October 2008 Archives

Bill Press has completed his list. You can read it here.

It appears the Bush Administration is keeping is faith in deregulation despite the economic collapse its deregulation pushes in the financial markets created. As the Washington Post's R. Jeffrey Smith reports:

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.

"They want these rules to continue to have an impact long after they leave office," said Matthew Madia, a regulatory expert at OMB Watch, a nonprofit group critical of what it calls the Bush administration's penchant for deregulating in areas where industry wants more freedom. He called the coming deluge "a last-minute assault on the public . . . happening on multiple fronts."

Presidents matter. Even when only about a quarter of the American people still approve of their extremist actions.

John McCain, and everyone associated with his campaign, should never be forgiven for the slurs against Rashid Khalidi. As Josh Marshall writes:

For McCain, personally, to compare Khalidi to a neo-nazi, it's just an offense McCain should never be forgiven for. It's right down in the gutter with Joe McCarthy and the worst of the worst. Khalidi is in this new McCain set piece for one reason -- as a generic Arab, to spur the idea that Obama is foreign, friendly with terrorists and possibly Muslim.

How is it honorable, Senator McCain, to bring alive this evil strain of political warfare? Since when are people of Arab descent automatically un-American? Since when are Arabs and Muslims not invited to be a full and welcome part of the American community?

As the Washington Note's Steve Clemons writes, one of the reasons to hope Barack Obama wins is that our government will hopefully stop feeding this dangerous phobia against Arab-Americans.

Yesterday, Justin Vogt of The New Yorker wrote a piece titled "Imagined Community" for the new Abu-Dhabi based The National. His article is one of the most serious and comprehensive discussions of the state of Arab-Americans in American politics I have read. I had a few quotes in the piece including the comment that "Both Muslims and Arab-Americans have been ill-treated in this political environment."

But the reason to read it is that we do need the 'likely' Obama administration to immediately suspend its generalized phobia of most things Muslim and Arab. McCain and Palin have been trying to slander Obama for relationships with "questionable" Arabs and have through a variety of means allowing a whisper campaign that he may be "Muslim."

I agree with Colin Powell. Why should it matter?! Muslims and Arab Americans are no less American than anyone else reading this blog -- or reading RedState.org or listening to Fox and Friends in the morning.

Indeed. This is unfair and evil. And it harms our nation to have this fear-mongering polluting our political discussions. John McCain must never, never be forgiven for indulging in it. No matter how many donuts he purchases to try to win back his media friends.

Siegfried Woldhek looks at the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, and uses image analysis to see if a self-portrait could be hidden within his works. This is a short talk from the TED 2008 conference, but I found it fascinating.

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg explains why Gov. Sarah Palin may want to look into a mirror:

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

No, she has no shame. None whatsoever.

Oliver Willis asks a question:

When Sen. McCain led in the polls after the RNC convention, were conservatives as skeptical of the polling as they are now?

No, we don't see this in ice hockey every day.

Minnesota State's Zach Harrison scored three straight shorthanded goals in a 5-1 victory over North Dakota earlier this month. Here's the video. It isn't the first time this has happened in hockey history, but this is really rare--and it has not happened in the National Hockey League.

(Hat tip: Two Line Pass)

As Josh Marshall argues:

It is time for the McCain campaign to come clean about what role any of its staffers may have had in hyping or pushing the press to hype the charges stemming from Ashley Todd's vicious and reprehensible hoax.

The national McCain campaign has made this worse by lying about the Pennsylvania staff's involvement in highlighting the incident to reporters. Now is the time for the truth.

Gov. Sarah Palin is worried that our fundamental American freedoms are at risk in a socialist state. Harpers' Scott Horton wonders why Palin hasn't been paying attention to the fundamental freedoms the Bush-Cheney regime have already damaged.

