The New York Times has a story linking top-ranking Bush Administration officials much closer to this travesty than they have previously admitted.

Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents.

In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret C.I.A. prisons overseas, the documents show. The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials.

The documents provide new details about the still-murky early months of the C.I.A.’s detention program, when the agency began using a set of harsh interrogation techniques weeks before the Justice Department issued a written legal opinion in August 2002 authorizing their use. Congressional investigators have long tried to determine exactly who authorized these techniques before the legal opinion was completed.

One of the techniques discussed in the article is waterboarding, which is clearly torture -- and has been considered such for centuries.

This is an offense our nation must not sweep under the rug.

John McCain does have a disturbing propensity to call every troubling situation a grave crisis. Democracy Arsenal's Patrick Barry has a list of examples. As Barry notes, when so many things reach the level of grave crisis, how do we know which is most important?

Based on how many times expressions like "biggest crisis since" and "a greater crisis than" pass through McCain's lips, it's far from clear which, of the crises he identifies, will be at the top of his list.

And now we will see some of the fruits of the legislative branch's refusal to protect its prerogatives and tell the Bush-Cheney administration, "No." One of the most important checks on federal power--the prohibition against deploying the military in the United States--has been weakened, and the Bush Administration is going to take advantage. As Glenn Greenwald writes:

For more than 100 years -- since the end of the Civil War -- deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored -- until now. And as the Army Times notes, once this particular brigade completes its one-year assignment, "expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one."

The first step may not seem like an important or dangerous one. Even Glenn Greenwald downplays some of the internet speculations about canceled elections and other dire warnings.

But this is a dangerous road upon which to travel. It would be helpful if the legislative branch of our government were to start defending the checks and balances at the heart of our federal Republic.

(Hat tip: Jen R.)

Andrew Sullivan nominates Northwestern University Law School Professor Steven Calabresi for a Malkin Award for this rubbish, but I want to point out one other travesty:

"This Administration deserves to be trusted because it has kept us safe from terrorist attack since 9/11, has fought and won two wars, has presided over eight years of economic growth, has appointed two stellar justices to the Supreme Court, and has even learned how to do Louisiana’s job of protecting that state from hurricanes. The day will come, and not before long, when Americans will wish that George Bush was still president." (emphasis added)

Can someone really be a credible law school professor if they do not remember that the anthrax terrorist attacks happened after September 11, 2001? I mean really. They were a big news story at the time. And they were a big news story just last week (!) given that there were Congressional hearings into the matter.

Most important, Does Calabresi understand that these anthrax attacks still have not been credibly explained?

That's what Jeffrey Goldberg would like to know. It is a good question to consider on this, the 28th day Gov. Sarah Palin has refused to participate in a press conference after being asked to join John McCain's ticket as the vice presidential nominee.

No. This is not spam. It is important. Please adjust your spam filters accordingly. Chris Hayes reprints an e-mail he was sent by a friend:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Via Josh Marshall, I see that Jonathan Alter utters two words I thought were forbidden to be mentioned: Keating Five. This is how John McCain handled a previous financial crisis. You might think it would be relevant to today's conversations.

[Y]ou remember the Keating Five scandal that he was a part of, which, by the way, it's crazy but there's been very little about it in the press in the last few weeks. And McCain thinks he's getting a hard time, he's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in the middle of the last great financial scandal in our country. But his reaction to that, you would have thought, would have been more regulation of the financial services industry. Instead he moved forward on campaign finance reform after being caught in that scandal, but did nothing - nothing - to try to prevent another savings and loan crisis from happening down the road. He was missing in action when it came to even learning the basic lessons of a scandal that he said taught him all kinds of things that he would never forget.

No, that's not me saying that. It was conservative columnist George Will yesterday on This Week with George George Stephanopoulos. Mark Kleiman quotes Will and posts a video of the exchange here.

I suppose the McCain campaign’s hope is that when there’s a big crisis, people will go for age and experience. The question is who, in this crisis, looked more Presidential: calm and unflustered? It wasn’t John McCain, who (as usual) substituting vehemence for experience, said “Let’s fire somebody!” and he picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason — or at least none he’d vouchsafe — said “Fire Chris Cox at the SEC.” It was unpresidential behavior by a presidential aspirant.

Atrios asks an excellent question about the Paulson bailout plan:

What changed between Monday and Friday? What new information did you have at the end of the week that you did not have at the beginning of the week which caused you to go from $0 to $1 trillion?

And, no, tumbling stock prices or babble about "deteriorating credit conditions" don't count. Bernanke, Paulson, the SEC, the FDIC should have had access to a set of facts independent of day to day market turmoil. What actually changed over the week? If it was new information, what was it? If it was newly discovered information, why didn't you know it before?

One wonders if we will ever learn the answer to this important question.

Tom Toles highlights this hypocritical position here.

