Couric, Maddow and Cambell Brown

A good Salon article on the rise of female broadcasters in a year of female presidential candidates. Coincidence? Maybe. The author seems to really like Couric, who I'll admit totally rebounded w/ her Palin interview. But I still don't really care for her (and never even heard of her "awesome" DNC/RNC coverage). But I am a big fan of Maddow ... and have been wanting to check out Campbell Brown's new CNN show b/c I think I like what she has to offer.

George Will and Chris Matthews

I find this interesting ... aside from Will's hatred of McCain-Feingold, the rest of his critiques sound very familiar to me (especially the "role of the VP" critique that really bothers Matthews). Sounds like George isn't in McCain's camp (if he ever was). Do you think Rush would count Will as a "intellectuloid" ?? - to be flushed from the GOP forever?

The Obama-Infomercial

Got close to $30M viewers. That's more than usually tune in.

Front Page

Of the Washington Post online this morning:

Economy Shrinks at 0.3% Pace in Third Quarter
Sharpest contraction in seven years is less than investors expected, sending Wall Street higher.

Exxon Posts Record Profit
Oil giant's quarterly profit rises 58 percent as higher prices offset hurricanes' effect.

Post-America? Not so Fast.

Robert Kagan argues against the idea that American influence is on the decline - and thereby Obama's "realism" is an asset (as supporters like Zakaria argue). To the contrary, American Power is high, and both candidates will act as such. Some perspective is wanting.

Doomocrats and Republigrins

(via VH1) A new study shows that republicans are happier than democrats.

Meet Charles

Really great short on Charles, the guy from Boulder who got to meet Obama this weekend.

Toons

We Reap What We Sow

(from a loyal reader)

We reap what we sow. In 1980, Americans voted for change. As a result, a trifecta of Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Ronald Reagan brought together a perfect storm that ended the cold war. Yet, two decades of trickle-down economics and rampant deregulation have painted a beautiful facade of happy Americans in beautiful houses and gas-guzzling SUVs while the nation’s infrastructure and real quality of life has crumbled. Profit incentives coaxed the “best and the brightest” to fill their pocketbooks on Wall Street rather than contribute to modernizing the electrical grid or teaching preschool. Greed-laden business practices focused on quick profits for interim CEOs and the stockholders-of-the-week rather than solid, long-term planning strategies where individuals making the decision or writing the contracts would be responsible for failed risks. Tainted goods (often, mortgages) were sold off or bundled to secure additional holdings in hedge funds or other schemes wherein managers were eager to sell them off again for even more profit. For too many, the American dream is now a nightmare of credit card debt and mortgage foreclosures, not to mention the federal deficit we are passing on to our children and grandchildren. So, where are the true leaders who will tell us what we do not want to hear? True change can only come through true sacrifice – not just by our soldiers, but by shoppers too. Where are the leaders who will help us to rise above our greedy past, to spend less than we earn, to invest in one another - in real assets of human lives, not just in paper ones. We’ve asked the market to solve too many issues in which the models are incomplete. The markets of the last 25+ years have rewarded short-term transactions, not long-term commitments to the American family and the world at-large. I recently read, “Where have all the leaders gone?” by Lee Iacocca. In the book, Iacocca reflects on various lessons he has learned in life and challenges us to make our next decisions at the polls based on who we think fulfills his list of the 9C’s of leadership: Curiosity, Creativity, Communication skills, Character, Courage, Conviction, Charisma, and Common sense. Who has these? The Democrats have the strongest field of candidates who exhibit these qualities. We have heard a lot about “personal responsibility” in previous campaigns. However, the Republican version seems to have spoken to the introvert side in all of us. Whatever happened to shared-sacrifice? The Democratic version today truly puts “Country First” rather than self. I believe we crave leadership that will inspire us to rise above ourselves and rebuild this country into one that works for ALL of us and whose light shines bright again around the world.

Mayor K-J

Did you know Kevin Johnson is running for mayor of Sacremento!!

Be Careful How you Label Him

Yglesias has a good post. First off, we need to understand exactly how progressive Obama's platform is - it really is ... and if he gets a big win he should view it as a mandate for his agenda. But - Republicans may be messing up their chances to undercut that theme:

This is where I think some of the recent “socialism” scare talk and so forth gets interesting. Presumably, come January and February conservatives are going to be wanting to argue that Obama’s got no mandate, that Republican legislators have no need to fear him, and that Democratic legislators should live in terror of overreaching. To that end, it’ll be helpful to argue that Obama got elected as a tepid centrist. But in their last-ditch efforts to beat him, they’re doing the reverse, and dramatically overpainting Obama as a wild-eyed radical ready to unleash Marxism on the country. Well, if you spend a month or two running around saying that, and then the voters back the Marxist anyway, he’s got pretty much carte blanche to do what he wants if he wins.

Biden's Muzzle

I have always thought that Biden's reputation for gaffes makes it more likely that anytime he says something sort of off color the press jumps on it as a gaffe. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy. But - as Milbank explains - the Obama campaign sure has done a nice job of making sure Biden sticks to the script.

Now You're Cooking With Methane!

An excerpt in TNR from the High Country News on "biogas digester" - which captures methane from a family's outhouse for home cooking use. Especially good for poor countries. Good for the planet and good for sanitation.

Out of Many - Few

Rush Limbaugh is tickled to death that all the moderate GOP, elite, "intellectuloids" have jumped ship because he's happy to flush 'em out. Now he wants to keep them out, and put Palin in charge of rebuilding the Republican brand. You gotta read this diatribe.

Power Vote

Of course many people think their vote doesn't matter - and they can be right. But check out this chart on which voters really do have the best change of making a difference. New Mexico, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia voters get the most bang for their buck.

Toons

Rethinking Perception

Brooks picks up on the false assumption that we act from on our own self-interest (with perfect knowledge) when we make decisions. He thinks that we really need to re-evaluate how we "perceive" the problems in the first place.

ALSO: Did you know that Bono is going to be writing for on the NYT op-ed page in 2009!? David Brooks likes it! Maybe he'll fill the waste of space Bill Kristol currently occupies.

Toons

(via Cody)

Grizzly DNA

(via Yglesias) I too remember McCain mocking Grizzly DNA research in Alaska as an example of pork spending. This was right after I heard a report on the study on NPR. So, today Chris Hitchens has a piece on the value of these studies to the Endangered Species Act. Yglesias is right - (as I remember thinking when McCain brought it up) that McCain doesn't have any good examples of pork-barrel spending - not all pork is bad. As Yglesias rightly points out, the problem is with the system for distributing earmarks where powerful senators get to make the decisions - which is an effecient and disproportional way of distributing funds.

