Political Pastimes

September 2008

Happy New Year! Now Bail.

• So no one likes the bailout. (Salient details are in this NYT graphic. )
• House Republicans deadlocked the vote and rejected the bill this morning. 
• Dow plunges 777 POINTS while you were "naying."
• That would be the LARGEST one day drop for the Dow Jones um...EVER.  It easily surpassed the previous record, 685 points, set on the first day of trading after September 11, 2001.
• But, no more voting today...everyone, "L'Shanah Tovah! Have a great Rosh Hashanah...Ramadan Mubarak, my Muslim brothers...We'll see you on Thursday!"
• The Economist points out, global ripples are already on their way: "In the past week the financial crisis has erupted in even more dangerous forms globally. The interbank-funds market has seized up and even the most creditworthy corporate and financial firms are paying punitive rates. Last week Washington Mutual became the largest-ever American bank to fail. In Europe, three countries had to come to the rescue of Fortis, a Belgian banking group, and Britain did the same with a mortgage lender, Bradford & Bingley. And on Monday Citigroup agreed to buy most of the assets of Wachovia, another beleaguered American bank, in a deal brokered by regulators."
• Europe feels the punch too: "Dutch-Belgian bank and insurance giant Fortis NV was given a 11.2 billion euro ($16.4 billion) lifeline to avert insolvency as part of a wider bailout plan agreed to by Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, officials said Sunday. Belgium's Prime Minister Yves Leterme said the bailout shows account holders and investors that Fortis will not be allowed to fall victim to the global credit crisis."
• Looks like McCain's "Katrina-like help" really worked out well.

Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man.  Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.' Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.'

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain.

'You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.'

We Strain in Vain to Find McPalin's Brain

• Whoopsie.  McCain appeared on George Stephanopoulos' show on Sunday on ABC, and um... had to retract the statement his esteemed running mate made the night before: "Saturday night, while on a stop for cheesesteaks in South Philadelphia, Palin was questioned by a Temple graduate student about whether the U.S. should cross the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. 'If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should,' Palin said." 
• Hmmm, that sounds familiar... wait, what was it Barack Obama said during Friday night's debate? "If the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out." 
• At that point, McCain, you might remember, said testily, "Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government."
• McCain, gently corrected Palin's statements: "She would not…she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos of Palin. "In all due respect, people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's—that's a person's position… This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitive policy statement made by Governor Palin."
• This is the man who can't remember the name of the new Pakistani President (sending debate transcript typists into a confusion as to how to spell this mythical "Kardari" --Kaddari? Kidari? Qardari?).
• Palin is still PERKY [read, "adorably catty"] saying of Thursday's debate with Biden. "I'm looking forward to meeting him, too. I've never met him before, but I've been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, second grade.''
• Joining in on the growing chorus of aghast conservatives, Ron Dreher, the Crunchy Conservative, says, "Palin is mediocre, again, regurgitating talking points mechanically, not thinking. Palin's just babbling. She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero....I remember the morning I woke up in my college dorm room and went in to take my final exam in my Formal Logic class. I knew I was unready. Massively unready. And now I was going to be put to the ultimate test. I sat down in Dr. Sarkar's class and resolved to wing it. Of course I failed the exam and failed the class, because I had no idea what I was talking about. I wasn't a bad kid, or even a stupid kid. I was just badly unprepared, and in way over my head. Seeing the Palin interview on CBS, I thought of myself in Dr. Sarkar's exam. But see, I was a college undergraduate who had the chance to take the class again, which I did, and passed (barely). I wasn't running for vice president of the United States."
• Palin is safely tucked away prepping for debate someplace in one of the McCains' three or four homes in Sedona, AZ out of the ten McCain homes
•  In the Wall Street Journal they report that "the McCain campaign aims to halt what it sees as a perceived decline in the crispness and precision of Gov. Palin's latest remarks as well as a fall in recent polls."   "'It's time to let Palin be Palin -- and let it all hang out,' said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist."
• McCain' spokeswoman saying essentially that if Gwen Ifill comes up with questions that are 60% foreign policy and 40% economy that it's unfair to Palin.
• Mitt Romney joins in with a backhanded defense: "Look she wasn't selected by John McCain because she's an expert on foreign policy." [Yeah.  We got that.] "John McCain's the expert on foreign policy..." [Um...he is? John, can you say "Ahmadinejad" one more time?]
• Everyone keeps fact-checking the Kissinger lines from Friday's Presidential debate.  I guess only a few people out there even bother to ask anymore whether Kissinger should be everybody's favorite foreign policy guru.
• The LA Times reports: "Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said."  That's TOTALLY true.  I saw it on TV once.
• Sarah Palin, going for the all-important Sleestack vote. It's paying off: McCain is now polling at 52% among Sleestacks likely to vote.
• Bonus round: Spot the dinosaur on the ticket.
  
  
  On the Road again
• Newsweek writes, "The three tests of recent weeks—the vice presidential nominations, the conflict in Georgia and now the financial crisis—have raised, in a serious way not always evident in presidential politics, the key question: how would each man lead? Our view is that if you are among the 18 percent or so of undecided voters (the current figure in most national polls), we think you now have more than enough on which to decide. McCain and Obama see the world differently, and you can see how; they behave in their own skins differently, and you can see how. The drama of the autumn has served perhaps the noblest end we could hope for, shedding light on how each man would govern. McCain is passionate, sometimes impulsive and unpredictable; Obama is precise, occasionally withdrawn and methodical."
• Plus, McCain's oft-cited war story with a slightly new twist: "In his most recent book, Hard Choices, McCain describes how, on his last bombing mission over Hanoi, he heard the warning tone of an enemy SAM missile locking on to his plane. Bravely, or rashly, McCain did not take evasive maneuvers but rather kept on flying straight in an attempt to deliver his bombs on target. The missile blew off his right wing, and he spent the next five years in captivity." 
• The campaign marches on.  Obama and Biden stood in the pouring rain to talk with 26,000 Virginians.
• Gallup Daily had Obama up three points Saturday. and by this morning, he was up by EIGHT points. I know it's meaningless, but it make me feel better.  The Electoral Vote shift has been more pronounced though. Enjoy the trending...

Debatables

• Mississippi Presidential Debate transcript and video in that cool interactive feature on the New York Times.
• Nielsen estimates 57 million viewers took in the event.
• Obama's campaign liveblogged factchecks throughout the debate, but more fun is Think Progress' liveblog of the debate, which includes a few fabulous "Let's go to the videotape" YouTube links.
• A nice calm, cool guy debating an angry, old grouch. Or is he?  McCain's song and dance.
• The upshot from Politico.
• McCain calls Pakistan's president Kadari?  (his name is Zardari).  And he should have practiced saying Ahmadinejad more.  Even Sarah Palin managed it better. (A waggish commentator notes that McCain could just practice by saying "I may need a job.")
• Declared Obama the winner: ABC's George Stephanopoulos, pollster Frank Luntz on Fox, Slate's John Dickerson, Time magazine's Mark Halperin (Obama A-, McCain B-), pollster and Clinton adviser Dick Morris, CBS News instant poll (40% Obama - 22% McCain - 38% tie) and CNN post-debate poll (51% Obama-38% McCain). Also, Independents in the MediaCurves focus group "gave the debate to Obama 61-39. They also think he won every individual segment."
• More poll results. Arianna gives style points to Obama, "who came across as relaxed and gracious (too gracious; enough with the repeated claims that "John is right"). McCain looked like he forgot to take his Metamucil."
• Huffpo rounds up some more post-debate commentary from editorial boards. And an observation from ThinkProgress: "ABC's Charlie Gibson and PBS's David Brooks and Mark Shields note that McCain never looked at Obama during the debate."

