September 2008

"I don't think me calling House Republican members would have been that helpful. I tend not to be that persuasive on that side of the aisle." - Barack Obama, acknowledging he doesn't know how to do bipartisanship and that his whole post-partisan gestalt is about as fact-based as the Easter Bunny.…

Politico's Crypt blog reports both Obama and McCain will be back in D.C. for a vote on the bailout. This is the plan according to a Senate GOP aide: The Senate will vote on the economic rescue plan tomorrow night after a series of stacked votes starting at 7:30. The structure is this: The Senate…

If we can't trust her to tell the truth about her lip liner, what can we trust her on? H/t Allahpundit, whom I am sparing the musical stylings of Hinder by not adding a "Lips of an Angel" YouTube to this post.

Steve Waldaman, the editor of Belief Net, writes that this ad produced by BornAliveTurth.org "doesn't prove what it intends to prove." Links to a FactCheck.org "Before the law: a baby who had a pulsating umbilical cord but who would not - in the view of the doctors - survive would be allowed to…

Regardless of whether a bailout passes, this is a message that has to get out, not just for McCain's sake, but for the sake of capitalism in our country. In the clip used in this ad, Clinton was asked if the Democrats weren't being just a bit disingenuous by saying it was "unbridled capitalism"…

The McCain campaign has a new "web ad" out that mocks Barack Obama for a comment he made yesterday. After weeks of mocking John McCain for his claim that the fundamentals of the American economy are strong, Obama said yesterday: "After this immediate problem, we've got the long-term fundamentals…

On MSNBC this morning, John McCain said: "I think Americans have yet to fully understand this [bailout] is not in the interests of Wall Street or Washington insiders." During his remarks today in Des Moines, McCain provided a couple examples of how the credit crunch affects ordinary voters: keeping…

From Ezra Klein's blog comes this lovely"let them eat cake" gem from Robert Borosage, co-Director of the lefty activist group Campaign for America's Future: The bail out will take place simply to avoid that depression. But depressions have some salutary effects - the scoundrels go belly up, the…

If he manages to get through Thursday's debate without saying something insane, I will be floored: As he exited the hotel for his dinner break, Biden was asked "Senator, can we get your reaction to the House bill not passing?" Biden interrupted the question with a "Hey folks," to reporters and then…

In addition to the report in the New York Times that Obama , linked by Mary Katharine, The McCain Report points out

There's an astounding admission buried in this NYT account of the failed bailout vote yesterday: Aides to Mr. Obama said he had not directly reached out to try to sway any House Democrats who opposed the measure. But where Mr. McCain had accused Mr. Obama of taking a hands-off approach to the…

Mark Leibovich reports: There were a few cringes within Obama World over the weekend after Bob Shrum, the longtime Democratic operative, essentially placed Barack Obama in the White House. ... It was Mr. Shrum who planted this memorable Election Night kiss of death onto John Kerry in 2004: 'Can I…

The rise of new powers in recent years has led to the theory of economic decoupling. The theory says that, as places like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and to a lesser extent Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries rise, they are less dependent on the American economy. Problems in the American…

The presidential race remains highly volatile. A recent Diageo/Hotline poll found 23 percent of voters are undecided and another 9 percent saying they still might change their minds. Now, that doesn't mean over a third of the electorate are truly swing voters. Partisans in this crowd will probably…

First, some bad news: TWS contributing editor P.J. O'Rourke has been diagnosed with cancer. The good news: The cancer is highly curable, and O'Rourke has written a very funny and thoughtful LA Times op-ed in light of his diagnosis. Get well soon. (Hat tip: Mark Hemingway)

Drop what you're doing and read Republican consultant Mike Murphy's extremely entertaining column in this week's Time magazine. It's about the strange rituals associated with prepping candidates for debates. Here's a taste: It is vital that your candidate not hear your opponent's answers for the…

Marc Ambinder notes that both Obama and McCain now favor raisng the FDIC cap from $100,000 to $250,000.

Jonathan Martin reports the RNC will spend $5 million airing the ad in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Indiana.

Wise words from Megan McArdle on Nancy Pelosi's failure of leadership yesterday on the bailout vote: Pelosi screwed up royally. She is the Democratic Tom DeLay. Newt Gingrich was an ideologue, but Tom DeLay was simply a partisan, most keenly interested in maximizing his party's political power.…

SO HERE'S THE state of play as the Great Depression redux edges ominously closer. The Paulson Plan failed today, with a solid majority of Republicans voting against it. The opposition Republicans fall into two camps:

No one wants to take ownership of the task of rescuing the economy right now. The Bush-Paulson plan has failed. The administration, House Democrats, and House Republicans (above all) have all proved unable to deliver. But there is someone who might be able to save the economy--and incidentally the…