A Talking Points Memo reader makes an outstanding point:

As a Wall Street guy I am sort of glad that this bailout is being organized. However, what seems unfair to me is that there are absolutely no provisions for homeowners. Moreover, this morning on Stephanopulous I saw Hank Paulson talking about homeowners taking out mortgages that were higher than they could afford and about them needing to live up to their obligations.

I find it incredible that he would use language like that while asking taxpayers to send a trillion dollars to Wall Street because investment banks made irresponsible investments and aren't able to live up to their obligations.

In any loan transaction there are at least two parties. If I give my unemployed and uneducated brother-in-law a half a million dollar loan wouldn't I be just as irresponsible giving it as he is taking it? Moreover, a large majority of borrowers did not have financial training to be able to understand complex mortgage terms and risks of the underlying investments. Investment banks have armies of Ph Ds working for them that helps them analyze market risks and credit exposure. They got it wrong too! It strikes me as strange that unsophisticated borrowers are being held to much higher standard than ultra-sophisticated bankers.

Of course they are. Unsophisticated borrowers don't have an army of lobbyists.

They really think they'll get away with this: key staff at the New York headquarters are claiming $2.5 billion bonuses. That is a pretty obscene reward for their leadership in creating the largest bankruptcy in world history.

(Hat tip: Americablog)

I suspect the McCain campaign wishes it had not written this article for the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Paul Krugman quotes an embarrassing part, as deregulator-in-chief McCain waxes poetic about the awesomeness of deregulating health care markets

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

There is nothing like a Republican officeholder singing the praises of less regulation. Too bad the next paragraph does not include an inevitable prediction of the massive taxpayer -funded bailout that we see radical deregulation usually requires.

So, yes, if you want your health care to work more like the banking system that needs at least a $700 billion bailout, please vote for John McCain.

Twenty-five days ago, John McCain asked Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential nominee. To serve one heartbeat away from the presidency.

For those 25 days, Palin has refused to hold a press conference.

That's not transparency and accountability we can believe in, my friends.

The Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz thinks this is a panic and an attempt by our government to manipulate the markets. The ramifications, he writes, will go "far far beyond our imaginations."

And he notes that this government intervention, or market manipulation for higher stock prices, is coming 50 days before the election. Is anyone in power overseeing these efforts to ensure this bailout is about the economy, and not doing everything possible to help John McCain?

The Hill reports that Sarah Palin's staff refuses to say whether the vice president is in the executive or legislative branch.

We really don't need another four years of Dick Cheney's extra-Constitutional b.s. If Sarah Palin cannot tell us in which branch of government she would be serving if elected, she and her boss, John McCain, need to be kept away from the executive branch.

Glenn Greenwald makes note of some conservative hypocrisy revealing itself in the reaction to the despicable and criminal hacking into Gov. Sarah Palin's private e-mail account.

The same political faction which today is prancing around in full-throated fits of melodramatic hysteria and Victim mode (their absolute favorite state of being) over the sanctity of Sarah Palin's privacy are the same ones who scoffed with indifference as it was revealed during the Bush era that the FBI systematically abused its Patriot Act powers to gather and store private information on thousands of innocent Americans; that Homeland Security officials illegally infiltrated and monitored peaceful, law-abiding left-wing groups devoted to peace activism, civil liberties and other political agendas disliked by the state; and that the telephone calls of journalists and lawyers have been illegally and repeatedly monitored.

And the same Surveillance State Worshipper leading today's screeching -- Michelle Malkin -- spent the last several years deriding those who objected to the President's illegal spying program as "privacy crusaders" and "constitutional absolutists" and "civil liberties absolutists".

Shouldn't these same people be standing up today and insisting that if Sarah Palin has done nothing wrong, then she should have nothing to hide? If Sarah Palin isn't committing crimes or consorting with The Terrorists, then why would she care if we can monitor her emails? And if private companies such as Yahoo can access her emails -- as they can -- then she doesn't really have any "privacy" anyway, so what's the big deal if others read through her communications, too? Isn't that the authoritarian idiocy that has been spewed since The Day That 9/11 Changed Everything -- beginning with the Constitution -- to justify vesting secret and unchecked surveillance powers in our Great and Good Leaders?

No one should have hacked into Sarah Palin's e-mail. Too bad radical conservatives cannot see the same point when it comes to the government monitoring Americans without a warrant.

Hopefully someone will step up to defend the Constitution soon.

Steve Benen reminds us that this Spanish Prime Minister snub is not the first foreign policy related gaffe from John McCain. In fact, McCain has recorded quite a list.

Really, there can be no excuse for this. As Josh Marshall headlined his latest of several posts, this John McCain gaffe really is embarrassing.

McCain is selling himself to us as the foreign policy expert. The only one we can trust. But he just set off a minor international incident by (mistakenly, I think -- and I hope) declaring that he would not meet with the Spanish Prime Minister. As Marshall explains:

In case, you haven't seen our updates from last night, yesterday John McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. And in the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American leftist leader from South America.