TR in 2008

(via Jbigglesworth) Teddy Roosevelt (his words at least) contribute to the NYT op-ed page. This is great - really creative - and fun to read.

Q. [...] What do you think of Senator John McCain? He often cites you as a role model.

A. He is evidently a man who takes color from his surroundings.

Q. Weren’t you just as unpredictable in your time?

A. (laughing) They say that nothing is as independent as a hog on ice. If he doesn’t want to stand up, he can lie down.

[...]

Q. Talking of foreign policy, what do you think of Mr. McCain’s choice of a female running mate?

A. Times have changed (sigh). It is entirely inexcusable, however, to try to combine the unready hand with the unbridled tongue.

Q. How will you feel if Sarah Palin is elected?

A. I shall feel exactly the way a very small frog looks when it swallows a beetle the size of itself, with extremely stiff legs.

Q. What’s your impression of President Bush these days?

A. (suddenly serious) He looks like Judas, but unlike that gentleman has no capacity for remorse.

Q. Is that the best you can say of him?

A. I wish him well, but I wish him well at a good distance from me.

Not To Get Ahead of Ourselves

New York magazine has a really good article by John Heilemann on the Obama transition team (led by John Podesta at CAP, characteristically disciplined and tight-lipped, and modeled after Reagan's), possible cabinet post fillings, legislative priorities and strategy, and possible obstacles. Let's just say it's a good thing all his staff is reading up on FDR.

fyi ... If you're in a hurry - the last 3 pages are the meat of the article.

Blah Blah Blah

Here's what McCain had to say to Iowans:

"You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words. We talk about offshore drilling and he said he would quote, consider, offshore drilling. We talked about nuclear power, well it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah."

Brooks Comes Clean

Brooks finally reveals why he's so disappointed with McCain - and probably explains why he's been so back-and-forth this election.

Here's JMB's take:

[I think] brooks just came clean in today's column. explains why he's been all over the map, at time praising obama (for filling the void brooks feels seen in politics), and then ripping on him (because he took ground that rightfully belongs to "progressive conservatives"). I agree w/ him in large part, but besides being a bit of any oxymoron--"conservative" comes up as an antonym for "progressive" in my dictionary--his title for that group of centrist voters could just as easily be "conservative liberals". I think he's just so disappointed w/ his party he's looking for another demographic to make up his base, so he's trying to pick up the genuinely independent and convince them they're in his camp.

Al Jazeera

Is pretty good at getting American's to say some crazy things on TV. During the primary they were reporting on the racist vote as well. But watch this ... this is bad.

Waaazzzzup: 2008

WATCH: Remember the Budweiser commercials way back when - wazzzup? ... waazzzzup? waazzuuuup? Well, here's the version after 8 years of Bush. Very funny.

SNL

Will Ferrel came back to do Bush on SNL. Here it is.

What Obama Has Learned

MUST READ: Joe Klein has an excellent piece on Obama in Time. Seriously, a great read: on how he has learned to go with his gut, confront others, speak to the people, and synthesize policy.

The Page

2 things caught my eye:

1) An Entertainment Weekly poll found that 18-24 year olds spend about 1/3 of their time watching TV election coverage

2) Palin is going to sit down w/ Hannity today. Now, it took her like 7 weeks to get on interview on NBC's Evening News (top of the ratings), still hasn't down MTP, Face the Nation, or anything on MSNBC (did CNN this week) - and hasn't done ONE press conference. Yet, she can become a regular on Hannity.

Ahhh-Nold Says No to Palin

(via Yglesias) Gov. Schwarzenegger says Gov. Palin is not qualified to be President. That's kind of low coming from a guy who has only a little more experience, used to be a sort of beauty queen (well, Mr. Universe?), and instead of dropping "g's" actually over-pronounces them, etc. I guess that you know you're in trouble when the Terminator can become a Governor and still have more political clout than you.

Why Don't They Sell These?

maybe they should be in cammo.

Toons

A Maverick is Born

(via Tranq) The Washington Post has a good piece on how the Keating Five scandal - more precisely, McCain's handling of it - really launched his career and image as a reformer. A really honest look.

Make Harvard Pay

George Will is interesting today. I think I'd rather have universities with large endowments (Harvard: $39B!) use that to lower the cost of education - sure. But I think George might be right on principle.

Axelrod Knows How to Run Black Candidates

TNR has an excellent medium sized piece on David Axelrod's success at running black candidates - and giving whites permission to vote for them. Remember all the hulabaloo over how Obama wasn't fighting back and going for the jugular when he was getting smeared by HRC and McCain? Well, it sounds like that's an old middle-of-the-road strategy that Axelrod has used succesfully many other times. It makes him look like a genious. A white guy who knows how to use a black guy's narrative to appeal to whites.

Coach Obama

(via Cody) It turns out that Obama picks a mean fantasy football team. ESPN's Rick Reilly teamed up with Barry for week 6. Unlike me, he can actually follow sports and politics at the same time.

Steve Schmidt's McCain Narrative

the NYT Magazine cover story this week is on the changing - and re-changing narratives of the McCain campaign. It really brought out the influence of Steve Schmidt on campaign (and shows why he's responsible for turning McCain from someone I really loved into someone I barely respect anymore). A good inside look at who made all the decisions - especially the Palin pick.

Leadership Crisis

(via Auntie S) CSM reports on a new survey has found that 80% of Americans think there is a leadership crisis ... all leaders.

Several years ago, the pioneering leadership scholar Warren Bennis wondered how it could be that the much smaller society at the time of the United States' founding could have produced six world-class leaders: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, and Franklin – while in recent times, he suggested, we seem to struggle to find even one or two.

Wall Mart Mom at Neiman Marcus

Did you guys hear that the RNC (through the same donor who's doing the robo-calls) spent $150K (this month I think) on clothes for Sarah Palin from Neiman Marcus and Saks 5th Ave?

E.T. : Energy Technology

(via Syd O). Friedman makes some good points today - jumping off with the fact that the low gas prices (although we love it!) are really not good at helping us break our oil addiction. We still need to push ahead w/ a green agenda, but that's hard w/o the political will that came with $4.50 gas.

Block the Vote

This weeks edition of Rolling Stone has a piece on the GOP efforts to block the vote for minorities and democrats. A good look into the voter laws and how they're used for GOP gain - especially important in the swing states. Read it!