Palinista Update

• Though we saw an awful lot of Joe Biden after the debate, commenting on how Barack Obama did, where was Governor Palin weighing in with her commentary on her running mate's performance ?
• The National Review's blog "The Stump"  quotes Wolf Blitzer on CNN: "We've been getting some emails from viewers out there wondering why we spent some time interviewing Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee and not Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee. We would have loved to interview--we'd still love to interview Sarah Palin. Unfortunately we asked, we didn't get that interview...We're hoping that Sarah Palin will join us at some point down the road."
• Tina Fey strikes again with another pitch perfect "Sarah Palin" in an interview with Katie Couric.  The wacky thing is that she's not really parodying Sarah Palin, she's just quoting her.
• Even the National Review's Kathleen Parker, once "in the tank"  for Sarah Palin, now says, "As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion."
• Oh, and in case you're not outraged enough about Palin's utter insensitivity as a human being, note that while Palin was mayor in Wasilla, the town began charging rape victims for the costs of their own rape kits.
• More of Katie interviewing Sarah Palin ...hurts...eyes...to...watch...: COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that? PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters-- COURIC: Mock? PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah. (HuffPo)
• Here's the special irony: Alaska's governors DO often enjoy more contact with Russian officials because Anchorage is the base for the Northern Forum, an organization representing leaders and sub-leadership from countries around the Arctic Circle including Russia, Finland, Iceland and Canada, Japan, China and South Korea. The Seattle Times reports: "Yet under Palin, the state government — without consultation — reduced its annual financial support to the Northern Forum to $15,000 from $75,000, according to Priscilla Wohl, the group's executive director. That forced the forum's Anchorage office to go without pay for two months. Palin — unlike the previous administrations of Gov. Frank Murkowski and Gov. Tony Knowles — also stopped sending representatives to Northern Forum's annual meetings, including one last year for regional governors held in the heart of Russia's oil territory." Great. Twenty years of glasnost down the drain. Plus, she doesn't even have the brains to mention that this organization exists when the Russia question comes up.
• Palin worked her way up to answering FOUR whole questions from the press.
• Campbell Brown goes OFF on the McCain camp's sexism in shielding Sarah Palin from the Big Bad Media: "Tonight I call on the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment...you claim she is ready to be one heart beat away form the presidency. If that is the case, then end this chauvinistic treatment of her now."
• Even Fox News reporters are starting to get testy about the Palin Media Shutout.
• Maureen Dowd refers to Palin's recent rush through Top World Leaders plus a bonus Henry Kissinger Round as "speed dating diplomacy."
• Why they can't leave Palin unattended: the BIG interview, with Katie Couric of CBS playing "Stump the Candidate." Particularly delicious is the moment when Couric asks Palin to cite "specific examples in [McCain's] 26 years [in the Senate] of pushing for more regulation."
   
• Couric also does a series called Presidential questions, in which she asks the same question of Obama and McCain. One of the questions was "When is it appropriate to lie to the American people?"
• Sarah Palin Troopergate Update:  The Plank pointed out that even the AP newswire is getting snarky, putting out this lead in a story covering the investigation: "Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire."
• "Is Sarah Palin qualified?" poll on PBS NOW's website.  I sent it out, and many of you have sent it to me.  Well, the poll, which only ran a week in early September on PBS' homepage, became the single most viewed page on their entire site, even though nothing links to it now that the homepage link is gone. But it's remained so popular via email that PBS was moved to post this notice.  As many people noticed,  voting "da Chicago way" seemed to be entirely possible, and apparently was until yesterday, when they embedded cookies so you can only vote once per computer. 

1-800-CASH4JUNK

• My bank was seized last night. Wow!  I'm like, part of history--part of the biggest saving and loan failure of all time!
• And in a good old classic run on the bank, WaMu customers went in this morning to demand their $10 back. Following the largest US bank failure in history. JP Morgan Chase acquired WaMu after the bank was seized Thursday night,  and all operations continued as normal on Friday morning, even though depositors pulled $17 billion from the bank. (I don't know why those instant stock quotes embedded in text of the above article bother me so much. Makes me a little panicky frankly.)
• Dealbook blog's moment-to-moment coverage:  Do you have money in Wachovia-- which may be "Citi-chovia Traveling Group" by the time I get done typing this sentence?  A scorecard in case you've lost track of who lost what and who bought what in the last, oh, week and a half.
• Well, looks like we're buying it, folks. 
• To the right, a humorous juxtaposition of articles  on Pollster.com
• The New York Times has an interesting assessment of the real reasons why AIG (too big to fail) got a government bailout deal when Lehman (Let the market decide) got the "Go Fish!": "As the group, led by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., pondered the collapse of one of America's oldest investment banks, Lehman Brothers, a more dangerous threat emerged: American International Group, the world's largest insurer, was teetering. A.I.G. needed billions of dollars to right itself and had suddenly begged for help.The only Wall Street chief executive participating in the meeting was Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Paulson's former firm. Mr. Blankfein had particular reason for concern. Although it was not widely known, Goldman, a Wall Street stalwart that had seemed immune to its rivals' woes, was A.I.G.'s largest trading partner, according to six people close to the insurer who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. A collapse of the insurer threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman's side, several of these people said."
• By the way, David Lazarus in the LA Times notes that : "As our friends in the financial sector were passing the hat among taxpayers last week for $700 billion in bailouts to cover their crappy mortgage investments, they were simultaneously condemning the House of Representatives' passage of a "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights," which aims to crack down on some of the industry's more troublesome practices."
• A look at the Argentinian Financial Crisis in the early 2000's.  Hmmm.  Hints of what's ahead?

• $700 Billion-ish: From Forbes: "In  fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. 'It's not based on any particular data point,' a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. 'We just wanted to choose a really large number.'"

• Krugman weighs in on the Paulson plan and the alternative that McCain basically blew up: "So the grown-up thing is to do something to rescue the financial system. The big question is, are there any grown-ups around — and will they be able to take charge?"
• Someone has at last used the "F" word in describing this bailout, and it ain't "finance": "Our government and its owners appear to be testing how much the American public will tolerate. A few years ago, no one could have imagined that the silent majority would quietly accept thefts of this magnitude from a government that stopped tiny payments to single mothers with poor children in the name of welfare reform because the program's $10 billion cost was breaking the federal budget. This isn't socialism, it's fascism."
• At TPM, mswogger has come to the same conclusion: "Frankly, that word is fascism.  It's no secret that corporations are fascist entities themselves, where decisions are made by a select few that can affect millions of people who have no say in the matter.  But this government-corporate 'partnership' (for lack of a better term) is the epitome of fascism.  As Mussolini and his partner Giovanni Gentile wrote in 1932, 'We are, in other words, a state which controls all forces acting in nature. We control political forces, we control moral forces we control economic forces, therefore we are a full-blown Corporative state.'"
• The Swedes watch as the US basically copies a page from Swedish history.  Couldn't we learn something from their financial crisis in the 90s?