Reps. Boehner, Blunt, and Cantor just held a press conference, during which each of them blamed the loss of at least 12 Republican votes on Pelosi's floor speech, which struck a partisan tone that made teetering Republicans set their teeth and vote against her. Republicans largely pulled their…

The tally with just a few seconds remaining in the original voting time is 213 Nays and 192 Yeas with only 26 votes remaining. Update: In the words of President Bush, "this sucker's going down." 228 against, 205 for, with one not voting. There would have to be some serious arm-twisting in the next…

Andy McCarthy writes: Orwell must be having a good laugh today. Nancy Pelosi yesterday released a summary of the bailout. Under the heading of "Protection for Taxpayers ..." Madame Speaker includes this whopper (my italics): The scheme "[a]llows the government to purchase troubled assets from…

The extent to which Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama himself are avoiding blame for this crisis despite symbiotic relationships with those who caused it is truly amazing. The nerve with which they hold forth about "unbridled capitalism" and…

The Sunday Times reports that over the weekend book publisher Martin Rynja had his London home firebombed by three Muslims who found one of the books his firm is publishing to be blasphemous: Security officials believe Rynja was targeted for assassination because his firm, Gibson Square, is…

Post-debate "snap" surveys aimed at determining a "winner" are in vogue given the proliferation of polling by media outlets this election cycle. But what do the results really mean for the November election? Pollster.com summarizes the five post-debate polls (and a focus group) from last Friday…

If you think it's just the mainstream American media that are strongly biased against Governor Sarah Palin you need to take a look at Palin's press coverage on the other side of the Atlantic. Journalists and commentators in Europe have now gone completely negative on John McCain's female running…

Ahem, this is not a parody entitled "The Seduction of the Swing States" (emphasis mine): The rain pouring down, his jacket off, his white dress-shirt clinging to his body, Barack Obama played to a crowd in a state that hasn't elected a Democrat since 1964. At this rate, how long before press…

Herzliya, Israel

About a year ago, I bought a broken edition of the works of Joseph Conrad on eBay. It was quite cheap even though it was missing more volumes than the seller thought. The "Medallion Edition" is widely stated to be 20 volumes, a reprint of the collected edition that Conrad himself corrected for…

The Hamburger:

CLIMATE COMPLEXITY

A few weeks before the Republican convention, Time magazine asked Sarah Palin what her religion was. "Christian," she said. Asked whether she was any particular kind of Christian, she replied, "No. Bible-believing Christian." Ever since John McCain asked Palin to be his running mate, her religion…

When Barack Obama announced his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007, he promised to change the practice of American politics.

The Lost Art of Walking

Friends and tradesmen, not to mention clients, have all been asking me the same question in the past few weeks. Is this 1929? Are we headed for a depression?

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs .  .  . ," then you could be the next president.

Whenever the NAACP, People for the American Way, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Public Citizen Litigation Group intervene in a lawsuit, it is safe to assume they believe much is…

The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement

Do they think this is a debate they're actually going to win? Do they imagine the Catholic theologians of America--from Avery Cardinal Dulles all the way to Sister Sara Butler--are suddenly going to whack their heads and say, "My God, we never thought of that"? What impulse makes Catholic…

Righteous Kill

Three weeks ago at the Democratic National Convention, Lilly Ledbetter delivered a soliloquy on "fair pay" for women--a cause the Democrats are certain to highlight in the coming weeks of this increasingly woman-centric campaign. She's the "grandmother from Alabama" and former supervisor at a…

It took Conservatives in Great Britain a decade to restore their party's good name. It is taking Republicans a far shorter time--perhaps only two years--to begin a significant comeback. Who's responsible? For sure, John McCain and Sarah Palin have played major roles. But so has a Republican who was…

Now that the dust is beginning to settle from the whirlwind descent of Hurricane Sarah, it may be time to stand back a little and assess in perspective what the moose-hunting beauty from Wasilla, Alaska, has wrought. Things will change between now and November, but she has already had a sizeable…

A Man You Could Love

Have You Hugged Your General Today?

Given that the bailout bill is largely agreed upon as a necessary "crap sandwich" that "sucks," it is worth noting that conservative outrage did succeed in stripping the most egregious pork from the bill- funds in an "affordable housing trust fund" that could have gone to Democrat-allied and often…

A 110-page bailout bill, negotiated by Congress under the glare of global investors and an election-year spotlight, will come up for a vote in the House Monday. A week into wrestling over how to save the financial sector from a meltdown while simultaneously shielding themselves from the political…

Nancy Pelosi announced today at a Democratic press conference long on self-aggrandizement and short on self-awareness, that the deal is done, and the text is online. Predictably, the government we're counting on to rescue world markets with a plan crafted in one week has not been able to craft a…