Trust on Wall Street

(via Jbigglesworth) ... not Trust as in "bank and trust" - but the kind you learn in kindergarten. The Economist reminds us that the loss of trust on Wall Street is the major factor behind this crisis. And, like when you got in trouble with your parents as a kid - regaining trust is really hard to do. Also, there's a little bit of evolutionary psychology in there for ya to.

Toons

Cohen

I usually don't read his column, but this time Richard Cohen is pretty good. Pointing out how McCain is about to ruin the party just as Goldwater (also from AZ) did in '64.

Forget Plumbers

"Patio Man" is who David Brooks thinks is the key indicator of this election.

UPDATE: Yglesias is skeptical. Thinks it's a cover for Brooks being conservative and he's made-up a new moniker for a group of conservatives

House Minority Shake-up

Politico has the scoop on what may happen to the GOP leadership in the house if the Dems have a big win in 2 weeks. Boehner and Blunt out? Putnam and Cantor in?

Under the Bus

Bob Novak, of course, thinks that Gen. Powell never really was a Republican. . . obviously.

Why McCain Needs the Press

Yglesias had a good thought I forgot to post - essentially that McCain sometimes has really good views on complicated/minor issues that the elite media understands, gives him credit for, and explains it to the people. That worked well for McCain in the Senate when the Press loved him and could build up his reputation. But now without the press to make his case for him, as in the debates, McCain isn't good at explaining himself (see the "health" comment on abortion) so most of his comments and policies (and maybe even the good ones) go over the head of ordinary voters and let Obama fill the void by talking about regular issues in a way that voters understand them.

UPDATE: Joe Klein of Time just got banned from the McCain campaign plane (like the rhyme?) because he's been critical of the McPain ticket. But of course other Time reporters (like Halperin of The Page - a conservative) still have a seat. I guess Maureen Dowd was banned too.

Noonan, etc.

I've forgotten to post this. It's Peggy Noonan over the weekend, the latest in the Republican intelligencia to blast Palin. An old school, thinking, principled conservative, Noonan is one of the several "elite" Republicans who have endorsed Obama (as Powell and Chris Buckley have) or have been content to blast the GOP without outright jumping ship (Noonan and Brooks).

Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.

This "Nixonian" split within the GOP is fascinating. Ross Douthat has a great post in the Atlantic about how Sarah Palin has really divided the party, but how the grassroots need elites.

Here's the thing: The Republican Party will be a populist party going forward, or it won't be a party at all. But the more populist it becomes - the more figures like Palin and Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty replace the blue-blazer Republicans of yore - the more it needs an elite capable of preventing it from spinning away into anti-intellectualism, hidebound dogmatism, and pure folly.

This split was evident on Meet the Press Sunday when when Joe Scarborough claimed that the negative attacks were working until the economic crisis hit - and David Brooks claimed that McCain is losing because (as Powell mentioned) the GOP is "narrowing." As much as anything, those two represent the two prevailing wings of the Republican party.

Nixonland v. Obamaland

Howard Wolfson has a good short post over at TNR on how an Obama presidency would effectively mark the end of the Nixonian tactics (silent majority, culture wars, real Americans) that have dominated politics since the '60s. If he's right, then mark it up for the first promise Obama comes through on.

The Groundlings are Always Right

... unless they vote for Obama. Bill Kristol never ceases to fire me up. I'm not in the mood to de-bunk this nonsense reverse logic and probing class warfare.

Health of the Nation

Presidential Historian Robert Dallek wants Obama and McCain to make their medical records public. To back it up he offers some interesting Historical anecdotes on Wilson, FDR, JFK, Lincoln and Churchill.

The NYT explores the (lack of) candidates' records.

Unacceptable

(via Yglesias) in a mailer sent out by a California GOP women's group.

Brooks' Restrained Obama-Love

David Brooks always does this ... he hits the nail on the head, talks about how much he loves Obama, and then goes "yeah, well he could also really suck too." C'mon, stop kidding yourself just b/c your a Republican, David.

The Roast

In case you guys didn't see it, Obama and McCain were at the Alfred E. Smith dinner last night (the same Al Smith, the catholic, that got smoked when he ran for President in the 20s) and each gave a speech that was essentially a roast of themselves, their opponent, and politics. Well, if you didn't see it ... Obama's roast was pretty hilarious. Here's McCain's roast of Obama.

Colin Powell Endorsement?

He's going to be on Meet the Press Sunday, so there's speculation that he may give an endorsement (for Obama?).

Joe

(via Syd O)

A 21st Century Celeb

According to the NYT - Joe the Plumber isn't a licensed plumber! It's pretty sad, however, that a regular guy can't confront a politician without having the media look into his entire background. Although, the only reason the media looked into it is b/c conservative cites and Fox made Joe a hero and then McCain (and then Obama) brought him up a dozen times in the debate ...

The Onion - 1783 Ed.

The Onion put out a 1789 edition ... which is hilarious. Two choice cuts:

"Thomas Paine: I cannot help that women are oft attracted to a successful pamphleteer"

"General Washington hints at "bid" for "Presidency" in 1789"

The Debate

I thought Bob Schieffer was the best moderator so far, instead of the others who just insinuated conflicts, Schieffer put some issues front and center (Palin, Ayers, etc.). Also, did McCain have an Al Gore moment with his heavy "sighs"? Besides this, I think Yglesias is about right:

Unless I’m mistaken:

• McCain spoke derisively of the idea of “spreading the wealth” — he doesn’t want the non-wealthy to get a piece of the action.
• McCain scare-quoted “health” in the phrase “‘health’ of the mother,” and argued that concern for pregnant women’s health is an extreme position.
• McCain dismissed the idea of wanting nuclear plants to be safe as somehow obviously absurd.

All told, a weird performance that seemed directed at people already inside the conservative bubble — people who think that when the public says it doesn’t like Bush, they mean they think Bush has spent too much money.

UPDATE: Also McCain doesn’t know the difference between Down’s Syndrome and autism.

Word

It's Not a Crisis - Just a Panic

(via VH1) Greg Easterbrook explains. We have problems - but it's not as bad as we make it out (yet!) - and we should be lucky that countries will still lend us money to bail us out.

Gasoline Plentiful, Perspective Scarce: "Financial chaos is sweeping the world," a New York Times lead story said last week. I didn't notice any chaos in my part of the world -- every business was open, ATMs were working, goods and services were plentiful. There are economic problems to be sure. But chaos? Collapse? Next Depression? Please, media and political worlds, let's stop hyperventilating and show some perspective.