Reading all of the related posts on this gaffe is worth your time. This is a perfect example of why bluster and threats are no excuse for actual foreign policy knowledge and the ability to handle thoughful diplomacy.

Are you ready to take this risk?

Update: Via Matthew Yglesias, we learn that the McCain campaign has released a statement saying that McCain was not making a mistake: that he will have a policy of not meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister. As Yglesias notes:

That’s an insane policy. Recall that under the North Atlantic Treaty, the United States is actually obligated to go to war on behalf of Spanish territorial integrity and vice versa. Also — McCain might want to hire someone who can clarify for his campaign that the head of state in Spain is the “king” and the head of government is the “prime minister.”

McCain is committing himself to the same idiotic foreign policy choice that George W. Bush has made -- refusing to meet with a center-left politician who fulfilled his campaign promise to pull his nation's troops out of Iraq.

In addition to being yet another example of how McCain would fulfill Bush's third term, this is precisely the type of bluster and rhetoric our nation desperately needs to reject.

Mockery can be a potent political force.

Just how large is that $85 billion loan being extended to AIG by the Federal Reserve? Stan Collender explains:

It's larger than the projected 2008 budgets of all but five federal agencies.

It's more than the 2008 budgets of the Departments of Energy and Education COMBINED.

It's twice what the Department of Homeland Security will spend this year.

Gee...who would have thought that Carly Fiorina would make such a poor campaign surrogate for the McCain campaign.

Yesterday we saw a renewed glimpse of the CEO who was fired by the HP board -- and like most people who are fired, got $21 million to go away. (Not.)

Is it wrong to remember that on the news of her firing HP stock rose 6.5 percent?

"The stock is up a bit on the fact that nobody liked Carly's leadership all that much," said Robert Cihra, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners. "The Street had lost all faith in her and the market's hope is that anyone will be better."

Maybe she's not quite the corporate guru the McCain campaign claims. Too bad she's going to be off the teevee for a while.

(It's probably sexist of me to point this stuff out. Alas.)

The Federal Reserve now owns 79.9 percent of AIG.

Remember this the next time some radical conservative politician begins a tiresome ode to the wonders and perfection of the free market.

No, really. It's true. I'm not linking to The Onion here.

As Jason Linkins writes:

Honestly? We're to take seriously a critique of elitism from a woman whose marriage was yentaed by Henry Kissinger at the Bilderberg conference?

Yep.

Those individuals who have had the misfortune of having me edit their copy will cringe at how much I (they?) can relate to this paragraph, written by Brian Doyle in the Spring 2008 Kenyon Review:

And dickering with photographers, battling in general on behalf of the serial comma, making a stand on behalf of saddle-stitching against the evil tide of perfect-bound publications, halving the number of witticisms in any piece of prose, reading galleys backwards to catch any stupid line breaks or egregious typos, battling on behalf of the semicolon, throwing away all business cards that say PROFESSIONAL WRITER, trying to read over-the-transom submissions within a week of their arrival, deleting the word unique on general principle and sending anonymous hate mail to anyone who writes the words fairly unique, snarling at writers who write We must or We should or, God help us all, the word shan’t, searching with mounting desperation for a scrap or shard or snippet of humor in this bruised and blessed world, reminding male writers that it’s OK to acknowledge that there are other people on the planet, halving the number of times any writer says me or I, checking page numbers maniacally, throwing away cover letters, checking the budget twice a day, and trying to read not most but all of your direct competitors, on the off-chance that there might be something delicious to steal.

And then away to lunch.

Thanks to Ezra Klein and Andrew Sullivan for insisting people go read this essay.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) puts the current political situation in the proper context. Really, do we want four more years of these policies?

WHITEHOUSE: Gentlemen, we’re in the middle of a near total mortgage system meltdown in this country. We have a health care system that burns 16 percent of our GDP, in which the Medicare liability alone has been estimated at $34 trillion. We’re burning $10 billion a month in Iraq.

This administration has run up $7.7 trillion in national debt, by our calculation. And there is worsening evidence every day of global warming, with worsening environmental and national security and economic ramifications. In light of those conditions, do any of you seriously contend that drilling for more oil is the number one issue facing the American people today?

(Long silent pause during which nobody answers.)

WHITEHOUSE: No, it doesn’t seem so.

(Hat tip: dday at Hullabaloo)

Josh Marshall makes a great point:

The man most responsible for the financial services and banking deregulation that made today possible, fmr. Sen. Phil Gramm, is the man John McCain wants to put in charge of the whole economy.

This fact is probably one of the reasons why McCain continues to argue that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

More like this, please.

Not only was Carly Fiorina a job-killer while CEO of HP, now she is a liar on the campaign trail.

Perhaps Fiorina should review this Jake Tapper post about the earmarks Sarah Palin requested before she declares on national television that Palin never requested an earmark as governor.

The New York Times' Gail Collins does an excellent job of explaining why pay equity for women is an issue in this campaign.