He Came, He Saw, He Screwed it Up

• From the NY Times this morning, hints of NEW! FRESH! headaches for the McCain campaign: "Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as "birds of prey." Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors." The Times also has a graphic with a dizzying array of McCain connections to the gambling lobby.
• Although you might expect that (with the "right" bailout plan being so all-fire important and all) that after the debate was done, John McCain would race to Nancy Pelosi's office to be there in person, all night, at the negotiating table in Washington. After the debate, he was on the Hill Saturday for about 90 minutes according to the Washington Post (who also deliciously describes "chaos" in the McCain camp during pre-debate preparations): "McCain did not go to Capitol Hill, preferring to make calls from his headquarters. 'He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone,' [McCain adviser Mark] Salter said. 'He's calling members on both sides, talking to people in the administration, helping out as he can.'" Oh. 
• Maybe after dinner?  Politico reports that Saturday night, McCain was at the very chic DC restaurant  CityZen. Check out their $110 tasting menu. I guess, since his "services are no longer required after he um, achieved bipartisanship last Thursday, he can settle into a nice "Sweet Onion Chiboust with a Sarawak Pepper Sable and English Thyme Broth...." (Maybe I should check it out if I can ever afford fine-dining again...) Hey, John, "arugula-eating" is cheaper.
• John McCain hard at work ruining BOTH Democrats' and fellow Republicans' work. "Sen. Chris Dodd, after leaving the White House, suggested on CNN that the tenuous process could be derailed by what he viewed as McCain's political motives. "What happened here, basically, if you want an honest appraisal of the thing, we have been spending a lot of time and I am tired. I have spent almost seven straight days at this in trying to come out with a workout plan for our economy a rescue plan," said Dodd. "What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours and took us away from the work we are trying to do today. Serious people trying to do serious work to come up with an answer."
• After the meeting at the White House, Barack Obama had this to say: "what we shouldn't do is to try to get everything done in this package. What we should be doing is following the clear principles, that taxpayers are protected, that we have oversight, that taxpayers are going to get their money back, and that the housing crisis is going to be dealt with as well."
• Republicans are running wild: "One GOP lawmaker, referring to his defiant colleagues, asked rhetorically: 'For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?' But if the party was looking for leadership, it did not find it in its presidential nominee. 'Bush is no diplomat,' said a Democratic staffer, 'but he's Cardinal freaking Richelieu compared to McCain. McCain couldn't negotiate an agreement on dinner among a family of four without making a big drama with himself at the heroic center of it. And then they'd all just leave to make themselves a sandwich.'"
• "The Republican source, with direct knowledge of the negotiations, said that GOPers and McCain were 'scared about the press perception' that they were at fault for 'blowing the thing up.' The takeover of Washington Mutual on Thursday combined with the continued downturn in the futures and credit markets "also scared them," to the point that a bailout deal seemed within the realm of possibility 'over the weekend.'"
•  Even conservatives are saying: Whuh-HUH? "It just proves his campaign is governed by tactics and not ideology," said Republican consultant Craig Shirley, who advised McCain earlier in this cycle.
• US News and World Report's John Farrell assesses Obama's handling of the "Political Circus comes to town" as Presidential, whereas..."Given the Republican nominee's untethered (there's that word again) performance in the last three weeks, during which he has swung wildly from Oblivious to Panicky by way of Blurt and Bluster, McCain's performance comes as no surprise."
• The Post is no more sympathetic: "John McCain's sudden intervention in Washington's deliberations over the Wall Street bailout could not have been more out of sync with what was actually happening...McCain's boisterous intervention -- and particularly his grandstanding on the debate -- was less a presidential act than the tactical ploy of a man worried that his chances of becoming president might be slipping away."
• Of course, there's always the nutcase.  Steve Huntley says in the Chicago Sun-Times: "What we are talking about here is leadership in a time of crisis...Be it campaign finance regulation, immigration reform or climate change, he has never hesitated to take a leadership position on an issue he sees as critical to the country..."
• Hmmm, who is Huntley? I seem to remember that name... Oh yeah, he was Robert Novak's editor, the one who let Novak publish the column that leaked Valerie Plame's identity. Oh. Him.
• And what is with McCain's constant lies? Is it self-delusion? Jonathan Chait at the New Republic has some interesting perspectives: "McCain has contempt for anybody who stands between him and the presidency. McCain views himself as the ultimate patriot. He loves his country so much that he cannot let it fall into the hands of an unworthy rival. (They all turn out to be unworthy.) Viewed in this way, doing whatever it takes to win is not an act of selfishness but an act of patriotism."

David Letterman Corner

• David Letterman  spent just about two thirds of the show going ON about McCain not only suspending his campaign, but worse, canceling his appearance on Letterman --telling Dave that he had to get on a plane and RUSH back to Washington to fix this bailout thing.  But  then (insult on injury!), there was Johnny Mac, appearing on Katie Couric's show with an exclusive interview--at the same exact moment he was supposed to be on Dave's couch! Through the magic of TeeVee, Dave patched in a live feed to the CBS News studio so we could all watch So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol makeup artist Tifanie White was applying her $5000 magic to the candidate while he made small talk with Katie Couric. Oops.
• Hey, Dave!  Turns out McCain's STILL in New York this morning-- speaking at Bill Clinton's Global Initiative! Damn, baby--dissed and disMISSED.
• You might recall that it was on Letterman that McCain ANNOUNCED that he was running for president back in February 2007.
• Dave points out that if the economy is in such a tailspin, and you personally must be in Washington to fix it (which you don't), why don'tcha leave your second-in-command VP nominee in charge of campaigning and get on your flight?  Oh, Dave, Dave, Dave...you forget that he can't leave her unattended even for 30 seconds.
• Letterman is not done with McCain yet. On Thursday night, Dave said he felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy and "now I'm feeling like an ugly date...That's what I feel like, I feel like an ugly date," he said. "I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied."
• CBS execs were reportedly upset that Dave Letterman patched into internal video feeds to show John McCain getting a makeup job while chatting with Katie Couric when he was supposed to be on Dave's show.  Who cares? It was great TV. 
• Day 2: Dave still on McCain about ditching him. "McCain spokeswoman Nicole Wallace said Thursday that the campaign 'felt this wasn't a night for comedy...We deeply regret offending Mr. Letterman, but our candidate's priority at this moment is to focus on this crisis,' Wallace said on NBC's 'Today' show."

Media Roundup

• Stephen Colbert and  Jon Stewart hilariously recreate the Michelle & Barack Obama cover from the New Yorker. " (EW)
• And in case you didn't see it,  watch a pretty savvy Chris Rock on Larry King. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)  "The choice isn't Republican or Democrat. The choice is you got a guy that's worth $150 million with 12 houses against a guy who's worth a million dollars with one house.The guy with one house really cares about losing a house, because he is homeless. The other guy can lose five houses and still got a bunch of houses. Does this make any sense? Am I the only one that sees this?" 
• Over on Leno, Wanda Sykes goes OFF on Sarah Palin. "They say, 'Oh, she's meeting with the world leaders.' But there's no reporters. I'm like, is she meeting with the world leaders, or did you take her to the Epcot Center? Let her drink around the world? You know, because I've done that. Maybe I should be Secretary of State..."
• Campbell Brown, We Love You: "Seriously, what were you thinking?"
• This season's Fahrenheit 9/11?  Oliver Stone's W., Based on a True Story will open on October 17. Here's the official site with a trailer. Frankly, I think I'm still too close to all of this, because while intellectually I recognize that it's funny, I'm still crying.  No, no, it's okay, I'll be alright.  I'll be better when Obama wins in November.  It won't hurt so much next January when I see Obama's right hand in the air taking the oath of office. And when he finally sits down in that Oval Office (after it's fumigated, of course), I might be able to watch the trailer without tears of impotent rage streaming down my nose.
• An analysis of the overarching "story board" for this election from Michael Cohen: "After back-to-back election cycles in which Democratic nominees seemed unable to maintain a compelling narrative for their campaign, Mr. Obama has shown a level of message discipline that is striking."

Miscellanea

• German police arrested suspected terrorists on a KLM flight: "German police raided a plane in Cologne just before it was taking off Friday and arrested two ethnic Somalis, saying they found a suicide note that claimed the men wanted to fight a holy war and die in a terror attack."  Have a good flight.
• Oh, and incidentally, lest we forget...Rick Davis, the one who McCain says suspended all activity with his lobbying firm? Yeah, he's still the treasurer and corporate director of the firm. (Newsweek)
• UPDATE: Rick Davis, recipient of the Freddie Mac "Take this $30,000 and Once More Around the Regulations, My Good Man" Championship. Maybe you inferred that he had STOPPED getting money from the mortgage giants back in 2005?  Well, new information shows that Davis' consulting firm has been getting paid $15,000 a month THROUGH LAST AUGUST until, you know, Freddie was taken over by the US. Government. (NYT)
• McCain's new ad alleges Obama got advice from former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, which both Obama and Raines say isn't true.  In the ever-burgeoning "Isn't it Rich?" category, turns out that McCain's CAMPAIGN MANAGER, Rick Davis "was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations." 
• The Wall Street Journal notes too that "a massive nonpartisan campaign to mobilize Hispanics to register to vote could create a surge of Latino voters, especially in several swing states, which would likely benefit Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama."

Suspense!

• Everyone's got insights into why McCain "suspended" his campaign (Such a hard time typing that with a straight face.)
  • His poll numbers were dropping and he needed a way to look all statesmanlike. 
  • He thinks the timing is terrible to talk about foreign policy at a time when no one wants to hear about it.
  • He's saving money.
  • He wanted to force the cancellation of the VP debate.
  • He's hysterical in a crisis and completely lost his mind.