What is going on is a financial panic, not an economic collapse. Financial panics are no fun, especially for anyone who needs to cash out an asset right now for retirement, college and so on. But financial panics occur cyclically and are not necessarily devastating. The most recent financial panic was 1987, when the stock market fell 23 percent in a single day. Pundits and politicians instantly began talking about another Depression, about the "end of Wall Street." The 1987 panic had zero lasting economic consequences -- no recession began, and in less than two years, stocks had recouped all losses. (See John Gordon's excellent 2004 book on the history of financial panics, "An Empire of Wealth.") Perhaps a recession will be triggered by the current financial panic, but it may not necessarily be severe.

Politicians and pundits are competing to see who can act most panicked and use the most exaggerated claims about economic crisis -- yet the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are, in fact, strong. Productivity is high; innovation is high; the workforce is robust and well-educated; unemployment is troubling at 6.1 percent, but nothing compared to the recent past, such as 11.8 percent unemployment in 1992; there are no shortages of resources, energy or goods. Here, University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan shows that return on capital is historically high; high returns on capital are associated with strong economies. Some Americans have significant problems with mortgages, and credit availability for business could become an issue if the multiple bank-stabilizing plans in progress don't work. But the likelihood is they will work. When the 1987 panic hit, people were afraid the economy would collapse; it didn't. This panic is global, enlarging the risks. But there's a good chance things will turn out fine.

Why has a credit-market problem expanded into a panic? One reason is the media and political systems are now programmed for panic mode. Everything's a crisis! Crises, after all, keep people's eyes glued to cable news shows, so the media have an interest in proclaiming crises. Crises make Washington seem more important, and can be used to justify giveaways to favored constituent groups, so Washington influence-peddlers have an interest in proclaiming crises.

An example of the exaggerated crisis claim is the assertion that Americans "lost" $2 trillion from their pension savings in the past month, while equities "lost" $8 trillion in value. "Investors Lose $8.4 Trillion of Wealth" read a Wall Street Journal headline last week. This confuses a loss with a decline. Unless you cashed out stocks or a 401(k) in the past month, you haven't "lost" anything. Nor have most investors "lost" money, let alone $8.4 trillion -- crisis-mongering is now so deeply ingrained in the media that even Wall Street Journal headline writers have forgotten basic economics. People who because of financial need have no choice but to cash out stocks right now are really harmed. Anyone who simply holds his or her ground with stocks takes no loss and is likely, although of course not certain, to come out ahead in the end. During the housing price bubble of 2003 to 2006, many Americans became much better off on paper, but never actually sold their homes, so it was all paper gains. Right now many Americans holdings stocks or retirement plans are much worse off on paper, but will be fine so long as they don't panic and sell. One of the distressing things about last week's media cries of doomsday is that they surely caused some average people to sell stocks or 401(k)'s in panic, taking losses they might have avoided by simply doing nothing. The financial shout-shows on cable tend to advise people to buy when the market is rising, sell when the market is falling -- the worst possible advice, and last week it was amplified by panic.

We've also fallen into panic because we pay way too much attention to stock prices. Ronald Reagan said, "Never confuse the stock market with the economy." Almost everyone is now making exactly that mistake. The stock market is not a barometer of the economy; it is a barometer of what people think stocks are worth. These are entirely separate things. What people think stocks are worth now depends on their guess about what stocks will be worth in the future, which is unknowable. You can only guess, and thus optimism feeds optimism while pessimism feeds pessimism.

There is no way the American economy became 8 percent less valuable between breakfast and morning coffee break Friday, then became 3 percent more valuable at lunchtime (that is, improved by 11 percent), then became 3 percent less valuable by afternoon teatime (that is, declined by 6 percent) -- to cite the actual Dow Jones Industrials swings from Friday. And the economy sure did not become 11 percent more valuable Monday. Such swings reflect panic or herd psychology, not the underlying economy, which changes over months and years, not single days. For the past few weeks pundits and Washington and London policy-makers have been staring at stock tickers as if they provided minute-by-minute readouts of economic health, which they do not. It's embarrassing to see White House and administration officials seemingly so poorly schooled in economic theory they are obsessing over stock-price movements, which they cannot control and in the short term should not even care about.

Consider this. On Black Monday in 1987, the market fell 23 percent. If you had invested $100 in a Dow Jones Index fund the following day, it would be $460 now, a 275 percent increase adjusting for inflation. That's after the big slide of the past month, and still excellent. So don't panic, just hold your stocks. And if you'd invested $100 in real estate in 1987, it would be $240 today, a 30 percent increase adjusting for inflation. That's after the housing price bubble burst. A 30 percent real gain in 20 years isn't a great investment -- until you consider that you lived in the house or condo during this time. To purchase and live in a dwelling, then come out ahead when you sell, is everyone's dream. Not only do stocks remain a good buy, America on average is still coming out ahead on the housing dream. (This example uses the Case Shiller Index for the whole country; because housing markets are local, some homeowners have lost substantial ground while others enjoyed significant appreciation.)

Economic problems are likely to be with us for awhile, but also likely to be resolved -- the 1987 panic and the 1997 Asian currency collapse both were repaired more quickly than predicted, with much less harm than forecast. Want to worry? Worry about the fact that the United States is borrowing, mainly from foreign investors and China, the money being used to fix our banks. The worse the national debt becomes -- $11 trillion now, and increasing owing to Washington giveaways -- the more the economy will soften over the long term. It's long-term borrowing, not short-term Wall Street mood swings, that ought to worry us, because the point may be reached where we can no longer solve problems by borrowing our way out. TMQ's former Brookings Institution colleague Peter Orszag, now director of the Congressional Budget Office, was on "Newshour" last week talking about the panic. Orszag is a wicked-smart economist -- for instance, he is careful to say pension holdings have declined, not been lost like most pundits are saying, as if there were no difference between decline and loss! The below exchange occurred with host Jeffrey Brown. Remember these words:

PETER ORSZAG: One thing we need to remember is we're lucky that we have the maneuvering room now to issue lots of additional Treasury securities and intervene aggressively to address this crisis.

JEFFREY BROWN: Wait a minute. Explain that. Lucky in what sense?

PETER ORSZAG: That people are still willing to lend to us. If in 20 or 30 years we continue on the same path, with rising health-care costs and rising budget deficits, we would reach a point where we wouldn't have that ability.