Does Sarah mean a state:

* That snatches its victims off the street, denies them all form of legal process and whisks them away to secret “blacksites” where they can be tortured using all the techniques described in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon?
* That arrests and prosecutes its political adversaries for imaginary crimes so as to eliminate them from the running in election cycles in which they could do some damage?
* That destroys the careers of professional military men because they got promotions under a prior regime and therefore considers them disloyal?
* That believes it can detain and hold its enemies forever without any charges or any evidence against them, denying them access to courts to prove their innocence?
* That constantly manipulates the population’s fear whenever its public popularity slips and elections begin to approach?
* That believes that it can make no errors, and that those who point to its errors are traitors?
* That systematically spies on millions of its citizens in direct violation of a criminal statute which forbids such surveillance?
* That signs new laws with its fingers crossed in the form of signing statements, so that no one knows whether the laws—or any part of them—will actually be enforced?
* That lies to its people about threats from abroad in an effort to build popular support for a series of wars and then cites the existence of those wars as a reason to suppress dissent?
* That nationalizes the debt of predatory capitalists so they suffer no punishment for their misconduct and then nationalizes major financial institutions, converting the nation’s free market system into a socialism in which crony capitalists are a privileged elite?

Instead of looking to the future, Gov. Palin should be checking her political rear view mirror.

Andrew Sullivan has compiled an impressive list of 10 reasons.

The Republican Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, deserves great credit for his decision to extend early voting hours in his state.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Himself) apparently thinks we are stupid or have not been paying attention.

No, Senator Lieberman, we are not going to make up after the election. Enjoy your well deserved time in the wilderness.

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg has written a must-read article about the state of American airline security. Again, it's not good. As the article summary explains:

Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease.

As security expert Bruce Schnei­er explains, it's really two measures since 9/11 that have made flying more safe. Schneier joined Goldberg on a test of the airport security checkpoint system.

Schnei­er and I walked to the security checkpoint. “Counter­terrorism in the airport is a show designed to make people feel better,” he said. “Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.” This assumes, of course, that al-Qaeda will target airplanes for hijacking, or target aviation at all. “We defend against what the terrorists did last week,” Schnei­er said. He believes that the country would be just as safe as it is today if airport security were rolled back to pre-9/11 levels. “Spend the rest of your money on intelligence, investigations, and emergency response.”

Schnei­er and I joined the line with our ersatz boarding passes. “Technically we could get arrested for this,” he said, but we judged the risk to be acceptable. We handed our boarding passes and IDs to the security officer, who inspected our driver’s licenses through a loupe, one of those magnifying-glass devices jewelers use for minute examinations of fine detail. This was the moment of maximum peril, not because the boarding passes were flawed, but because the TSA now trains its officers in the science of behavior detection. The SPOT program—“Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques”—was based in part on the work of a psychologist who believes that involuntary facial-muscle movements, including the most fleeting “micro-expressions,” can betray lying or criminality. The training program for behavior-detection officers is one week long. Our facial muscles did not cooperate with the SPOT program, apparently, because the officer chicken-scratched onto our boarding passes what might have been his signature, or the number 4, or the letter y. We took our shoes off and placed our laptops in bins. Schnei­er took from his bag a 12-ounce container labeled “saline solution.”

“It’s allowed,” he said. Medical supplies, such as saline solution for contact-lens cleaning, don’t fall under the TSA’s three-ounce rule.

“What’s allowed?” I asked. “Saline solution, or bottles labeled saline solution?”

“Bottles labeled saline solution. They won’t check what’s in it, trust me.”

They did not check. As we gathered our belongings, Schnei­er held up the bottle and said to the nearest security officer, “This is okay, right?” “Yep,” the officer said. “Just have to put it in the tray.”

Osama bin Laden shirt? Check. "Beerbelly" device filled with 24 ounces of liquid? Check. Hezbollah flag? No problem. Fake boarding passes anyone with Acrobat Professional could make? Pass right through.

But please remove your shoes and belt. That will be safer.

Biologist and science blogger PZ Myers analyzes Gov. Sarah Palin's speech in which she advocates for special needs children while mocking the science research that could actually help them in the long run. He's rightly not very impressed.