• The NY Times yesterday with snapshots from McCain's suspended-in-the-air Crazy Horse maneuver: "Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama should not return to Washington and inject presidential politics into the bailout negotiations....'What, does McCain think the Senate will still be working at 9 p.m. Friday?' Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said in an interview, referring to the scheduled start time of the debate. 'I think this is all political...'  Mr. Obama did say with a glint of humor that both he and Mr. McCain were capable of engaging in the debate and negotiations in Congress at the same time. 'If it turns out that we need to be in Washington, we've both got big planes — we've painted our slogans on the sides of them,' Mr. Obama said. 'They can get us from Washington, D.C., to Mississippi fairly quickly.'"
• 
•  "We're trying to rescue the economy, not the McCain campaign," said Rep. Barney Frank. And they add this delicately worded barb from Republican Chris Dodd (who seems annoyed, because "Dag-nab-it, HE'S ACTUALLY BEEN WORKING ON THIS PLAN!"):  "I'm delighted that John is expressing himself on this issue," said Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. "I have heard from Obama numerous occasions these last couple days. I have never heard from John McCain on the issue... I'm just worried a little bit that sort of politicizing this problem, sort of flying in here, I'm beginning to think this is more of a rescue plan for John McCain and not a rescue plan for the economy."
• John Dickerson at Slate makes several observations about the ploy: "Even more than his selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, this gambit feels like a wild improvisation someone in the McCain team mapped out on his chest: OK, you run to the fire hydrant, cut left, and then when he gets to the Buick, John, you heave it."
• The Wall Street Journal refuses to suspend disbelief. Their editorial says: "Last we checked, the President of the United States was still George W. Bush, the Secretary of the Treasury was still Henry Paulson, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve was still Ben Bernanke, and Congress still had 533 members not running for President who are at least nominally competent to debate and pass legislation. So count us as mystified by Senator John McCain's decision yesterday to suspend his campaign and call for a postponement in Friday's first Presidential debate so that he and Barack Obama can work out a consensus bill to stabilize the financial system. This is supposed to be evidence of leadership?"
• Obama says he'll be there on Friday, and if McCain is a no-show, he'll do a one-on-one with Lehrer or make it into a town-hall.
• Hey, did you know John McCain wants to cancel the debate on Friday?
• But wait! There's more!  He also wants to suspend his campaign so he can work on the $700 billion bailout plan.
• But wait! There's more!  He hasn't even read the plan yet-- and it's only three pages long. (Fer the love of Mike!  I've read it -- didn't understand it, but I've READ it.)
• But wait! There's more!  Senate members are confused because THEY'VE ALREADY WORKED OUT THE PLAN. (Barney Frank says that McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona who has spent much of the year away from the Capitol campaigning, could end up slowing down work on the bill. The Massachusetts Democrat noted that a meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday will be interrupted for a "photo op" at the White House with congressional Democrats and Republicans as well as Bush.")
• But wait! There's more! He also want to suspends the VP Debate too. Ohhhhhhh... I get it now...
• CLEARLY, he is doing his level best to LOSE THIS ELECTION, and the 46% of you people who insist on supporting him through thick and thin--you're MESSING UP his plan!!! (Okay, maybe it's only 43% of you.)
• And when you've gotten up off the floor, there are people trying to make the argument that this was somehow "brilliant strategy" on the part of McCain. Seriously. 
• Only if McCain's brilliant strategy was to start another Twitter Meme (Yep, here's my contribution...)
• So. Cancel the debate Friday? Obama says, Uh... Let me think...No. "There are times for politics and there are times to rise above politics and do what's right." But he said he saw no need to cancel the debate, scheduled for Friday night at the University of Mississippi. "This is exactly the time when people need to hear from the candidates," Mr. Obama said, adding: "Part of the president's job is to deal with more than one thing at once. In my mind it's more important than ever."
• The League of Women Voters has a handy worksheet that you can print out and use to take notes while watching the debate.
• The debate comes exactly one year to the day since the Democratic candidates held their own debate at Dartmouth, with Tim Russert moderating.  God, I miss Tim.  If there's one thing we need now, it's his no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase attitude.
• A well-organized chap, Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco under Clinton, warns Obama to be ready for the certain lines of attack on Friday at the Presidential debate. (HuffPo)
• " John McCain was in Scranton today (apparently Scranton is the epicenter of the political universe these days) claiming to have been a long supporter of U.S. involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process - which just happens to be completely untrue." Max Bergmann points out what McCain has "forgotten" about his positions on Northern Ireland. (HuffPo)
• Bergmann quotes Congressman Richard Neal's summary: "By contrast, John McCain has spent years ridiculing and minimizing U.S. efforts to help resolve the Troubles. In an article in Foreign Affairs, he said President Bill Clinton's efforts were "romantic" and accused him of undertaking his tireless work for peace in order to curry favor with Irish Americans. He criticized the decision to grant Gerry Adams a visa, a development now considered crucial to the success of the peace process. He claimed our role in Northern Ireland was severely damaging our relationship with Great Britain. Yet in a speech before Congress in 2003, British Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly thanked America for its support of the peace process. Quite simply, in the long march towards peace and stability in Northern Ireland, John McCain has been on the wrong side of history every step of the way."

Econ 101

• Well worth a look are Paul Solman's very informative and yet amusing videos for PBS's Lehrer Report.  Solman used to be a kindergarten teacher which maybe accounts for his simple, yet not condescending explanations.
   
  • Back in 2007 after Amaranth Financial lost $6 billion betting on natural gas futures and collapsed, Solman explained what a Hedge Fund is (EXTREMELY enlightening for non-econ types like me).  It has the bonus explanation of what a "Black Swan" event is -- actually no surprise to those of us who have seen Swan Lake.
  • In March 2008, Paul explained how the subprime mortgage caused the Bear Stearns collapse (hilariously using green Monopoly houses and Monopoly money).  Paul and his team of expert explainers have a clairvoyant moment and "see" the domino effect of cascading failures causing a crisis of confidence for financial institutions.
  • And yesterday, he explained what triggered the "Credit crunch." Why is credit so important that we had to bail out giant financial organizations?
     
• Very funny "Urgent help needed" spam that's making the rounds.
• It's all falling apart for BushCheneyCo too: "House Republicans who walked into a closed-door meeting with Cheney steaming over the plan walked out just as angry, and they described what happened in between as both 'a bloodbath' and 'an unmitigated disaster.' 'It's a sad fact, but Americans can no longer trust the economic information they are getting from this administration,' South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said in a comment posted on Politico's Arena forum."

Campaign Trail In/S/Anity: Part Three

• Bill Clinton on the View, on Letterman, on the Daily Show. 
• Chris Rock has some pointed remarks to make about the former Prez's tepid support of Obama.) But liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, surely we all can admit that he was a sight smarter and a more effective manager than our current president.
• Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising, is now available to download for free
• McCain's camp is peeved about being called "liars" all the time: "Sen. John McCain's top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called "liars." They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama's record. But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy." (Politico)
• George Will is body-slamming McCain in every column over at the Washington Post "It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"  (WaPo)
• Will also points out what I've been saying all along: "Is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary." (WaPo)
• A fascinating deconstruction of what "costs $700 billion" really means, from the Dealbook blog on the NYTimes. "The $700 billion is only the maximum amount the government can hold of these assets at any one time. In fact, over time, the government may purchase far more than $700 billion of securities, as it repeatedly purchases and then sells these assets. Finally...based on how the bill accounts for the costs of these assets, Mr. Paulson can conceivably spend much more than $700 billion at any one time under the bill's current wording."
• More on everyone's favorite governor: Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic sticks to his guns on the Twelve Lies of Sarah Palin. "Just for the record, I asked an intern to go back and double fact-check the twelve documented lies that Sarah Palin has told on the public record. These are not hyperbolic claims or rhetorical excess. They are assertions of fact that are demonstrably untrue and remain uncorrected."
• And not that we didn't know this about Sarah Palin, but David Talbot at Salon recounts how Palin's mayoral election in Wasilla took on tones of nastiness that echo the current campaign. "According to some political observers in Alaska, this pattern -- exploiting 'old-boy' mentors and then turning against them for her own advantage -- defines Sarah Palin's rise to power. Again and again, Palin has charmed powerful political patrons, and then rejected them when it suited her purposes."
• Relations with the press have totally deteriorated for the erstwhile "Straight Talk Express,"  McCain's folks decided today that they wanted the world to see photos of Palin looking presidential-like while meeting with world leaders at the UN, but they didn't want any pesky reporter-types actually asking her questions or going editorial about her meetings. So they banned the editorial pool reporters from covering the event, and planned to allow only a cameraperson.The Media, who've been kept on a short leash around Palin, finally rebelled. CNN (who had the designated pool cameraperson) threatened to pull their crew entirely before McCain's campaign relented. (NYT/HuffPo)
• According to a study by Women's Campaign Forum Foundation women have donated twice as many of their dollars to Obama as they have to McCain."$75.3 million to Sen. Obama and $34.2 million to Sen. McCain through July 31, according to the report. In 2004, women sent $58.1 million to Mr. Bush and $57.1 million to Mr. Kerry." (WSJ)
• The article further notes some...um...interesting points...
   