A Worse Option

Neil Postman

(via Syd O). From Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, does this sound familiar?

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

Bill Ayers

(via Syd O) A Trib columnist has a great post showing the hilarity of saying "Obama is hanging around with terrorists"

If Ayers is a terrorist, then McCain is an adulterer and I am a 6th grader.

The Nut Behind the Obama - Islam Connection

(via KKP) this guy is a nut! Really, IL wouldn't admit him to the bar ... yet he's fueled all these rumors.

The Hunter/Fisher Vote

I picked up a copy of Field &Stream yesterday and read their interviews with McCain and Obama. I thought the questions were pretty fair while hitting on the issues outdoorsman care about (conservation, gun rights, access, etc.). F&S has a policy not to endorse a candidate, but I would have really been interested to hear who they'd have endorsed. I know hunters and anglers go overwhelmingly for Republicans, but I think that is starting to change with the GOP's disregard for public land access/conservation and environmental policies. Read the interviews - Obama, far from an outdoorsy guy, has an impressive grasp of actual conservation issues (CRP, exploration, wetlands protection) and did a great job explainining the "clinging" gaffe, and also was very honest about his views on the assault weapon ban, the gun-show loophole and his views on the 2nd amendment (which should satisfy any non-militia gun owner). McCain on the other hand was way more generic ... he talked a lot about the Grand Canyon, and Sedona while totally dodging a question about opening up the Rocky Mountains to oil/gas exploration (which he referred, on accident I presume, as exploitation). He did have specficis on wetland conservation ... but tied it into Katrina and New Orleans (not exactly big outdoorsman destinations).

Anyway. I thought it was a good read. I am just continually impressed how Obama is able to go to constituencies that have been traditionally republican and beat them (in my view) at their own game. He won't bring over all these voters, but he's going to make some in-roads to be sure.

An Obama Flag

(via Marinade) Looks like some people thought Obama had made his own cool looking flags for his stump speeches. While it was really just the Ohio flag... voters ...

The Gingrich Backlash

David Brooks discusses how the Dems - in charge of the White House and Congress, and dealing with an economic catastrophe - will submit to the liberal wing of the party and increase deficit spending and the national debt. I think his options are right, but I also think - as a Republican - he's trying to predict the worst outcome for conservatives.

A Buckley for Obama!

E.J. mentions in his column that Christopher Buckley - ex George HW Bush speechwriter - and son of Wm F. Buckley is going to vote for Obama! Because he feels he has to "separate the Right from the kooks!"

That's where this is all going. And I like it.

Dean David Broder

Broder has a nice column talking to Pennsylvania voters - and you see that all the HRC voters have now gotten to know Obama better, agree with his policies, character, and of course prefer his economic focus. Most (even some Republicans) are terrified by Palin. Only a few die hard Republicans are still for McCain (b/c he "puts country first" - so you know they at least like his slogan).

Baltz

Dan Baltz - one of the most prestigious reporters in Washington - just suggested that since the race is over, the press should focus their attention on Obama and give him higher scrutiny. Chait over at TNR breaks down the double standard.

What'd I Miss?

I read Kristol's column last night and didn't think to post it b/c he pretty much suggested McCain fire his campaign (can't hurt) and run around the country doing televised townhalls. To me this would seem like the last act of a desperate man ... and would emphasize his erratic behavior. So I brushed it off. But then today I heard Andrea Mitchell referencing the column on MSNBC and Kristol himself was a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation today. So, I guess it was far-fetched enough to get some news.

The Man Turns Around

I'm no fan of Christopher Hitchens - for many reasons, mostly b/c he's been a right-of-center guy who likes to talk like Wm. F. Buckley and usually doesn't blow me away with insight (although I do commend him for being waterboarded). Anyway - he's now advocating for Obama. A good piece. The funny thing is that McPain has had a horrible time keeping the GOP coalition together because he's been inconsistent. He lost the base w/ his maverick appeal, lost the intellecutal republicans with his base appeal ... it's a constant seesaw. Now you're seeing more of the GOP intellectuals backing off of McCain...

Toons

(via TSM) Did Lehman's CEO really get physical?

Women of a "Certain" Age

(via KKP) ... go for Hillary, right? Wait-no, McCain?

As the gender gap widens, check out the 106 year old Nun who's voting for Obama.

Follow Britian's Lead

Krugman says Gordon Brown has the right idea - an equity injection - for the financial crisis. Of course, after all the hullabalo over the $700B, Paulson is now falling back on the same solution. . . glad we went through that whole exercise.

As I said, we still don’t know whether these moves will work. But policy is, finally, being driven by a clear view of what needs to be done. Which raises the question, why did that clear view have to come from London rather than Washington?

UPDATE: Krugman wins a Nobel Prize!!

Food Policy

MUST READ: the NYT Magazine has an excellent article on how the environment, health care, energy, war, and trade all stem from Ag policy and our eating habits.

But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food.

This article gets me all fired up. A man after my own heart. I've thought (and argued) that Food and Ag Policy can have many - wide ranging - positive effects on the BIG issues that we'll face over our lifetime. Remember, only 50 years ago all Americans ate local, organic, healthy, food that supported integrated communities and rural families and industry. Federal policy has great influence over food policy - and has forced the shift from local permaculture foods to cheap, unhealthy, bifurcated systems that sacrifice ecological efficiency for economic efficiency that only takes us as far as as cheap fossil fuels are willing to subsidize. Now that cheap oil is a thing of the past, it's time to return to a modern version of an agrarian society -- and the author has some fantastic policy proposals to get us there.

I Say Erster

The CSM has an interesting article on attempts to restore oyster habitat in the NY harbor. Oysters filter the water, but are dying off due to disease and lack of habitat.

Matthews 2010?

My man Chris Matthews was on the road w/ Obama in his home state of Pennsylvania this weekend...

NYT Op-Ed

Frank Rich is always a great read ... on the budding racism of the McPain campaign.

Maureen Dowd - in the first I've ever seen - has 3/4 of her column in LATIN!

Tom Friedman on how the fall of the Berlin Wall contributed to the credit binge.

McCain Can't Find 100 Economists to Endorse His Plan

(via Yglesias)

This is pretty funny — the McCain campaign’s letter of 100 economists warning of the dire impact of Barack Obama’s policies on the economy is only signed by ninety people.