This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks basic research and the international research community. You damn well better believe that there is research going on in animal models — what does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and chop up baby brains for this work? — and countries like France and Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all respected participants in these efforts.

Yes, scientists work on fruit flies. Some of the most powerful tools in genetics and molecular biology are available in fruit flies, and these are animals that are particularly amenable to experimentation. Molecular genetics has revealed that humans share key molecules, the basic developmental toolkit, with all other animals, thanks to our shared evolutionary heritage (something else the wackaloon from Wasilla denies), and that we can use these other organisms to probe the fundamental mechanisms that underlie core processes in the formation of the nervous system — precisely the phenomena Palin claims are so important.

Now that's some righteous anger I can believe in, my friends.

As the Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz notes, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan could have chosen during his Congressional testimony to feed the Republican-fed myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were behind the current economic crisis. Greenspan instead opted for the truth.

Ritholtz comments on reports of Greenspan's testimony:

Many Republican lawmakers on the oversight committee tried to blame the mortgage meltdown on the unchecked growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government-sponsored mortgage-finance companies that were placed in a government conservatorship last month. Republicans have argued that Democratic lawmakers blocked measures to reform the companies.

But Mr. Greenspan, who was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan, placed far more blame on the Wall Street companies that bundled subprime mortgages into pools and sold them as mortgage-backed securities. Global demand for the securities was so high, he said, that Wall Street companies pressured lenders to lower their standards and produce more “paper.”

“The evidence strongly suggests that without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations (undeniably the original source of the crisis) would have been far smaller and defaults accordingly far lower,” he said."

I doubt this is going to make it into a McCain-Palin ad in these final days before the election.

Kevin Drum recaps the McCain-Palin campaign's bad past few days.

Let's summarize the past couple of days: (a) Politico reports that La Palin has spent $150,000 on campaign outfits, (b) John McCain's brother calls 911 to complain about a traffic jam and then curses at the operator for telling him to get off the line, (c) the New York Times reports that Palin also spent $30,000 or so on hair and makeup over a period of two weeks, and (d) a white woman who claimed she was attacked by a black Obama supporter admits that the whole thing was a hoax.

None of this, of course, makes that last-minute comeback any easier.

This is really an outstanding YouTube video -- especially if you remember the ads from eight years ago.

Thanks to Batocchio at the Campaign for America's Future, we see that Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman, author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency wrote an article based on the themes of his book earlier this week. It is worth a read.

In the article, Gellman outlines 10 rules for being a Vice President like Cheney. Here are two I find most troubling:

2. Winning Is Easy When the Other Side Doesn't Know About the Game.

See Rule No. 1. During his tenure as White House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford, Cheney emphasized the importance of letting all the president's advisers be heard in policy debate. "Be an honest broker," he advised a successor. But as vice president, Cheney cared more about winning. Just ask Colin Powell, Christine Todd Whitman, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft and other very senior Bush aides, all of whom learned about historic, Cheney-driven shifts of policy only after the fact. When Rice's lawyer, John B. Bellinger III, complained in 2002 to David Addington, Cheney's hard-driving counsel, that he had not been consulted about the administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program, Addington made no apologies for cutting out the National Security Council staff: "I'm not going to tell you whether there is or isn't such a program. But if there were such a program, you'd better go tell your little friends at the FBI and the CIA to keep their mouths shut."

...

7. Know Thine Enemy.

It took three years for people on the National Security Council staff to learn that their e-mails and policy memos were bcc'd to the vice president's office. One of Rice's advisers discovered the secret arrangement after preparing a speech in which Bush would denounce the abuse of U.S.-held prisoners at Abu Ghraib and demand an explanation from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Cheney slipped the proposal to his old friend Rumsfeld, who mobilized a counterattack before the memo even found its way to Bush. Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, called Hadley to complain, and the draft speech never reached the Oval Office. Nor was this type of intelligence-gathering limited to e-mails: Cheney's office sometimes used NSA transcripts to keep track of what policy rivals were saying overseas.

That vice president sure is a team player, isn't he?