An illogical pro-corporate decision written by a radical conservative placed on the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush has reinvigorated the debate -- and given us another example of a Bush Administration belief John McCain wants to continue if elected president.

Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., for almost 20 years — the only woman who ever managed to stick it out in what was not exactly a female-friendly environment. When she was near retirement, she got an anonymous letter listing the salaries of the men who held the same job. While she was making $3,727 a month, the lowest paid man, with far less seniority, was getting $4,286.

“I was just emotionally let down when I saw the difference,” she said on Friday.

The company declined Ledbetter’s offer to settle for the difference between her earnings and that lowest-paid man’s — about $60,000. A jury awarded her $223,776 in back pay and more than $3 million in punitive damages.

Goodyear appealed, and the case arrived at the Supreme Court just as President Bush’s new appointees were settling in. The court ruled 5-to-4 against Ledbetter, saying that she should have filed her suit within 180 days of receiving her first paycheck in which Goodyear discriminated against her.

The fact that workers generally have no idea what other people are making when they start a job did not concern the court nearly as much as what Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, called “the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions that are long past.” In other words, pay discrimination is illegal unless it goes on for more than six months.

Ledbetter did not even get her back pay. And Goodyear billed her $3,165 for court-related costs.

The bill being voted on this week would have made it clear that every time a woman like Ledbetter got a check that was lower than those of the men doing the same job, it triggered a new 180-day deadline. That was the status quo before Alito and John Roberts arrived on the scene. But the sponsors needed 60 votes, and they only got 56. “I would never have believed this in the United States of America,” said Ledbetter, 70, who watched from the Senate gallery.

John McCain does not support this change. McCain thinks people need to be psychics in order to defend their rights. McCain thinks that women just need more education and training to resolve this problem.

And that's another reason to work against his election to the presidency.

Rick Perlstein wants concerned people on the internet to highlight an outrageous quote from then Rep. Dick Cheney -- a quote that could have served as a warning to us had we remembered it.

In the Minority Report about the Iran-Contra hearings, Rep. Cheney asserted:

To the extent that the Constitution and laws are read narrowly, as Jefferson wished, the Chief Executive will on occasion feel duty bound to assert monarchical notions of prerogative that will permit him to exceed the law.

Yes, to read the Constitution narrowly is to reject it. Suddenly, we are not a nation of laws. We are not a nation of checks and balances. The president, according to Cheney, can ignore our Constitution.

I hope the nation can recover from the past eight years of Vice President Cheney's outrageous reading of what the Founding Generation intended.

I've been trying to catch up on TED talks on my ipod. This one by Michael Shermer on "Why People Believe Strange Things" caught my attention.

No wonder Sarah Palin was picked for vice president: she seems to have the same penchant for abuse of executive power and personal vandettas that Dick Cheney and other radical conservatives have mastered during the Bush Administration.

Steve Benen summarizes the New York Times story, the latest which highlights Palin's governance:

Palin's political style is more than a little frightening. She attacks critics, pursues petty vendettas, ignores mayors and state lawmakers, blurs the line between government business and personal grievances, demands strict secrecy in all matters, refuses to engage in policy matters in any real depth, tries to fire state employees who dare to challenge her demands, and insists on surrounding herself with childhood friends and church members, appointing unqualified allies to key government posts. (The Times noted, "The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government.")

A conservative radio personality and longtime friend of Palin explained that the governor considers her detractors "bad people who are anti-Alaska."

Yes, cronyism and vendetta are radical conservative values. But they are not American values. And we should work diligently to make sure people such as this do not get to abuse power on a federal scale.

Josh Marshall notes that after dropping the story while in Alaska, Sarah Palin has resumed using the "Bridge to Nowhere" story in her stump speeches.

Marshall also makes note of the first two lines of the Honor Concept at John McCain's alma mater, the United States Naval Academy:

Midshipmen are persons of integrity: They stand for that which is right.

They tell the truth and ensure that the full truth is known. They do not lie.

I guess that isn't a life-long lesson. How mavericky.

I doubt Tapper's request will receive a positive response.

James Fallows is right to be worried:

It is embarrassing to have to spell this out, but for the record let me explain why Gov. Palin's answer to the "Bush Doctrine" question -- the only part of the recent interview I have yet seen over here in China -- implies a disqualifying lack of preparation for the job.

Not the mundane job of vice president, of course, which many people could handle. Rather the job of potential Commander in Chief and most powerful individual on earth.

Fallows' whole post is well worth your time to read.

Robert Greenwald and the BraveNewFilms PAC takes apart John McCain's recent commercials and exposes the lies at the foundation of so many of them.

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein finds a clip from a Republican primary debate where John McCain ridicules Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney for "needing on-the-job training" as president since they were only the Mayor (of a city of 8.2 million) and Governor (of a state of 6.4 million).

His position has, um, changed in the past couple of weeks. Watch for yourself.

Rachel Maddow made a good point about this clip on her radio show Friday: why is Sam Stein at the Huffington Post finding this and not the Obama campaign?