  • Women are heavy users of social-networking and campaign Web sites that put them in a position to make online donations. (What? What're you lookin' at me for?  So I use Facebook and I "became a fan of Obama")
  • 92% of the women who responded visited campaign Web sites (How else am I supposed to get information for my e-mail Rants?)
  • 79% signed up for email news from campaigns (Hey, I signed up for McCain's emails too.. just to see how lame their online machine is...)
  • 60% signed online petitions. (It only takes five seconds)
  • Of the women who made two or more donations in the last year, 28% gave $50 or more. (But it was in $5 increments)
  • The frequent female donors also tended to be more active using online resources to recruit supporters to their candidates. (Um...)
  • Four of five of these frequent donors forwarded emails or news about politics to friends, (...ummm...)
  • while 37% asked friends to make donations. (Hey, I only say that as a public service--to combat depression with donation therapy!)
  • Here's the link to the website to donate to Obama's campaign, by the way.  In case you need...you know...a little lift....

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

• Factcheck.org goes after Obama's comment about the McCain Social Security privatization plan. "In Daytona Beach, Obama said that 'if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week.'  The plan proposed by President Bush and supported by McCain in 2005 would not have allowed anyone born before 1950 to invest any part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. Obama would have been correct to say that many workers under age 58 would have had some portion of their Social Security benefits affected by the current market turmoil – if they had chosen to participate. And market drops would be a worry for those who retire in future decades. But current retirees would not have been affected." (Factcheck)

• Sydney Schanberg (of the "Killing Fields" fame) goes after the story  that McCain knew there were POWs left behind in Vietnam and cut off their last hope.
• In case you don't remember this one, it came at the tail end of Jonathan Alter's piece on Ross Perot's rant against John McCain in Newsweek.
• To recap, about twenty years ago, families and friends of American MIAs began pressuring the US government to reveal what steps were taken to follow up on intelligence regarding last-known-alive MIAs and POWs. When initial inquiries revealed important information had not been pursued, many families and their supporters asked for the public release of POW/MIA records and called for an investigation. John McCain was on the Senate Committee on POW/MIA Affairs as was Bob Kerrey and John Kerry, and the findings, which Schanberg refers to in his article above.
• John McCain flashed his famous temper at Dolores Alfond, a representative of the families of missing soldiers, during the POW/MIA hearings.
• Is Michigan the next Florida/Ohio? "People here are suffering. They've lived with a deep economic recession much longer than the rest of the nation. And now they are demanding attention, and looking for the candidate with the best answers and solutions. Traditional party lines have evaporated -- which makes Michigan the ultimate swing state."

Cash for Trash

• "Cash for Trash" is how NY Times columnist Paul Krugman is referring to the bailout plan. And in case you were wondering if the rest of America has noticed that we just bailed out giant firms who took on more debt than they could handle (too big to fail), while ignoring the average Joes who took on more debt than they could handle (not big enough to notice) an article in today's Washington Post: "This may be a Main Street bailout backlash in the making. The details of the financial crisis are still hard for most people to follow -- what with talk of exotic "derivatives" known as "credit-default swaps" and so on -- but the central fact of the matter hasn't been lost on anyone in this Northern Virginia community: The taxpayers are on the hook for the bad judgment of others. And they say they don't like it. They didn't break it, but now they've bought it."And away they go....
• What does a trillion look like exactly? If you were to stack up $1 trillion in $1000 bills, the pile would reach past the troposphere, through the stratosphere into the thermosphere.
• Of course, the $1000 bill has not been printed since 1945 and not circulated since 1969, when Nixon halted their circulation in an effort to fight organized crime.  Incidentally they featured the face of Grover Cleveland, a Democratic president whose second term coincided with the Panic of 1893 in which speculation (railroads, not mortgages) contributed to a series of bank failures (sound familiar?).
• Morgan Stanley and Goldman have changed their status to bank holding companies. "The decision means that the Goldman and Morgan Stanley will be able not only to set up commercial bank subsidiaries to take deposits, giving them a major resource base, but they will also have the same access as other commercial banks to the Fed's emergency loan program."

Campaign Trail In/S/Anity--Part Deux

• Politico looks at McCain's love-hate relationship with the New York Times.  "'Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization,' McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt said on a conference call. 'It is a pro-Obama organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Sen. McCain, attacks Gov. Palin and excuses Sen. Obama.' That metamorphosis from what it once was must have happened awfully fast. McCain granted the paper an interview on the economy less than 24 hours before Schmidt sought to discredit it."
• Which is funnier, that Fox News has demanded that McCain pull an ad using the voice of Major Garrett, one of their correspondents...or that their reason is that "As Mr. Garrett is a non-partisan news correspondent covering the Obama campaign for Fox News, it is highly inappropriate, among other things, of your campaign to use him in your ad"? Or that, in another "Yes, I'm TRYING to lose this election!" move, McCain's campaign refuses to take Garrett's voice out. (HuffPo)
• Palin is rapidly losing political support in her homestate of Alaska. (LAT)
• Jonathan Alterman tries to hang on as the Straight-Talk Express veers all over the road. (Newsweek)
• McCain jumped on a story from the NY Post : The charge -- that Obama asked the Iraqis to delay signing off on a "Status of Forces Agreement," thus delaying U.S. troop withdrawal and interfering in U.S. foreign policy -- has been picked up on the Internet, talk radio and by Republicans, including the McCain campaign, which seized on the story as possible evidence of duplicity. (NYPost)
• BUT, "Attendees of the meeting back Obama's account, including not just Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., but Hagel, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers from both parties. Officials of the Bush administration who were briefed on the meeting by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad also support Obama's account and dispute the Post story and McCain attack." (ABC)
• Obama seems more bemused by McCain' attacks than anything else.
• Obama also quoted McCain's comment in Contingencies magazine last year: "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."
• Obama's comment: "So let me get this straight – he wants to run health care like they've been running Wall Street. Well, Senator, I know some folks on Main Street who aren't going to think that's such a good idea.
• How the candidates have responded to the financial turmoil could be used as a barometer for how they'd handle a crisis as President. (Huffpo)
•  Short-Fused McCain.  Oh yeah, him. The guy who shoots his own mouth off. (YouTube)
• And apparently owns 13 cars (Newsweek)
• George Will  delivered another blow to McCain on This Week with George Stephanopoulos: "I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience," said Will. "The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? It wasn't John McCain who, as usual, substituting vehemence for coherence, said 'let's fire somebody.' And picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason... It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate...John McCain showed his personality this week." (ABC)
• The NY Times Magazine with an interesting article that examines how Obama's teaching style reflects his approach to the political process in general.  (NYT)
• What if Obama consulted another past President of a professorial bent.  Maureen Dowd consults with the show's writer Aaron Sorkin for details on a mythical Bartlett-Obama meeting. (NYT)

Multimedia Corner

• For some desperately silly fun, a  YouTube mashup, "Baracky II"
• Even Alaskan Malamutes think Sarah Palin is insane. (I'd be careful Baron-- you look a bit like a wolf...keep your eyes on the sky for aerial hunters... After she gets crazy African healer  Pastor Muthee to dispell your doggy demonic spells of course.)
• In case you missed last night's Saturday Night Live sketch--written in part by Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken-- it was hilarious.  John McCain approving all kinds of outrageous attack ads.(HuffPo)
• The English-language tape of that interview for a Miami radio station, the one in which McCain seemed to diss Spain's Prime Minister Zapatero, is now available online. (YouTube)
• In a recent trail-stop in Michigan, Would-be Fearless Leader McCain mixed up the National Guard and the Army: (quote starts 5:00 into the clip) "I also know, if I might remind you, that she is commander of the Alaska National Guard. In fact, you may know that on Sept. 11 a large contingent of the Alaska Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them. So I think she understands our national security challenges..." The ceremony Palin attended at Fort Wainwright last week didn't involve the Alaska National Guard. Palin's son is in the Army, and his unit - 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division - deployed to Iraq.