The power accumulated by Cheney for the executive branch is dangerous to the future of our Constitutional Republic. The policies for which he pushed have harmed our nation's foreign policy. Will we ever restore our "city on the hill" image after torturing people?

It is hard to rewind such events -- but the next president must address the many excesses of the Cheney regime in order to restore some balance to our government.

Gov. Sarah Palin claims to be an advocate for special needs children -- except when such support runs counter to her talking points about government spending.

As Think Progress notes, Palin yesterday mocked funding research on fruit flies -- without noting that other research on fruit flies has helped in our understanding of autism.

You can now sign up to get text messages of important updates to the invaluable FiveThirtyEight.com polling analysis web site.

If you care to crunch the polling numbers, you'll want to sign up for this service.

John McCain used to believe in progressive taxation, before he idiotically decided screaming "socialist" at his opponent would win votes in the 21st Century.

(Hat tip: Matthew Yglesias)

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder lays out the scenario, and reminds us that John Kerry was winning the early voting in 2004.

Now is not the time to stop working.

Paul Krugman prepares us for the likely after-election spin. Yes, a bigger victory for Democrats this year will mean it is a conservative nation, just like the smaller victory for the Republicans in 2004 was supposed to lead to liberalism's demise.

No matter the facts, our pundits reach the same conclusion.

Yes, this is Atrios' game, but he sets one up far too well today that I simply cannot resist.

It's 13 days before the election, and apparently I still have to explain to the people whose job it is to cover it that results in party primaries really have little to no predictive power for the results in the general. Yesterday someone was suggesting that Obama would have troubles in PA because he didn't win the primary, and today someone suggested that McCain could do well in NH because he won the primary there.

Are they really this stupid?

Yes.

Thank you for reading this edition of simple answers to simple questions.

In the American Conservative magazine, Steve Clemons reviews Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency a new book by Barton Gellman about Vice President Dick Cheney.

An interesting thought experiment is to imagine what Bush’s tenure might have been like had 9/11 not occurred. Admirers have suggested that the president’s legacy would have been defined by his pet interests: “compassionate conservatism,” faith-based initiatives, and literacy and education programs for young and old. Now think about a Bush presidency with Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating or Sens. Chuck Hagel, Lamar Alexander, or Bill Frist as vice president—all of whom were vetted by Cheney as he went through the shortlist of Bush’s possible running mates. What would the world look like had one of these men been chosen? My hunch is that America’s national security and economic portfolios would not be in the meltdown that they are in today.

History has taken its course, however. Cheney was put in charge of finding Bush’s VP, and he positioned himself for selection. He uncovered, through an exhaustive questionnaire process, the most private and intimate details of the lives of the other candidates. No one vetted Cheney, though, so nobody had anything on him. He had the goods on everyone else, and he got the nod from Bush.

The curious way in which Cheney maneuvered himself onto Bush’s ticket is one of many disturbing stories in this new and brilliantly researched account of Cheney’s adventures as Bush’s “No. 2.” Barton Gellman, Pulitzer-winning Washington Post journalist, examines the nuts and bolts of Cheney’s power apparatus. He shows how a mere vice president engineered a massive expansion of presidential power, knocked back the constitutional authority of Congress and the judiciary, helped launch an illegitimate war, developed a system for spying on America’s citizens, oversaw White House-sanctioned torture, and pushed official secrecy to unprecedented levels. We see how Cheney punctured America’s mystique as a benign and respected nation—how he shattered the moral, economic, and military pillars of American power.

I think I'll have to add this book to the reading list. Cheney has been a horrible influence on this presidency and this Constitutional Republic.

Atrios is right: being mentioned in a debate is no reason for the media to feel it has license to vet "Joe the Plumber" as if he were a national candidate.

There are numerous other issues over the last eight years that I wish the media had been so dogged about perusing (Iraq run-up, torture, U.S. Attorneys firings, Cheney energy task force, signing statements...).

I really would like Gov. Sarah Palin to list off, in detail, the areas of the United States she believes are anti-American.