Sarah Palin is a governor, which means she has as much foreign policy experience as Kathleen Sebelius, Tim Kaine, Tim Pawlenty, and Mike Huckabee. In other words: not much. As the New York Times's Alessandra Stanley gleefully observes with meticulous detail (shockingly in a way never given to any…

Well, this would be welcome news. That would be in line with the new, more fiscally conservative direction of talks today, according to the Post: Talks also focused on a new issue: how to cover the cost of the program so taxpayers don't get stuck with the bill. As to the "Wall Street tax," which…

Reports are coming in that a deal is on the horizon, due to a marathon negotiating session that went through much of Saturday evening and into Sunday morning: House and Senate negotiators have reached tentative agreement on a financial rescue plan after a marathon Capitol negotiating session that…

And it's a whopper! Jules Crittenden provides the report: Washington Post's live fact check finds Obama out-and-out wrong on several counts but has to parse and pick apart assiduously to find McCain at fault. Whatever. A telling exercise. Where it gets bizarre is in the grand finale, this…

Marc Ambinder looks at the exchange last night between Barack Obama and John McCain on Henry Kissinger and Iran. In short, Obama claimed that Kissinger agrees with him -- not McCain -- on whether the US should engage Iran without preconditions. Kissinger responded with a statement last night.…

I've received phone calls in the last hour from two economists I respect, one of them Larry Lindsey, the other in a position where he'd prefer not to be named. Both have government experience, neither is alarmist by nature, and they say this:

I've received phone calls in the last hour from two economists I respect, one of them Larry Lindsey, the other in a position where he'd prefer not to be named. Both have government experience, neither is alarmist by nature, and they say this:

Far be it from me to differ with the punditocracy's mainstream, but I happen to feel that last night's debate was a pretty big win for John McCain. I'm aware that most observers have called it a draw, agreeing that both men performed rather ably. I'm also aware that the polls show a majority of…

Far be it from me to differ with the punditocracy's mainstream, but I happen to feel that last night's debate was a pretty big win for John McCain. I'm aware that most observers have called it a draw, agreeing that both men performed rather ably. I'm also aware that the polls show a majority of…

John McCain said several times during last night's debate that Barack Obama simply doesn't understand many of the subjects at the heart of the presidential race. It was quite clear that McCain was trying to paint Obama as naive and risky and he hammered that theme -- Obama "doesn't understand" --…

In the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, the two men who would lead America for the next four years, one of the main points of contention was the worldview of a man who shaped U.S. foreign and national security policy three decades ago. And Henry Kissinger is not happy.

Winning isn't enough. To gain from a presidential debate, there must be sound bites that appear on TV day after day and show your opponent in an unfavorable or embarrassing light. John McCain was better than Barack Obama in their first presidential debate last night. But the debate produced no…

Jim Lehrer asks the candidates what spending programs, if any, they might limit or cut in light of the $700 billion bailout and other budget constraints. John McCain suggests a partial budget freeze. Barack Obama responds: "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need…

Round 1: Where do you stand on the Paulson bailout plan? Obama says that Main Street was suffering long before Wall Street and that we have to move swiftly and wisely. Also, he says that he's put forward proposals to make this plan work better, most importantly to make sure we bail out the…

IN THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, the two men who would lead America for the next four years, one of the main points of contention was the worldview of a man who shaped U.S. foreign and national security policy three decades ago.

Here's the video of an awful moment for Obama. I'm surprised more haven't mentioned it in post-debate coverage, but it's something that likely hit some viewers on a gut level and could easily go viral. His answer was flippant and his gesture embarrassing.

Round 1: Where do you stand on the Paulson bailout plan?

Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: "Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on…

In post-debate wrap-up, I'm getting a couple things from most commentators. One, all three networks have mentioned the fact that Obama repeated, "John is right," throughout the debate. The McCain campaign has already released an ad to capitalize. I noticed several sound bites that stood out, but…

McCain hammered Obama on Obama's pledge to meet the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, and Cuba without precondition; Obama responded that Kissinger supports this policy. Goldfarb points out that Kissinger actually said: "I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state…

I didn't catch exactly what Obama said, but I thought he said he favors funding missile defense. That seems to contradict this pledge he made during the primaries. I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not…

From Obama: "John is right." From McCain: "What I don't think Obama understands is..." One lends itself to an ad better than the other one, no? Update: Dang, that was fast!