Statistically Significant

• Is the Palin nomination is actually helping turn swing voters in Florida towards Obama. (St. Pete Times)
• Obama gives another great speech at the Women for Change event in Florida. (YouTube)
• A check of those pollsters who call cellphones. Averaging over the 36 pollsters who do though,  538 detects a statistically significant +2 point advantage for Obama.
• Interesting that no one is making more of the notion that sheer voter turnout this year  was much higher for the Democratic primaries than Republicans.  36.9 million people turned out for the Democratic primary/caucus--versus 20.8 million for Republicans.  In Colorado alone--which went Bush in 2004, and which held its primary back in February even before Romney and Huckabee dropped out (and before Rush Limbaugh launched his "Operation Chaos" nonsense--the Democrats still drew out 120,000 people, versus 65,000 Republicans.

Ayn Rand "The Sound You Are Hearing is the Free-Market Squelch" Alert:

• The new Bush Administration plan seems to propose, in three short pages, the process by which the Federal Government will nationalize--that is, seize-- any failing financial institutions, for the low, low price of $700 billion.
• Rep. Barney Frank thought they could have this little $700 BILLION baby assembled baked and cooling by oh, say the end of next week. 
• AIG is officially out of the Dow Jones Industrial Club, the list of 30 companies considered to be bellwethers for the market. replaced by Kraft Foods. 
• Edward Chancellor, sort of eerily described the situation and the outcome we see today admirably in his 2007 article Ponzi Nation.
• In case you follow him, the NY Times' resident economist Paul Krugman is also wary of the bailout procedure. "This could turn into the wrong kind of rescue — a bailout of stockholders as well as the market."
• Columnist Frank Rich always put thing into perspective, check out his column today which note that Mccain's is "not the résumé that a presidential candidate wants to advertise as America faces its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. That's why the main thrust of the McCain campaign has been to cover up his history of economic malpractice."

Obama on Economy

• Obama's new ad has, as Wonkette notes, actual words and thoughts!
• Obama says what we're all suspecting, that the current crisis is related to deregulation. "Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression."
• The little elves in the "Ad-making" workshop must work overtime on days like these.  Obama's campaign already has an ad out attacking McCain's statement about the "fundamentals of the economy" being sound.
• The general consensus seem to be that this economic focus only boosts Obama, as the current woes are seen as tied to the Bush Administration. (USN&WR)
• New polls show Obama climbing again, as would-be voters figure out that Palin is both unqualified and not actually all that cute, that McCain has been lying and is possibly off his rocker, and that Obama doesn't look like Jesus, but just might have a BETTER plan to get the country in order.  Jeez, poll-ees, whoever the heck you are, welcome back to sanity! (CNN)
• If you really like driving yourself insane over voter indecision, watch the red and blue flash back and forth in this animated map showing polling data for the last three months.

Miscellanea

• Signs that the Obama Campaign intends to fight the "lose your house, lose your vote" scheme in Michigan, and any signs of voter disenfranchisement anyplace else. (TPM)
• To recap, the Republican party in Macomb County, MI is strategizing how to keep people whose houses have been foreclosed upon from voting. "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger.  Apparently it's an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being "true residents."
• "The really interesting part of the filing is the effort by the Obama campaign to demonstrate, in a court of law, that this behavior is 'part of a broader state and nationwide campaign by the Republican Party to suppress the vote.' And, upping the ante, the filing alleges that 'Defendant Republicans have a long history of engaging in coordinated, systematic campaigns to suppress and deny the right to vote of American citizens. Those campaigns are often targeted at various racial groups, language minorities, or individuals of low or modest economic circumstances whom Defendant Republicans believe are unlikely to support them in political campaigns.'"(TPM)
• Is this ad from the Defenders of Wildlife, helping shift voter perception on Sarah Palin? Maybe according to Media Curves.  On a personal note,  I find the ad horribly hard to watch,  mainly because I can't bear to watch the wolves being shot, but if the polling is to be believed, I'm not the only one.
• Incidentally, Sarah Palin, suffering delusions of grandeur, calls it the "Palin-McCain" administration. Ummm, note to Sarah, you're not at the top of the ticket! (YouTube)
• Andrew Sullivan, a conservative blogger at The Atlantic  is now cataloguing the Alaska Guv's Palindromes in his series "The Odd Lies of Sarah Palin." (See, "palin" in Greek means "reversal," Thus the word "palindrome," a word or phrase that is the same forward as it is reversed.) (Atl. Mo.)
•  Says Eugene Robinson: "We're beginning to discern an ambitious, opportunistic politician who makes no bones about rewarding friends and punishing those who stand in her way -- and who believes that truth is nothing more, and nothing less, than what she says it is." (WaPo)
• A quick Hurricane Ike aside: Remember the folks in Galveston, TX?  You might have seen the photos of the one single house left standing in the hurricane's wake.  CNN's iReport had some interesting info on the house and its construction from the owner's sister. (CNN)
• And as we get ready to debate  foreign policy, watch Jon Stewart take Tony Blair to task over the Iraq invasion  (from last night's Daily Show).

McCain-Palin: Even Conservatives Know  He's Lost It

• In the (Unintended?) Levity Department: Si se habla Espanol, por favor, eschucha esta entrevista en Union Radio en Miami y digame si que es la problema de Johnny Macque?  Did JM really not understand that Spain's Prime Minister Zapatero is not in Latin America?  Does he just not like his tie?  Or maybe he just think he's passing on tapas?  Y mira, check out this piece in El Pais.  This is, of course, getting more play in Spain than it is here.
• Yesterday, McCain laid the blame for the crisis at the feet of SEC chair Christopher Cox. "Regulators were asleep at the switch," says John McCain in his attempt to explain it all.  In his speech in Cedar Rapids, he also called "for creation of a new agency modeled after the Resolution Trust Corp. that handled the fallout from the savings and loan crisis." He said the new agency would be called the Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust."
• McCain says, "The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and has betrayed the public's trust. If I were President today, I would fire him."  I guess no one has told him that the President, um... doesn't actually have the power to fire the SEC chair? (ABC)
• In another "Ow-ee" moment, the  Wall Street Journal editorial board blasted McCain with the kind of sarcasm that, well, that you usually see ME using.  And I quote: "Wow. 'Betrayed the public's trust.' Was Mr. Cox dishonest? No. He merely changed some minor rules, and didn't change others, on short-selling. String him up! Mr. McCain clearly wants to distance himself from the Bush Administration. But this assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also un-Presidential." (WSJ)
• Christopher Cox is of course, not amused by McCain' critiques, but releases a remarkably level-headed response... compared to the WSJ. "The best response to political jabs like this is simply to put your head down and not lose a step doing the best job you can possibly do on behalf of those you serve." (HuffPo)
• McCain's history as one of the Keating Five: Remember them?  Five Senators accused of helping the head of the failed Lincoln savings and loan dodge Federal regulation and taking kickbacks from same? McCain was officially cleared of wrongdoing, but admonished for "bad judgment" in meeting with Federal regulators on Keating's behalf. (Phx New Times)
• Robert Scheer reminds us that  John McCain's stock in trade was always eliminating regulations: "McCain has been a master of the special interest giveaways to Wall Street that enabled this meltdown... he voted for abolishing all of the significant rules put in place at the time of the Great Depression designed to prevent a repeat. The two main bills accomplishing that, which McCain enthusiastically supported, were the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The Gramm is former Sen. Phil Gramm, chair of the Senate Banking Committee when he acted as chief sponsor of both pieces of legislation. The same Gramm that McCain picked to co-chair his presidential campaign." (SFGate)
• Even the most forgiving conservatives are turning against McCain. Conservative columnist Richard Cohen writes: "The John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised...His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that." Read it--seriously, it's a good piece. (WaPo)
• McCain "laboring to hit the right economic note:" "Mr. McCain has had to labor to get past the impression — fostered by his own admissions as recently as last year that the subject is not his strongest suit — that he lacks the experience and understanding to address the nation’s economic woes." (NYT)
• Earlier in the day, McCain came out, guns a-blazing,  about not using taxpayer dollars to bail out AIG. (ABC)
• Obama and McCain weigh in on the crisis. "People are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong," Mr. McCain told a rally in Jacksonville. "But these are very, very difficult times."  "We just woke up to news of financial disaster this morning and he said that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong?" Mr. Obama told voters at an afternoon rally here. "Senator McCain, what economy are you talking about?" (NYT)
• McCain clarifies what he meant he thought he was about to try to say: "Well it's obviously true that the workers of America are the fundamentals of our economy, and our strength and our future,'' he said. "And I believe in the American worker, and someone who disagrees with that – it's fine. We are in crisis. We all know that. The excess, the greed and the corruption of Wall Street have caused us to have a situation which is going to affect every American. We are in a total crisis.''
• Betcha didn't know McCain invented the BlackBerry-- and that was BEFORE he learned to use email....Says the NY Times, in a droll, one-sentence aside: "The original BlackBerrys were made by a Canadian company, Research in Motion."
• And on the subject of one of my bugaboos about the "McCain: Hero for All Time" stories, Mary Mitchell points out that if we're being asked to evaluate candidate McCain on his character based on his war-hero years, then we should also be told the the story of the shabby way he treated first-wife Carol. Maybe that's what attracted him to Cindy. Ariel Levy's profile of Cindy McCain in the New Yorker looks at her family matters. "Cindy McCain regularly calls herself an only child. In fact, she has two half sisters: Kathleen Portalski and Dixie Burd, Marguerite's daughter from a previous marriage. 'I feel bad about having a father that wasn't there, and then having my face rubbed in this—having her stand up and say she's an only child—makes it even worse,' Kathleen Portalski told me." Kathleen Portalski visited her father almost every day in the months before his death. When he died, Cindy McCain inherited the Hensley empire; Kathleen Portalski and her family received ten thousand dollars. Stephanie Portalski found that a credit card her grandfather had given her had been cut off days after his death.