Note that the American Economics Association has over 17,000 members. And the McCain campaign wasn’t being very discriminating in looking for signatories — many of the people listed work at rightwing think tanks and as Jon Chait observes, two list their affiliation as “McCain-Palin 2008.” This means that out of thousands of economists in the United States, McCain wasn’t able to scratch up even 100 to sign his document. And then on top of that, the economists who are supporting McCain don’t support his new housing scheme.

SNL on Thursday?

I wanted to see SNL spoof on the Sydney McCain/Hussein Obama townhall debate yesterday, but it was a re-run. It turns out the skit was put out on Thursday.

Here it is.

UPDATE: look for Bill Murray and a Cubs pennant question.

Barack Osama

(via Marinade) is how the candidate's name was spelled on hundreds of absentee ballots sent out in OH this week.

36% Percentile!

(via TB). Now, this could totally be a fake ... but someone has discovered Sarah Palin's High School S.A.T. scores .... you'd think they're fake, but then again a 425 verbal sounds about right.

Brooks

His column today follows up on some themes he mentioned at the Atlantic lunch the other day - he anti-intellectual side of modern conservatism. It's a good read:

And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away.

Trooper-Gate is a Go

The results of the Alaskan trooper firing scandal will be released today - it looks like First Dude was bugging Sarah's staff to fire the brother in law. Not good for McPain.

Halloween Is Going to Stink This Year

(via Marinade)

Health Care is Not a "Right?"

Read this over at NRO. Allow me to sketch some thoughts off the top of my head (a rough thesis bouncing around):

First off, no one argued that health care was a right under the Constitution (and that's not what Brokaw asked in the debate). However, assuming that's what we're talking abou, no one believes that the Constitution depicted the end-all-be-all (to use a Palin phrase) of rights. Lots of people look at the constitution as naming "negative rights" - what the gov't can't do (as the author points out) - but not address "positive rights" of which health care would be a part. Futhermore, the 10th Amendment reserves all other rights not delegated to the Feds are reserved to the States - this implicitly acknowledges that there are rights other than those expressed in the Constitution. Healthcare could be of this sort.

Second. You could interpret healthcare as a human right. I recognize the watering-down effect of tossing around "rights", but at the same time, we can recognize the existence of rights outside of a legal or constitutional framework. I think healthcare would be among these ... along with rights to life, dignity, work, expression, etc.

Lastly, rights, by definition aren't necessarily essential for survivial (i.e. food, like the author brings up) in a Maslow's heirarchy of needs sense ... rights aren't those things that enable survival (though they may exist in a state of nature) - but rights are those that are recognized and helped defined by civilizations...

Cross Your Fingers: Obama 9-1 Favorite

Yes, things are looking way better since the Palin bounce. Stay cautiously optimistic. Nate Silver wraps up the polling data - and it's good - for TNR.

Greenspans' Greenbacks

The NYT has an good piece on how Greenspan is to blame (to different degrees) for the financial crisis - specifically by refusing to regulate derivatives. I remember after Clinton left office and it was between W and Gore a lot of people (especially a Tom Toles cartoon) claimed that it didn't matter who won, as long as Greenspan was still the Fed Chairman.

“The sudden failure or abrupt withdrawal from trading of any of these large U.S. dealers could cause liquidity problems in the markets and could also pose risks to others, including federally insured banks and the financial system as a whole,” Charles A. Bowsher, head of the accounting office, said when he testified before Mr. Markey’s committee in 1994. “In some cases intervention has and could result in a financial bailout paid for or guaranteed by taxpayers.”

How to Diagram a Sarah Palin Answer

(via Meals)

The Fox gets Hounded

(via Halperin) Obama spokesman Bill Burton goes at it on Fox and Friends this morning over the Ayers stuff. Dern right he's a good spokesman - I like to see him take the fight back and show how rediculous Faux News can be.

But Will He Get His Security Deposit Back?

AP reports that President Bush signed an executive order to turn the keys over to whoever is elected President Nov. 4. ... No, this is not from the Onion.

Say it to His Face, John

Biden is going off on McCain for talking smack about Obama on the trail, but then not saying it to his face on national tv.

“In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.”

Sen. Franken

(via VH1) Wow. Norm Coleman is getting smoked! A big donor was buying his suits - and his poor press guy looks horrible trying to get around it all.

Hey Paulson - Buy My Worthless Sh$t Too!

(via CIA) Check out this site ... maybe Hank will buy your "toxic" crap too!

Downstate Barry

(via TT) The Washington Post has a nice profile piece on Obama's adaptation in Springfield, IL from an outsider to an insider ... how he learned to play the political game, learned how to golf, learned how to play hardball, and learned how to play poker w/ the good ol' boys. And in the end he learned how to get things done and came away with a bunch of accomplishments.

The Real David Brooks

Yes, I'm starting to really like Roger Cohen, but Brooks is my perennial favorite NYT columnist. TNR has some video of his comments at an Atlantic luncheon seemingly doing a 180 from his column last week on "Palin's Rebound" ... this clip is the real Brooks, calling Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party". Watch it. And the Huffington Post has some more exerpts from the lunch that you should read (including how he predicts Obama's win by 9, loves his intellect, Niehbur knowledge, VP pick, and the team of advisors).

My New Favorite NYT Guy

Roger Cohen has been a man after my own heart lately. He just met w/ the Zapatero, prez of Spain, and comes away from it feeling truly patriotic and full of the promise of America, the promise that only one candidate can exploit...

I just did what John McCain has suggested he might not be prepared to do. I sat down with the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and talked to him for an hour.

I’m pleased to report that I and several New York Times colleagues survived. National security between the United States and our NATO ally was not, to my knowledge, compromised.

George Will

...asks McCain: "is this it?" Not to happy with McCain's performance, and even throws out the fact that if Obama wins 350 electoral votes it would actually be closer to the historical norm than the nail-biters we're used to.

Rolling Stone on McCain

(via Carmi and EH) Here is a good compilation of 9 McCain reversals/double-talk express. This expose is a scarring account of McCain's bad judgment and erratic behavior - and concludes he's worse that W:

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

I usually don't rely on RS for political stuff - but this piece is pretty interesting: womanizing, crashing many planes, confessing in Nam, flip-flopping ... I've heard a lot of it corroborated before, but a lot is new info. Scathing.

Palin on Greta

I started watching Sarah Palin on Greta Van Susteren ... I couldn't take it... don't even want to waste anymore time on the subject...