Those radical conservatives stay classy. I'm sorry, but no matter what kind of marketing may be behind it, racism is not a moral value.

(H/T: Dave Winer's tweet for the Huffington Post. As Dave so correctly noted: Can you imagine the shit-fit this would cause if it had been about Palin and not Obama. )

Update: Winer posts a jpg of the site here.

Yep -- even the Associated Press is noting that there has not been much straight talk from the McCain-Palin campaign this past week. Charles Babington writes:

Even in a political culture accustomed to truth-stretching, McCain's skirting of facts has stood out this week. It has infuriated and flustered Obama's campaign, and campaign pros are watching to see how much voters disregard news reports noting factual holes in the claims.

McCain's persistence in pushing dubious claims is all the more notable because many political insiders consider him one of the greatest living victims of underhanded campaigning. Locked in a tight race with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, McCain was rocked in South Carolina by a whisper campaign claiming he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was mentally unstable.

Shaken by the experience, McCain denounced less-than-truthful campaigning. Vowing to live up to his "straight talk" motto, he apologized for his reluctance to criticize the flying of the Confederate flag at South Carolina's state Capitol in a bid for votes. When the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked the military record of Democrat and fellow Navy officer John Kerry in 2004, McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable."

Now, top aides to McCain include Steve Schmidt, who has close ties to Karl Rove, Bush's premier political adviser in 2000.

This is among the largest flip-flops in our recent political experience. John McCain has sold his straight-talk honor for Rovian tactics as part of an everything-goes attempt to gain the White House.

And the man has the gall to say he puts "Country First."

Given how many problems she had last night with the facts, I doubt I'll be resetting my Sarah Palin Press Conference counter any time soon.

She didn't know the Bush Doctrine. She lied about her position on the climate crisis. She claims foreign policy expertise because an uninhabited island on the far western edge of her state is close to Russia. She blithely declared that Georgia is worth risking a war with Russia (which, I would add, still has thousands of nuclear weapons).

Yep -- I don't think she'll be giving a press conference any time soon.

It's been 16 days since John McCain asked her to join his ticket as the vice presidential nominee. Yet the McCain-Palin ticket thinks it is okay not to have the person who could be one heartbeat away from the presidency away from a press conference.

In a sane world, voters would reject such a candidate -- and the cynical presidential nominee who put campaign strategy first, despite his campaign slogan.

Dear Gov. Palin: in a world of audio and videotape, you probably should not flatly deny something you've done in the past.

ABC's Jake Tapper fact checks the radical conservative vice presidential nominee after she challenges Charlie Gibson to show her where she has denied humanity's role in the climate crisis.

This is the Republican Party's idea of a feminist. George Bryson of the Anchorage Daily News reports:

Eight years ago, complaints about charging rape victims for medical exams in Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill -- signed into law by Knowles -- that banned the practice statewide.

"There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla," Knowles said

A May 23, 2000, article in Wasilla's newspaper, The Frontiersman, noted that Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies regularly pay for such exams, which cost between $300 and $1,200 apiece.

"(But) the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests," the newspaper reported.

It also quoted Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon objecting to the law. Fannon was appointed to his position by Palin after her dismissal of the previous police chief. He said it would cost Wasilla $5,000 to $14,000 a year if the city had to foot the bill for rape exams.

"In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victims' insurance company when possible," Fannon told the newspaper. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer."

That's right: under then Mayor Palin, Wasilla charged rape victims for a key part of the police investigation.

That's not compassionate conservatism we can believe in, my friends.

Really, do you really want such a hard-right radical conservative one heartbeat away from the presidency?

Well, we now know that reality is not going to be a key part of Gov. Sarah Palin's foreign policy.

Yesterday she had the audacity to link the September 11 terrorist attacks to Iraq. As the Washington Post's Anne E. Kornblut writes:

Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

Yes. SINCE THE U.S.-LED INVASION. Not on September 11, 2001. Not before. Not while Saddam Hussein was in power.

In a sane world, voters would reject any ticket that would continue to push such talking points.

Matthew Yglesias makes an outstanding observation:

It seems to me that if the practitioners of campaign journalism can’t figure out a way to make it so that lying is punished, rather than amplified and rewarded, by the press then they ought to pack up their bags and go do something else.

Think Progress catches Press Secretary Dana Perino using interesting spin to justify the past 2,551 days of failure to make good on President George W. Bush's promise to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

James Fallows makes an apt comparison between Gov. Sarah Palin's continued false statements about her support for the "Bridge to Nowhere" and the problems Sen. Hillary Clinton had when she was forced to backtrack this spring on her "hail of bullets" recollection about a visit to Bosnia. Fallows asks:

1) At any point will the right-wing press join the effort to hold Palin accountable for her false claim, as all of the press held Clinton responsible?

2) If Palin keeps making the claim, will press critics redouble their debunking, as they did with Clinton, or taper off for fear of seeming biased or boring?