Social Security

• Given the tanking markets, should we consider the wisdom of privatizing Social Security-- you know, cause we workers have been missing out on putting that money into the stock market and earning those high rates of return.
• A recap for those who don't remember: debate has raged over how to fund Social Security because if it continues at current rates, "starting in 2017, program expenses begin to exceed revenues."
• President Bush has pushed during his second term for a plan in which "up to four percent of taxable wages, up to a maximum of $1000, could be diverted from FICA and voluntarily placed by workers into private accounts for investment.... These personal accounts could be invested in various managed investment funds similar to the government employees' Thrift Savings Plan, in which the investor can choose between Treasury Bills, Corporate bonds and a stock market fund."
• Obama "opposed President Bush's privatization scheme because it would have undermined -- not strengthened - Social Security."
• In addition, McCain' position has been unclear and inconsistent on Social Security privatization. In March, he campaigned heartily in support of Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. But in June while at a town hall in Nashua he said: "I am not for quote 'privatization of Social Security.' I never have been, never will be. That is a great buzzword for an attack."  (Nashua Telegraph)

Electoral Aside

• Ever wonder who the electors are and how this electoral college thing works?  In case you've blocked it out after the 2000 and 2004 elections, here's an explanation.
• The elector selection process varies from state to state, but here's the system in California. Plus, how to become an elector.  

Toxic Asset Load

• Glenn Beck's hilarious explanation using Tickle Me Elmo Dolls: "It's just before Christmas,1996, and as you watch overeager parents trample each other to buy Tickle Me Elmo dolls for their kids, you see an opportunity. "This isn't a Tickle Me Elmo bubble," you think to yourself, "this is a long-term trend. Every person in America will soon own a Tickle Me Elmo, maybe even two. It's the American dream." You approach your local banker about a loan and, naturally, he loves your idea. In fact, he loves it so much that for every $1 you have in your account, he's willing to lend you $34. Great deal, you think, as you max out your credit line and buy as many Tickle Me Elmos as you possibly can..."(CNN)
• The New York Times has also assembled a panel with some "in English please" answers.
• How the crisis actually affects the average Joe's 401k: Do you need to be worried about your 401k or your mutual fund investments?  "It also might be time to review your risk tolerance: if you're tempted to move your money around on a difficult day, it might be time to rethink your stock allocation (in other words, you might want to lower it)." (NYT)
• Almost exactly a year ago, Robert Bruner wondered about Mr. "Irrational Exuberance" Alan Greenspan's part in the market woes: "Greenspan lowered interest rates aggressively in the early part of the decade. In the process, he stoked a speculative surge that some critics say caused the present market woes." (WSJ)
• Congratulations, America, you now own more junk.  the Fed just committed $85 billion of your tax dollars to bailing out AIG.  Why?  Because AIG-- the 18th largest corporation in the world, with holdings that include not just financial services, asset management and life insurance, but telecommunications and market-making--can't be allowed to fail.  According to Wikipedia, they are the world's largest leasers of aircraft, and the largest underwriters of commercial and industrial insurance in America.
• A major money market fund is warning that depositors could lose money. "The fund said that because the value of some investments had fallen, customers now have only 97 cents for each dollar they had invested. This is only the second time in history that a money market fund has "broken the buck" — that is, reported a share's value was less than a dollar." (NYT)
• How was your weekend? Dow is down 500 points today,  banking execs are in a moderated panic, brokerage firms are stumbling left and right,
• buying up any crappy mortgage-backed securities
• How the sub-prime mortgage crisis kinda works,  check out Wikipedia's diagram. The BBC also has a look at the crisis with lots of pretty graphs. Brits.
• What Buffett had to say back in April about the subprime mortgage crisis fallout: "Finance has gotten so complex, with so much interdependency. I argued with Alan Greenspan some about this at [Washington Post chairman] Don Graham's dinner. He would say that you've spread risk throughout the world by all these instruments, and now you didn't have it all concentrated in your banks. But what you've done is you've interconnected the solvency of institutions to a degree that probably nobody anticipated. (Money)
• Buffett also endorses Barack Obama and said, basically McCain would need a lobotomy to bring his (social justice) ideas in line with Buffett's. (CNBC)
• Even Alan Greenspan warns that this could be just the beginning: "But in and of itself that does not need to be a problem," he explained."It depends on how it is handled and how the liquidations take place.  And indeed we shouldn't try to protect every single institution.  The ordinary course of financial change has winners and losers."  Spoken like a true Ayn Rand-ian Objectivist. Greenspan, by the way, isn't supportive of McCain's plan to keep the Bush tax cuts in place.
• 158-year old Lehman Brothers, was forced to file for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch has gone and sold itself to Bank of America for half of what it was valued at last year, and A.I.G., America's largest insurance company, went begging to the Federal government for a $40 billion bridge loan. "The humbling moves, which reshape the landscape of American finance, mark the latest chapter in a tumultuous year in which once-proud financial institutions have been brought to their knees as a result of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses because of bad mortgage finance and real estate investments."
• The NY Times with advice on where to keep your cash, if you have any...
• Tulips, South Sea Trade monopoly, land speculation during the 1830s, The Knickerbocker Banking Panic of 1907: great market collapses in history. (Newsweek)

A Chance to Show  Your Quality: Part Deux

• McCain's appearance on the View is well worth seeing, just to see McCain's moment of realization that the "ladies of the View" are not here to give him a tea party. Watch Barbara Walters go after him on facts -- It's quite the sight.  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. (What does it mean when the toughest questioning a candidate gets in on "The View?") (YouTube)
• How far have you gone if Underhanded Sleazy Tactic Meister KARL ROVE says you've gone too far?? "McCain has gone in some of his ads -- similarly gone one step too far," Karl Rove told Fox News, "and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the '100 percent truth' test." He then realizes what he's saying and quickly adds that Obama's gone too far too. (CNN)
• Speaking of Codename: Turdblossom, get ready for the ugly.  Swift Boaters are readying ads against Obama.  "Republicans appear to have a head start. In April, Simmons, a corporate tycoon who had spent heavily on the Swift boat campaign, began holding meetings with other Swift boat donors to discuss renewing their effort for 2008-- meetings that included input from Bush's former strategist, Karl Rove." (WaPo)
• Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL. Frightening it is, how much Palin looks like Fey, and how Fey has got those Palinisms pretty much nailed. (Wired)
   