McCain-isms

He also said "my friends" 22 times according to Hardball

The Professor

Noam has a great post in the TNR how last night's debate was actually a huge plus for Obama because he used to be a professor. That's usually been a knock on him, but last night he actually got to answer questions, look people in the eye, work the crowd, and move easily about. This, in comparison to McCain's hobbling and terse language, really showed a difference that wasn't apparent when McCain was doing "town-halls" w/o Obama next to him.

Taxes Pay for Civilization

(via Syd O) Tom Friedman picks up on Palin's "paying taxes isn't patriotic" statement (for the record I thougtht she said paying higher taxes weren't, but anyway) - and he has a nice defense of paying taxes. Also a shot at Palin's "energy expertise." It's here.

My Debate Take

First things first - the drinking game was a success :) I'll be refining it for the third and final one next week (when Obama says "Pahkistaaaan" is a front-runner).

Now to the debate:I first want to explain how much I dislike the format. It's not a real town hall - although the questions were fine - you really don't learn much. It's 2min with a 1min rebuttal and NO FOLLOW-UPS. So essentially the candidates just have enough time to cram in their TPs and message ... and anything misleading or wrong they say can't be challenged by the moderator. Lehrer, Ifill and Browkaw all know their stuff and could have really added something to the debates by calling them out when they stray and making them keep to reality instead of their campaign message.

I think McCain started off strong and Obama a little weak. McCain started off on the attack - but Obama sort of brushed it off. Early on Obama actually answered the questions (except when he rebutted McCain's tax lies and then McCain said he'd be the one to actually answer the questions) - while McCain started out mostly going back to talking points. I listened to the economic crisis bit on the radio so I didn't see McCain answer the question ... but on replay I think the fact that McCain told a young black guy "you've probably never heard of Freddie Mac and Fannie May before" won't come off so well.

I give McCain a lot of credit for not going as negative as the rest of his campaign - and I think that's a credit to McCain - he will certainly mischaracterize a record - but its not in him to really venture into the gutter.

The time when the momentum swung to Obama - in my view - was when Obama answered the question about whether health care was a right ... and then talked about his mom dying of cancer. From there, Obama gained momentum and did a great job talking about the middle class and foreign policy.

Then - at the end of the debate, McCain darted out and Obama and Michelle stayed for 15 minutes and took pictures and signed autographs for the Navy vet and almost everyone who was there ... he looked a lot more comfortable with the regular folks.

Meet the Mavericks

(via Syd O) the NYT has a piece on the original Sam Augustus Maverick and his progressive progeny. Also includes the history of the term (a Texan who refused to brand his cattle, so maverick came to mean "a man with no man's brand" ... it didn't tell you that that allowed him to round up all the other's cattle!). Anyway - a good short read.

The Sociology of Wall Street

Brooks believes in society - that society molds people and societies, so it's not surprising that he analyzes the culture of Wall Street. This is when he's at his best and I really like his view from 30,000 ft. Good read. Although his last sentence is unfair - only McC is talking about Ayers and Wright ... Obama's talking about the same stuff Brooks is!

Tonight's Debate Drinking Game

You can all join along - suggestions welcome. Here are mine:

Drink when you hear:

- "My Friends" (McCain)
- "Folks" (Obama)
- "The notion" (Obama)
- McCain implies he knows foreign policy b/c he was a POW
- Obama says the "administration of George Bush and John McCain"
- When McCain says "greed"
- if either one says "credit crunch" "market to market" or any other actual specific causes of the crisis that ordinary people don't undestand- take 3 drinks
- "sub-prime" drink 1
- when Obama says "John's right - but..."
- take a whiskey shot if McCain actually makes eye contact with Obama
- drink when McCain makes a bad joke
- McCain says Obama will raise taxes
- If McCain brings up Ayers or Wright or says "patriotic"
- When you hear "Wall Street" and "Main Street" in the same sentence
- if Tom Brokaw is wearing a pimp pocket square - start the debate with a shot of whiskey :)

Sen. Hagel for Obama?

(via Yglesias) We're not sure yet ... but his wife has endorsed him! Remember, Colin Powell has still yet to endorse as well.

Debate Format

(Via the Lynn Sweet of the Sun-Times):

–The questions will be culled from a group of 100 to 150 uncommitted likely voters in the audience and another one-third to come via the Internet. Brokaw selects which questions to ask from written queries submitted prior to the debate.

–The Gallup Organization makes sure the questioners reflect the demographic makeup of the nation.

–An audience member isn’t allowed to switch questions and will not be allowed a follow-up either. His or her microphone will be turned off after the question is read and a camera shot will only be shown of the person asking — not reacting.

–The moderator may not ask followups or make comments.

–McCain and Obama will be provided with director’s chairs, but they’re also allowed to stand. They can’t roam past their “designated area” marked on the stage and are not supposed to ask each other direct questions.

2 Views of McCain

(via Halperin) Both are great articles about the downward turn of our ex-favorite, John McCain. We've got Joe Klein in TIME .... and John Heilemann in the New Yorker. In short - McCain has been pretty deplorable by condoning such negative adds (which also wasted his media love and straight-talk image). If McCain wants to bring up "associations" then that's risky, b/c Palin and he have some odd associations of there own. Thus, the Keating Five ads that are starting to pop up to pre-empt McCain's low ball attacks on Obama. At lest the K5 scandal has some relevance today witht he Wall Street crash ...

Low Expectations

Kipling and Palin

Roger Cohen has a cool article on universal truths, Rudyard Kipling, and Sarah Palin. . . I've really enjoyed reading him lately.

McCain's Healthcare Plan

In case you're not familiar with McCain's plan for totally rearranging healthcare in the U.S. (in a bad way), read Krugman.

And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “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.”

I Hate this Guy

But he's right - for once. (via TPM) I never read Charles Krauthammer's article from last week - well, I never do b/c it's never worth the time. But this neocon actually, if begrudgingly, is acknowledging that Obama is going to be better than McCain.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." [...] [Obama's] got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.

'08 Hinges on Colorado

(via Medium) At least according to Stuart Rothenberg's RCP column.

SCOTUS Open for Business

The Supreme Court starts hearing arguments this week. The only case that caught my eye was the on questioning whether it was right to forbid the Navy from using sonar harmful to whales in its training exercises. The list of this weeks' cases is here.

Frank Rich

He's only on once a week - but makes it worth it! His column picks (as typical) covers several topics - the McCain Michigan withdraw, Palin's gimmicks, McCain's health questions, etc. - but most importantly reminds us that now the race is between Obama and Palin ... McCain is too obscure ... and that bodes well for Barry.