3) At any point will Palin herself -- or, far more significant, McCain -- acknowledge that there are such things as fact and fantasy, and stop making a demonstrably false claim?

I would not bet a bunch on getting a "yes" answer to any of these questions.

Over at the Big Picture, we see some troubling analysis about the economy over the past year -- an analysis that should give us all pause, and make us wonder what may be coming over the next few months:

But the real concern is that each crisis has been followed by a bigger crisis

Josh Marshall is correct:

It's easy to get twisted up in your head about strategy and message and optics. But what is already apparent is that John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let's stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it. It is undignified. What can we do? We've got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They've both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country.

Why won't John McCain share his secret plan to capture Osama bin Laden with President Bush?

If "Country First" were more than a slogan, shouldn't McCain be helping capture Osama bin Laden now -- instead of leaving it undone for another four months? Isn't 2,550 days enough, Senator McCain?

It's been 2,550 days since President George W. Bush promised to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

Later, of course, President Bush later told us that he just didn't spend too much time on Osama.

That last statement, alas, has proven all too true. In a rational world, the president long ago would have been held to account for this failure.

Okay, that seems unlikely. But, as Matthew Yglesias notes, the New York Times report that President Bush has decided to allow raids into Pakistan makes one wonder if McCain will condemn this strategy now, as he did when Barack Obama advocated for it earlier.

Altercation's George Zornick makes note of reports in Bob Woodward's new book that call into grave question the idea that President George W. Bush only listens to the commanders on the ground when it comes to military decisions.

"On another occasion, in late 2005, [General George Casey] butted heads with Rice after her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which she offered a succinct description of the U.S. military strategy in Iraq -- "clear, hold and build: to clear areas from insurgent control, to hold them securely and then build durable Iraqi institutions."

"What the hell is that?" Casey asked his boss at U.S. Central Command, Gen. John P. Abizaid.

"I don't know," Abizaid said.

"Did you agree to that?"

"No, I didn't agree to that."

When Rice next came to Iraq, Casey asked for a private meeting with her and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

"Excuse me, ma'am, what's 'clear, hold, build'?"

Rice looked a little surprised. "George, that's your strategy."

"Ma'am, if it's my strategy, don't you think someone should have had the courtesy to talk to me about it before you went public with it?"

I doubt we'll see much follow up on this important story, alas.

Eric Alterman tracks the spreading of a distortion: starting with Matt Drudge and spreading like a virus through the media before anyone decides to fact-check.

And so it was -- questions of Oprah's "bias" were the political talk of the weekend. Of course she's biased -- she endorsed Obama. But she's not the host of the CBS Evening News, and she made it clear months ago that her show wouldn't have any candidates, which naturally would include Palin. There is not one iota new about this story, other than Drudge's completely unfounded "alert." Meanwhile, none of the above-mentioned outlets, nor the many others who wrote Oprah stories, spent that time asking if Palin would be giving any real, non-Oprah interviews.

It shouldn't be this easy for Drudge, but it still is.

Is this reform you can believe in, my friends? The Washington Post's James V. Grimaldi and Karl Vick report:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

Even if it is legal, this sure does not live up to the image the McCain-Palin campaign has created for Gov. Palin on the campaign trail.

Talking Points Memo debunks the lies put out there by the McCain-Palin campaign that Gov. Sarah Palin opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" or is some sort of earmark fighter.

Unfairly, TPM uses video. Of Palin. In her own words.

Perhaps it is for reasons like this that Palin has refused to hold a press conference since John McCain asked her to be his vice presidential nominee.

The Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby actually looks at John McCain's record and comes back mightily unimpressed:

McCain used to be a real straight talker. On campaign finance, spending earmarks, Iraq and immigration, he has fought bravely for his principles; and that record might have been a trump against an opponent who has taken almost no such risks. But we are now witnessing what might be called McCain's Palinization. McCain once criticized Christian conservatives as agents of intolerance, but he has caved in to their intolerance of a pro-choice running mate. McCain claims to be devoted to his country, yet he would saddle it with a vice president who is unprepared to serve as commander in chief. In the same sad way, McCain has caved in to his party's anti-tax fanatics. The man of principle has become a panderer. The straight talker flip-flops.

But he's a maverick. A MAVERICK! Don't you understand...

So much for that vaunted straight talk.

John McCain has produced an ad which claims that Gov. Sarah Palin stopped the bridge to nowhere. This is, of course, a lie. A well documented one. Yet the McCain campaign continues to push it out there.

We'll see just how had Charlie Gibson pushes these questions when he has a chance to interview the Palin later this week. My guess is: not so much.

Also, the only thing about which John McCain remains a maverick these days is telling the truth. Country first, indeed.

Climate Progress links to a report about the ice melt in the Arctic in August -- a huge loss. As Joseph Romm concludes:

It’s now pretty clear that the Arctic will be ice free within a decade or so — more than half a century earlier than most climate models predicted. The time to act is yesterday.