Her rhetoric on this point is outrageous. I want her to stand behind this claim by explaining to voters which states are pro-American and anti-American. Now. Before election day.

I suppose this is one of the reasons why we are on Day 51 without a Sarah Palin press conference...

Yes, I am not particularly pleased that the Red Sox rally from seven runs down last night is a chance to remind everyone that the Cubs still hold the record for largest lead lost in a postseason baseball game -- blowing an 8-0 lead in the 1929 World Series to Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's.

The A's scored 10 runs in the seventh inning, a rally fed in part when Hack Wilson lost a fly ball in the sun, leading to a rare inside-the-park grand slam home run.

So, yes. I am still bitter about the Cubs choke this year. Very. Bitter.

Based on this comment by Dana Milbank, this is a serious question.

It is not the Secret Service's job to protect the political aspirations of the candidates they protect or to keep members of the media from doing their jobs and interviewing people who attend political rallies.

People should be fired for this. And the McCain-Palin campaign should reimburse taxpayers for using Secret Service professionals as press aides.

I don't think I'll see a more powerful political ad than this one, featuring Army Sergeant Erik Schei highlighting New Mexico Senate candidate Tom Udall's work on behalf of our veterans.

(Hat tip: Marc Ambinder)

I really hope every major reporter covering this election campaign is embarrassed this morning to see that it took David Letterman to ask John McCain the natural follow-up question to the McCain-Palin campaign's Obama-Ayers guilt-by-association tactic.

HOW ABOUT G. GORDON LIDDY? As Steve Benen explains:

Liddy is, of course, a convicted felon who has "acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in 'if necessary'; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a 'gangland figure' to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap 'leftist guerillas' at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis." Liddy also once famously gave his supporters advice on how best to kill federal officials (he recommended shooting them in the head because they might be wearing flak jackets).

Despite this scandalous past, McCain has accepted thousands of dollars in contributions from Liddy, attended a fundraiser in his honor at Liddy's home, and told Liddy that he's "proud of" him.

Also remember, Liddy can be fairly described as "unrepentant." When asked if he regretted his felonies, "A vein twitches angrily on one of his scales, but he replies in a level voice, 'No.'"

As of last night, McCain is "not in any was embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy." I have a follow-up question: Why not? And one more: what does it say about McCain's character that he pals around with an unrepentant convicted felon who's talked openly about killing federal officials?

The fact that McCain is not embarrassed to know Liddy is all the proof you need of the cynicism of the Ayers maneuver. Liddy tried to corrupt our Constitutional Republic. He tells his listeners the best way to kill federal agents.

That's okay in McCain's land.

Alas, it took David Letterman to expose this hypocrisy.

It's been a crazy-busy week.

I completely geeked out when I saw this movie trailer last Friday night.

On this, the 41st day that Gov. Sarah Palin has refused to participate in a press conference since she accepted the Vice Presidential nomination from Sen. John McCain, James Fallows offers a new Constitutional Amendment for our consideration.

It will, instead, feature two parallel press conferences featuring John McCain and Barack Obama. Taegan Goodard links to Lynn Sweet's coverage of the "debate" rules:

"An audience member will not be allowed to switch questions. Under the deal, the moderator may not ask followups or make comments. The person who asks the question will not be allowed a follow-up either, and his or her microphone will be turned off after the question is read. A camera shot will only be shown of the person asking -- not reacting."

"While there will be director's chairs (with backs and foot rests), McCain and Obama will be allowed to stand -- but they can't roam past their 'designated area' to be marked on the stage. McCain and Obama are not supposed to ask each other direct questions."

Richard Clarke, a former national coordinator for security and counterterrorism for the National Security Council, warns us that Osama bin Laden will likely try to influence our presidential campaign.