UPDATE: Nick Kristof has a nice column also on "unconscious racism" that may be at work

a careful survey completed last month by Stanford University, with The Associated Press and Yahoo, suggested that Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white. That’s significant but surmountable.

Sarah's Syntax

Mo Dowd has a really good column tearing apart the wacky English Sarah Palin uses. Some choice cuts:

Darn right. And that, doggone it, brings us to a shout-out for the latest virtuoso of Frontier Baroque, bless her heart, the governor of the Last Frontier. Her reward’s in heaven.

Then she uttered yet another sentence that defies diagramming: “It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there.”

She dangles gerunds, mangles prepositions, randomly exiles nouns and verbs and also — “also” is her favorite vamping word — uses verbs better left as nouns, as in, “If Americans so bless us and privilege us with the opportunity of serving them,” or how she tried to “progress the agenda.”

SNL Nails It

MUST SEE TV: Check out SNL's spoof of the debate .... again Tina Fey is awesome.

It's About to get Ugly

The McCain camp said they're about to go on the offensive - and Palin just said Obama hangs with terrorists. You can bet on more Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright stuff to come up. So - read this NYT profile of the Obama - Ayers relationship.

Perspective

Just got an email on how much a "billion" is. This hit home: one billion seconds ago it was 1959!

The Dean Has No Idea What He's Talking About

Maybe David Broder was a really insightful reporter back before I followed politics (he and Novak are the most frequent guests on MTP) - But I can't remember the last time he has contributed anything to the political debate. Today's column is just stupid. For a smart guy - he's way out on a limb.

Ifill

Yglesias catches my sediments on how Gwen Ifill (who I usually really like) did moderating the debate: sub par -

I’m not sure if Gwen Ifill was cowed by the rightwing mau-mau brigade or what, but I thought Ifill’s handling of the debate was pretty disappointing. Palin was clearly operating with a game plan that involved simply refusing to answer certain questions in order to drift over to her pre-prepared text, and Ifill didn’t ask any followups or challenge either candidate to address the questions she was asking. Indeed, at time Ifill was barely even asking questions — just suggesting topics.

As I predicted yesterday the lack of followups allowed Palin to avoid any Couric-style gaffes. All of her bad screwups in interviews, after all, came during followups. If she becomes president and, miraculously, manages to get through a term in office without ever needing to address a topic outside the three or four things she’s comfortable talking about she might even do a good job.

Conservative Take

This is the best Gerson - W's former speechwriter - can say of Palin.

Here are the NRO editors saying that she actually made "arguments" on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan ... really?

Here's Byron York.

David Brooks, who thought she did fine, at least passes the straight-face test. But this comment is fun:

As the historian Ellen Fitzpatrick pointed out on PBS Thursday night, if, in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro had spoken in the relentlessly folksy tones that Palin used, she would have been hounded out of politics as fundamentally unserious.

...oh how far we've come!!!

The Debate

Wow. Biden was beautiful. Palin is embarrassing. Seriously: a joke ... and its frightening that she even shared the stage with Joe. And Joe almost cried. Who's relate-able now.

There's a bunch of stuff to read out there and I'm open to suggestions. But I think Noam sums it up nice:

No question Palin helped herself tonight, but that's only because she had so far to climb. If you're grading on anything other than a massive curve, Biden wins hands down.

The beauty of Biden is that he can go blow for blow with Palin on ordinary Joe-ness, then actually know what he's talking about when he answers questions. Palin talks about the mean streets of Wasilla, Biden talks about the mean streets of Scranton. Palin talks about her son in Iraq, Biden talks about his son in Iraq. Palin talks about being the mother of a child with special needs, Biden talks about being a widower with two badly injured boys. Every time you thought she might claim an emotional advantage, Biden evened the emotional score.

But, man, ask the woman to grapple with a substantive question and you worry she's going to hurt herself. My favorite Palin response of the night:

IFILL: What has this administration done right or wrong -- this is the great, lingering, unresolved issue, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- what have they done? And is a two-state solution the solution?

PALIN: A two-state solution is the solution. And Secretary Rice, having recently met with leaders on one side or the other there, also, still in these waning days of the Bush administration, trying to forge that peace, and that needs to be done, and that will be top of an agenda item, also, under a McCain-Palin administration.

Israel is our strongest and best ally in the Middle East. We have got to assure them that we will never allow a second Holocaust, despite, again, warnings from Iran and any other country that would seek to destroy Israel, that that is what they would like to see.

We will support Israel. A two-state solution, building our embassy, also, in Jerusalem, those things that we look forward to being able to accomplish, with this peace-seeking nation, and they have a track record of being able to forge these peace agreements.

They succeeded with Jordan. They succeeded with Egypt. I'm sure that we're going to see more success there, also.

It's got to be a commitment of the United States of America, though. And I can promise you, in a McCain-Palin administration, that commitment is there to work with our friends in Israel.

Right: Forge that peace, no second Holocaust, two-state solution, capital in Jerusalem. It's like she's just randomly spewing every talking point she's ever uploaded on Israel. (Which I'm guessing is what happened.)

Biden by contrast, hit the same question out of the park: The Bush administration legitimized Hamas by holding an election in the West Bank, then let Hezbollah fill the vacuum in Southern Lebanon by not using NATO troops. Checkmate.

I also thought Biden was brilliant at poking through Palin's tax blather, which was more or less the only thing she had to say about economics:

Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie's Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody in there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years. And then ask them whether there's a single major initiative that John McCain differs with the president on. On taxes, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the whole question of how to help education, on the dealing with health care.

Just terrific stuff. It's a simple choice: Change versus more of the same. Everything else is noise.

My completely impressionistic take on Palin's performance tonight is that it mirrorred her campaign performance so far (if not quite as dramatically): When Palin started off, you thought, "Wow, she seems so fresh--so human and easy to relate to. How can we compete with that?" Then, as the debate wore on, you thought, "Hmm, okay, she still seems human, but not quite what I'm looking for in a vice president." And, by the end, as the vacuous answers piled up, it was more like, "Good God, keep this woman away from the Oval Office." Which is the story of the last month, too.

Palin just isn't a candidate who wears well over any extended period of time, whether it's a 90-minute debate or a 60-day campaign. The reason is that she only has one mode: human and relateable. That's fine when the topic is middle-class pain. But there are whole classes of issues--foreign policy chief among them--where human and relateable aren't what you're looking for, even if you're an uninformed voter.

--Noam Scheiber