Which is why it is so great that Senator John McCain has picked a climate crisis denier for vice president.

Over at Mother Jones, David Corn has a question about the results of a open records request filed in June to receive copies of emails sent by Governor Palin:

The Palin administration won't release hundreds of emails from her office, claiming they cover confidential policy matters. Then why do the subject lines refer to a political foe, a journalist, and non-policy topics?

So, Gov. Sarah Palin has agreed to let ABC's Charlie Gibson interview her at the end of the week.

You'll pardon me for being more than a little unimpressed. Since Charlie Gibson made his politics clear by badgering the Democratic candidates in a debate about their stance on cutting the capital gains tax, I am sure Gov. Palin will not be forced to answer many tough questions. As Josh Marshall astutely notes:

Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won't happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it's pretty clear that that is what this will be.

Indeed.

Yes, it is good that Gov. Palin is sitting down with someone. But, I won't reset the clock to the right until she agrees to a press conference. Fluff interviews with Charlie Gibson should not be the final answer.

Sometimes he really does boil down an issue into a very simple choice. As Digby quotes him:

Carville said on CNN today that the pitch is simple: "If you think that what America needs is another tax cut for people making over half a million dollars a year, then vote for McCain. If you think middle-class people are struggling, that their incomes are going down and they need help, vote for Obama. It's a very simple choice out there, I think."

Yep, that works. And don't whine about class warfare -- the nation has been embroiled in a class war for the past 30 years. The top one percent have won.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's request to dissolve the Canadian parliament was accepted today, setting up the third national election Canada has held the past four years.

(How very California-esque of our neighbors to the north.)

Harper has been governing in a minority government, and polls suggest that he may be able to strengthen his position. It appears that Harper is going to make the Liberal Party's proposed carbon tax a major feature of the campaign.

It's a busy fall, but it is important to keep an eye on what Canada is doing. (And I say that not just because I lived less than two miles from the Canadian border in high school.)

Barry Ritholtz has 10 points for us to consider about today's federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I have to admit that I share Steve Clemons' pessimism about what this deal says about our economy:

My own view is that when the U.S. government -- in a time when a not-centrist-at-all Republican occupies the Oval Office -- seizes and nationalizes a publicly held firm, then we all had better tighten our belts.

This is not a sign of economic stabilization. It's a whopper foreshock of more serious problems ahead.

I hope Clemons is wrong. But I doubt this would be happening if the economy was as sound as some are claiming.

Dean Baker offers this outstanding argument against the radical conservative talking point that corporate taxes represent double taxation.

The trick in this argument is that it ignores the enormous benefits that the government is granting by allowing a corporation to exist as a free standing legal entity. The most important of these advantages is limited liability. If a corporation produces dangerous products or emits dangerous substances that result in thousands of deaths, shareholders in the corporation cannot be held personally responsible for the damage. The corporation can go bankrupt, but beyond that point, all the shareholders are off the hook, the victims of the damage are just out of luck.

By granting corporate status, the government has allowed investors to shift risk to society as a whole. In exchange for this and other privileges of corporate status, the corporation must pay income tax on its earnings. We know that investors consider the benefits of corporate status to be worth the price in the form of the corporate income tax, because they voluntarily choose to form corporations. If investors did not consider the benefits of corporate status to outweigh the cost of the income tax, then they are free to form partnerships which are not subject to corporate income tax. In this way, the corporate income tax is a completely voluntary tax. Anyone can avoid the tax by investing in a partnership, or alternatively, any corporation can be restructured as a partnership.

Hopefully people will realize this and stop hoping our government gives the most affluent another handout.

Perhaps the reason Gov. Palin refuses to participate in a press conference is that she would be forced to explain why she insists on lying to the American people in her speeches.

Given McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' decision to take an un-American stance by stating that Gov. Sarah Palin requires "deference" before submitting to a media interview, I've decided to add a Palin Interview Clock to the "Osama Clock" and "Mission Accomplished" clock in the right column of this web site.

Our political leaders do not get "deference." In case Davis has forgotten, we declared over 232 years ago that our nation would not play that game.

Sen. McCain asked Gov. Palin to be his vice presidential choice on August 27. So, the count is now 11 days.

Eleven days since a person who wants to be one heartbeat away from the presidency has had an unscripted moment with the media. That's not leadership I can believe in, my friends.

The McCain campaign apparently thinks our Constitutional Republic is actually some sort of monarchy. ABC's Jake Tapper has the story:

Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

Deference?!?

Perhaps former Vice President Al Gore can talk about the "deference" he received from the media.

This from a campaign that openly admitted that the media was its base.

I wonder if reporters will stop thinking about their fun BBQ visits and the donuts with sprinkles on the bus and start holding John McCain to account. This is an outrageous position for a campaign to take--and John McCain should not be awarded for it.