Given that history, what can we expect in the next month; will al Qaeda try to influence the 2008 U.S. presidential election? Some analysts saw the opening salvos of an al Qaeda campaign in the two attacks on American targets that came within three days of each other two weeks ago. First, al Qaeda mounted a large and sophisticated assault on the American embassy in Yemen. Many analysts are surprised that the attack failed and that the local guard force fought back courageously and well. Al Qaeda's plan seemed to be to penetrate the embassy wall, gather up Americans, and then kill them in a series of terrorist suicides with explosive belts.

Second, al Qaeda attacked the Marriott hotel in Islamabad with a large truck bomb. This attack seems to have been aimed at the Pakistani president, prime minister, and cabinet who were supposed to be dining there at the time but were not because of a last-minute decision to change the venue to a more secure location. Two U.S. military personnel who were dining there died in the attack.

Those who see the two attacks as the opening round of a pre-election campaign note that they were the first two major al Qaeda-related attacks on American facilities in a very long time, the first serious al Qaeda attack on an American embassy in a decade. Others believe that the timing of the two attacks was coincidence and that they were both dictated by internal dynamics in the countries where the attacks took place and not by the U.S. election campaign. Nonetheless, U.S. intelligence and security officials are worried.

And we should be worried, since despite all of the sound and fury of our political leaders, the illegal government wire-tapping of our communications, and the small shampoo bottles and belt removal at the airports, we really have failed to make our country more safe in the seven years since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The Obama campaign takes off the gloves and offers a well-timed reminder that John McCain has a sorry history when it comes to banking crises. John McCain does not like to talk about it, but he was a member of the Keating Five. If McCain and Sarah Palin want to call Barack Obama an anti-American terrorist, it is time to fight back with some facts.

Update: Ezra Klein offers this outstanding analysis of the new Keating Economics video:

On the political side, it's worth marveling for a moment that the Obama campaign never got spooked and went nuclear from a position of weakness. A month or so ago, when Obama was buffeted by the "celebrity" ads and Palin seemed a juggernaut and McCain was up in the polls, they didn't panic and release this video. They held it. Waited for the fundamentals to change. And when the McCain campaign signaled this week that they were going for a guilt-by-association strategy, the Obama campaign counterpunched with Keating -- what Ben Smith calls "guilt-by-guilt." And not just an ad: A press conference, a documentary, an e-mail to the millions on their list serv. They hit with enough force to control the news coverage. But they waited until wouldn't be seen as firing first. And they did it from the position of strength. They did it protected by a lead in the polls.

This is what happens when you have a strategy and stick to it -- regardless of the tactical oddities (suspend the campaign, go back to campaign, call your opponent an anti-American terrorist) of your opponents.

The Atlantic's James Fallows smacks the McCain-Palin campaign for their recent campaign strategy.

Grow up. If John McCain has a better set of plans to deal with the immediate crisis, and the medium-term real-economy fallout, and the real global problems of the era -- fine, let him win on those. But it is beneath the dignity he had as a Naval officer to wallow in this mindless BS. I will say nothing about the dignity of a candidate who repeatedly winks at the public, Hooters-waitress style. A great country acts great when it matters. This is a time when it matters -- for politicians in the points they raise, for journalists in the subjects they write about and the questions they ask of candidates. And, yes, for voters.

That damn Billy Goat is not my friend.

As many of you know, Maine and Nebraska do not allocate their electoral votes in the winner-take-all fashion of the other 48 states. They are allocated by Congressional District (with the other two electoral votes going to the candidate who wins the state).

Fivethirtyeight.com explains how both campaigns are now acting like Nebraska's Second Congressional District may be in play -- and how it could be a key electoral vote in a close election.

Bruce Springsteen appeared at an Obama-Biden rally in Philadelphia yesterday. Here's the video from the KYW-TV web page.

This was a day I wish I was back in Philadelphia, a city I loved living in for a couple of years.

That was truly awful.

A National League-best 97 wins in the regular season was just wasted by the Chicago Cubs as they get swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series. Worse, they were swept away without much of a fight.

This is the second-straight year the Cubs were swept out of the playoffs. But this one hurt more. In fact, this loss may hurt more than the others I've seen my Cubs suffer in my 30 years as a fan of the team. Yes, even more than Games 6 and 7 of the 2003 National League Championship Series--when the Cubs lost after having a lead just five outs away from the World Series.