• And if you've ever wondered about McCain's second wife, Ariel Levy's profile of Cindy McCain looks at her family matters. "Cindy McCain regularly calls herself an only child. In fact, she has two half sisters: Kathleen Portalski and Dixie Burd, Marguerite's daughter from a previous marriage. 'I feel bad about having a father that wasn't there, and then having my face rubbed in this—having her stand up and say she's an only child—makes it even worse,' Kathleen Portalski told me." Kathleen Portalski visited her father almost every day in the months before his death. When he died, Cindy McCain inherited the Hensley empire; Kathleen Portalski and her family received ten thousand dollars. Stephanie Portalski found that a credit card her grandfather had given her had been cut off days after his death." (New Yorker)

Cosmetic madness

• It seems after Obama made a remark about McCain's "change" slogan being like "putting lipstick on a pig," McCain's camp immediately presumed he was referring to Sarah Palin, since she's the only one on a major party ticket who wears lipstick (Are you quite certain about that?) and they got their knickers in a twist (whoops--is that going to offend John, who is obviously the only one who would wear "knickers"?).  (ABC)
• Barack was just quoting Johnny Mac himself, who said the exact same thing about Hillary's healthcare plan.  (YouTube)
• Barack fires back about the Piggy Lipstick nonsense. "See it would be funny, it would be funny except, of course the news media decided that was the lead story yesterday. The McCain campaign would much rather have the story about phony and foolish diversions than about the future." Watch the video on MSN.
• And Obama makes an appearance on Letterman, looking much calmer and more relaxed than the rest of us feel! (Transcript here)
  Dave: "Yeah, they got together and they said, 'You know what? He called our vice presidential candidate a pig.'" (audience laughs) "Well, that seems pretty unlikely, doesn't it?"
  Obama: "It does. But keep in mind that, technically, had I meant it that way, she would have been the lipstick, you see? The failed policies of John McCain would be the pig."
• And speaking of the Palinista--SHE SPEAKS! Palin finally answers questions from what McCain was really, really, really hoping would be a sympathetic and softball Charlie Gibson on ABC.  I know,  Most of you don't even want to watch-- you can read the excerpts.
• Was Charlie tough enough? Ehn, coulda been more.  Did Sarah stumble? She made Charlie a little testy, it's true, but she also had her lines pretty well memorized.  Still there were some obvious bumps in the road. She kinda declared war on Russia (calling the Georgian invasion unprovoked--um, those Georgians are nice and all, but....even I wouldn't say "unprovoked"), couldn't figure out what Bush's doctrine was, and yes, she STILL says "nukular." 
• Gloria Steinem compares the Palinista to Phyllis Schlafly.  But she also reminds us "the culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine." (LAT)
• Andrew Sullivan has a nice piece about what this says about McCain' integrity: "McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base." (Atlantic)
• McCain' roomates have heard his war hero POW story too many times.  (FunnyorDie)

Poll madness

• For those depressed about the swinging poll numbers, YOU MUST CHILL.
  Keep the following in mind:
  •  Pollsters generally use land lines, but when most Americans, especially the young, have switched to cell phones, what demographic are they really capturing?
  • Pollsters SELECT whom they wish to poll based on demographics. Hardly anyone talks about the methodology of that selection process these days, although it's been pointed out as a problem as far back as 1980. 
  • More recently, HuffPo's Seth Colter Walls pointed out: "Gallup's tracking poll, USA Today and CBS News all show the Republicans with some kind of lead over the Democratic ticket. But, interestingly, all three polls were also conducted using a higher sampling of Republican voters than in July, raising a question of methodology. In a year in which Democrats have a lead of 11 million registered voters over Republicans, and have been adding to that advantage through a robust field operation, are pollsters over-sampling Republicans?"
  • "Is Candidate Name someone you would like to be friends with?" Are we in the middle of constructing a fantasy film. Revisit the Wall Street Journal's early August article "When Voters Lie," for some insights.

• Wonkette points out that, even with the "dismal" poll numbers, if Obama holds in all the states that Kerry won in 2004 (which I think is totally likely) and then takes Iowa (which seems pretty clear now), New Mexico (also a distinct possibility), and, say, Colorado (Hey, they had the convention there) Obama wins. You can pick other scenarios too.  All Kerry states plus Ohio. All Kerry states plus New Mexico and Virginia.
• Go ahead, try it, using the Washington Post's "Choose your own scenario" applet.
• Here's where the candidates have been spending their time. It's easy to pick out battleground states of course.  I think it's also interesting (looking at Ohio) to sort of cross-reference this with which counties in Ohio went for Bush vs. Kerry in 2004. Obama's spent more time in Ohio recently than McCain, but also made an effort to get to some of those red counties.
• Some Virginia county registrars are trying to keep college students from registering to vote in Virginia, a possible swing state, by telling them if they register in Virginia, they may lose their tax status as a dependent and possible scholarship money.. "In a year in which historic youth voter turnout is anticipated, and the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been propelled by college students' support, this case in the battleground state of Virginia is "not an isolated incident."

On the road again...

• Ads are flying thick and fast: Factcheck.org with an assessment of the newest McCain ad comparing Obama and Palin (hey, who's running against whom here??)
• Dems are working hard to register new voters. "Since the last federal election in 2006, volunteers like Graham combined with the enthusiasm generated by the Obama-Clinton struggle to add more than 2 million Democrats to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states." (AP)
• Where, oh where, do you really stand, Johnny Mac?? Brave New Films has a new segment out in which McCain is hoisted with his own petard, or with his own words, as it were.
• And through the magic of file tape and assiduously working interns, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart has put together a similar segment. 
• According to the Washington Post, Palin has billed taxpayers $16,951 as a "per diem" for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging for the allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. (WaPo)
• Palin was apparently unaware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were privately run companies. "Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had 'gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.'"
• Polls, polls, polls, polls... check out this graph, which shows an aggregate of polls (if the poll shows Obama leading there's a point above the center line, if McCain leads, it's a point below the line.)
• Political Arithmetik also points out that we should take into account if the poll shows LIKELY voters as opposed to REGISTERED voters.
• What would these troubled times be without a dollop of Michael Moore?  His Slacker Uprising, will be available to download for free on September 23. Watch the trailer here.
• Michelle Obama dancing on the Ellen DeGeneres show, because I am, after all, a dance critic..

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Economy

• Tax Policy Center

Media Bits
(in their own voices)

Obama-Biden

• Plan for Change Ad: "For many of you, our troubled economy isn't news."
• DNC Acceptance 2008: "What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me; it's about you."
• Speech in Berlin: "People of the world – look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."
• On Racism: "I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes."
• Launching his campaign: "By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail. But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible.  He tells us that there is power in words. He tells us that there is power in conviction. That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people. He tells us that there is power in hope."
• DNC Keynote 2004: "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America."

DNC Speeches

• Al Gore: "We have a candidate whose experience perfectly matches an extraordinary moment of transition."
• Joe Biden: "Like millions of Americans, they're asking questions as -- as ordinary as they are profound, questions they never, ever thought they'd have to ask themselves."
• Bill Clinton: "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."
• Hillary Clinton: "We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and accomplished too much."
• Michelle Obama: "All of us driven by the simple belief that the world as it is just won't do, that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be."
• Ted Kennedy: "The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on."

McCain-Palin

• John McCain: "You know, I've been called a maverick; someone who marches to the beat of his own drum. Sometimes it's meant as a compliment and sometimes it's not."
• "He's the biggest celebrity in the world" Attack Ad
• Paris Hilton's response
• Attacked by applesauce
• Defenders of Wildlife ad
• "Palin-McCain" Admin

RNC Speeches

• Cindy McCain:  "From its very birth, our party has been grounded in the notion of service, community, self-reliance..."
• Sarah Palin: "I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone... Here's a little newsflash for those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion."
• Mitt Romney: "What do you think Washington is right now, liberal or conservative? Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with constitution rights? We need change all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington."
•  Mike Huckabee: "Heck, I was in college before I found out it wasn't supposed to hurt to take a shower."
• Rudy Giuliani: "At exactly the right time, John McCain said, "We're all Georgians."
• Joe Lieberman: " The Washington bureaucrats and power brokers can't build a pen strong enough to hold these two mavericks."
• Fred Thompson:  "She has run a municipality and she has run a state. And I think I can say without fear of contradiction she is the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field-dress a moose."