Via Democracy Arsenal, we see a troubling analysis on the current situation in Iraq by General David Petraeus:

Petraeus cited several areas of ongoing concern, including the postponement of provincial elections initially scheduled for this month, the disputed status of the northern city of Kirkuk, lingering ethno-sectarian conflicts, and questions surrounding the future of a local security force known as the Sons of Iraq. Petraeus cited several areas of ongoing concern, including the postponement of provincial elections initially scheduled for this month, the disputed status of the northern city of Kirkuk, lingering ethno-sectarian conflicts, and questions surrounding the future of a local security force known as the Sons of Iraq.

Why is this significant? As Ilan Goldenberg explains:

In other words there has been no political reconciliation and as a result the security gains have not been consolidated and the situation remains tenuous.

This is winning?

The Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz makes an important point about the impending federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

That's right -- we have no money for rebuilding our infrastructure, for any form of National Heath Care, for fixing/saving social security, but a bunch of rogue traders and Alan Greenspan, under the guise of "Deregulation" can leverage up and lose trillions, which you the taxpayer is on the hook for!

Please remember this the next time some radical conservative sings the virtues of the "free market." This is another example of the privatization of profits and the socialization of risk.

And don't worry -- these same people will make sure the government is not there to help you in bad economic conditions.

It's the free market!

The Capitol Alert's Shane Goldmacher provides evidence of Governor Schwarzenegger's confusion -- or at least his continued insistence of appearing to "govern" by talking point:

At a press conference Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continued to criticize lawmakers for the overdue budget. A reporter asked "what sacrifices is your office making financially?"

Schwarzenegger: "Well, financially we have cut back. But I think that the most important thing is that we are staying in town. Our office stays in town, I am staying in town. I said I will not leave town and I will not leave this state until there is a budget. For instance, I did not go to the Republican Convention."

Did we mention he was in Burbank?

I hate it when the State Capitol moves without notice. Is it too much to ask that someone send out a press release?

Given Palin's denial that human activity is contributing to the climate crisis, is John McCain's decision to elevate her to the vice presidency immoral? Climate Progress makes the argument.

Governor Schwarzenegger really knows how to motivate people. As today's Daily Roundup explains, speaking of Schwarzenegger:

"He urged California voters to start pressuring lawmakers and use the November election as a referendum on their disappointing performance.

"'You can have the power,' the governor said. 'I alone can't do the lifting.'"

So, let's get this straight. It seems like this stalemate is turning into a push for the redistricting initiative, which will help Republicans pick up seats -- even though the governor seems to be blaming them for the budget standoff? It sort of reminds us of that old P.J. O'Rourke quote: Democrats are the ones who say government can work. Republicans are the ones who say it can't work, and keep getting elected and proving it.

The Atlantic's James Fallows has an excellent analysis of Gov. Sarah Palin's VP acceptance speech:

I've learned through the years that it's very hard to judge political turning points in real time. But my guess is that the last twelve hours will be seen as the moment when McCain pushed all his chips into the pot to bet on a "mobilize the base" strategy. Given the fundamental math in this election year, that would also be the moment when it became very hard for him to win.

It could work. But, I agree that the fundamentals of this election year do not appear to support a McCain strategy which would alienate independents and conservative Democrats.

Oh...oh. If these reactions by Politico's Roger Simon and Time's Joe Klein are any indication, the McCain campaign may be overreaching in its attacks on his former base, the press.

As Klein writes:

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

Yes, they are. But such tactics have been all too effective in the past.

Look at what the Washington Independent found here. Sometimes those notes in the margins can be quite revealing.

Despite what Governor Huckabee said tonight, Senator Biden received many more votes in the presidential contest this year than Gov. Palin did when she won her race for Mayor.

In fact, Sen. Biden received nearly as many votes just in my home of Contra Costa County -- even after he had dropped out of the race (check out this pdf statement of the vote).

Facts are not very important, I suppose.

Oops...Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy got caught saying what they really think of Gov. Palin on a hot-mike.

Talking Points Memo has the details and the video. It's worth a watch.

One wonders why MSNBC and other media outlets don't hold their "analysts" accountable to say what they are actually thinking, rather than spouting talking points.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder has a good round-up of what we know about Governor Palin, what we don't know, and what political types are assuming.

And, yes, I expect her speech to go over well tonight.

During her introduction of the president last night, First Lady Laura Bush said:

And let's not forget President Bush has kept the American people safe.

Does she not realize that President Bush was the, um, president during the September 11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax attacks which followed?

That's keeping us safe?

Because Tucker Bounds cannot handle Campbell Brown's marginally tough questions, John McCain cancels interview with hard-nosed interrogator (hah!) Larry King.

As Josh Marshall asks:

If he can't stand up to Larry King, how can he stand up to ... well, anybody?

I wonder if the esteemed members of the media will now begin to understand those barbecues and sprinkled-donuts on the bus were not signs that John McCain actually likes them.

Now they tell us. Gov. Sarah Palin's team really is quite amazing.

It's been 1,950 days since President George W. Bush stood under a Mission Accomplished banner and declared that "In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

Heck of a job, Mr. President.