Last year's sweep was disappointing, to be sure. But last year's Cubs were not a great team--and it was a bonus to make the playoffs.

This year's team was the National League's best since April. Sure, there were the inevitable lulls that happen in an 162-game season. But this appeared to be a top-notch team.

I tried not to care. But I could not help it. There were expectations now -- they were that good.

And just that quickly, in three quick games, the promise is gone, the flame extinguished.

For the 100th-straight season, the Cubs end their season without the World Series Championship.

This one is going to take some time to get over.

John McCain sure is acting like an extremely angry man -- and he will not even pretend otherwise in public situations.

As the two shared the Senate floor tonight for the first time since they won their party nominations, Obama stood chatting with Democrats on his side of the aisle, and McCain stood on the Republican side of the aisle.

So Obama crossed over into enemy territory.

He walked over to where McCain was chatting with Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida and Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. And he stretched out his arm and offered his hand to McCain.

McCain shook it, but with a “go away” look that no one could miss. He tried his best not to even look at Obama.

Well, Obama should take some relief in the fact that this was not as bad as some other receptions McCain has given to his Senate colleagues.

There is rightly lots of discussion about John McCain's angry appearance before the Des Moines Register editorial board.

But Republican strategist Mike Murphy reprints some comments he's heard about the situation -- observations that raise questions not just about McCain, but the people leading his campaign.

One very smart consultant who knows McCain well sent me a link this morning to the video of McCain at Des Moines Register Editorial board interview. Set aside whatever you think of McCain's interview; this operative's point was purely technical and dead on correct:

What the Hell was McCain even doing there in the first place?

1.) Obama is going to win Iowa.

2.) Editorial board meetings are usually pure trouble to begin with and result only in newspaper endorsements that persuade very few voters beyond the immediate family members of the editorial board.

3.) Within the rarified category of newspaper editorial boards, the Des Moines Register is one of the most liberal in the country. I'm rather surprised that halfway through the McCain interview they failed to switch over to Esperanto, the peace-loving language of all nations.

So, 35 days left and McCain is in Iowa? Why put McCain in the wrong state, at the wrong place? No surprise the result is the wrong message and the wrong tone.

This strikes me as great analysis (well, except for the snide remark about Esperanto, which was bizarre). Why was McCain even in that situation? He should not be wasting time in Iowa. This strategy does not make a bunch of sense to me.

Don't lower your expectations too much. As Jed Lewison explains, Sarah Palin has proven herself as a good debater in the past -- and provides a video to show why.

I guess John McCain doesn't hate Hollywood nearly as much as he claimed in Ohio two weeks ago. As the Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports:

The McCain-Palin Victory California Leadership team is sponsoring the October 1 event at the Century Plaza Hyatt Regency in L.A. Supporters who bundle at least $250,000 receive entrance to a host committee dinner and private reception; others can attend the general reception for $1,000 per person (or $2,500 per person for a limited edition "McCain-Palin CA" lapel pin).

The event comes two weeks after McCain chided Obama for fundraising in southern California. "He talked about siding with the people just before he flew off for a fundraiser in Hollywood with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends," McCain told a crowd in Ohio. "Let me tell you, my friends, there's no place I'd rather be than right here with the working men and women of Ohio."

It's so hard to be consistent when one stoops to using cheap sound bites.

John McCain says one thing, while his campaign does another. Talking Points Memo's Greg Sargent has the details:

McCain made his remarks calling for bipartisanship at around 11:10 this morning. The McCain campaign sent out the ad attacking Dems and Obama at 11:26.

So it only took 16 minutes for the McCain campaign to drop its principal's bipartisan pretenses. Which is actually an improvement over yesterday, when McCain managed to attack Obama over the crisis and then call for no finger-pointing in the space of only two sentences.

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

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

For those 35 days, Palin has refused to hold a full press conference (four questions on the sidewalk does not count).

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