There's been a bit of back and forth between McCain and Obama on Obama's failure to hold any hearings on NATO or Afghanistan in the foreign relations committee. Obama pointed out that he's merely the subcommittee chairman; Joe Biden is the chairman. But Biden slammed Obama during the primaries for…

Wow, that is not how Obama should have followed up on John McCain's poignant and personal story about a mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, who asked McCain not to let her son's death be "in vain." I've got to believe that sound bite did not sit well with many people listening- pro-mission families…

I was glad to see McCain make some of these contrasts so successfully. McCain: I have fought against earmarks for my entire career, and he's asked for $932 million. Obama: Hey, have I told you about how I oppose tax cuts? McCain: Lowering business taxes is necessary because if a business can get an…

What was meant to start as a discussion of the serious financial crisis turned into a 10-minute discussion of John McCain's fiscal strong suit- earmarks. He has been able to tout his anti-pork record, while Obama has had to try to change the subject, and endured his $932 million-dollar figure being…

The media is finally amending reporting from yesterday that claimed there was a deal on the bailout package yesterday, the evidence for which was that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd said there was a deal and the media believed them. ABC's Jake Tapper, one of the good ones, says "Sen. John McCain's…

Whew, just in time to pander in Pa.: Campaigning in Pennsylvania coal country on Thursday, the Democratic vice presidential nominee said the government should steer more money to clean coal - a term used to describe a variety of emerging technologies that burn coal for electricity without producing…

The House GOP is still pitching alternatives, the most prominent of which is Eric Cantor's, R-Va., insurance plan. After meeting today, the GOP emerged with a new negotiator who claimed support from McCain on the House Republicans' new tack: GOP leader John A. Boehner, whose members gave him a…

The LA Times reports Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates -- defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups. The…

Ben Smith reports that Seamus Boyle, president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, has sent John McCain an angry letter in response to the senator's telling of an Irish joke in Scranton: It was a great meeting but when you began your speech with a joke about the Irish, I and many of our fellow…

This is Day Two of his snit fit over McCain's "Late Show" cancellation. McCain, of course, decided that Wednesday night, in the face of an impending economic crisis, might not be a great time for him to be yukking it up with a late-night host. Letterman was peeved enough to bring noted…

Name the talking point, he's on it. Yesterday, he laid at least some of the blame for the subprime mess on Congressional Democrats mess: CHRIS CUOMO, ABC NEWS: A little surprising for you to hear the Democrats saying, "This came out of nowhere, this is all about the Republicans. We had nothing to…

THERE WERE TWO separate rallies taking place at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, on 1st Avenue, Tuesday, to mark the second day of protests of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the United Nations. Both consisted of Iranian-Americans calling attention to the grave human rights atrocities perpetrated by the…

Speaking of arguing against interest...This article shall be there defense against cries of bias from now until Election Day. "Bias? Remember that one time we wrote about Barack Obama's ads critically? Now, leave me alone while I investigate Sarah Palin's aunt's citation for hunting out of season."…

Well, I confess I didn't think John McCain would debate tonight. The deal seemed too far off this morning to plausibly claim that it was close enough for him to fly down to Mississippi. It undercuts his original argument about the paramount importance of coming to an accord on a bailout that he's…

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0908/Frank_Republican_Party_is_in_shambles.html But as Republican congressman Jeb Hensarling points out, the Democrats don't need the Republicans "It is ludicrous to think that House Republicans are ‘holding up' any sort of deal, as Democrats falsely claim.…

McCain will fly to Memphis this afternoon for the debate. The campaign's statement after the jump.John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign was made in the hopes that politics could be set aside to address our economic crisis. In response, Americans saw a familiar spectacle in Washington. At a…

Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center argues 2008 is the most unpredictable election in decades. "In every recent election the public has accurately picked the winner by this time in the cycle," he wrote yesterday. And as the chart below demonstrates, since 1992, by pretty healthy…

I've always maintained that if we wait long enough, eventually we'll see George W. Bush blamed for everything that has gone wrong in the world, ever. Exhibit #5,246 is this: magician/mentalist/oddball David Blaine blames Bush for the failure of "Dive of Death" stunt on Wednesday night.

The McCain campaign is now trying to broker a deal between House Republicans, Treasury Secretary Paulson, and the Democrats. This will be tough--but it's worth a shot.

The McCain campaign is now trying to broker a deal between House Republicans, Treasury Secretary Paulson, and the Democrats. This will be tough--but it's worth a shot.

There aren't many outfits as arrogant, self-important, and aggrandizing as the unelected Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), sponsor of tonight's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. When John McCain said Wednesday the debate might have to be delayed so he could work on the financial…

Jay Cost of the "HorseRaceBlog" on RealClearPolitics.com delved into an area where few mainstream political commentators tread--farm state politics. His post was entitled: " Does McCain Have a Rural Problem? "

NO MATTER WHAT deal is finally cut between Hank Paulson, the Democrats, and unhappy conservative Republicans, or even if no deal at all is finally worked out, market capitalism as practiced in the United States will never be the same. Well, "never" might be too long, so let's say it won't be the…

PRIMARILY ORGANIZED BY the Evangelical left, a summit called "Religious Faith, Torture and Our National Soul" convened in Atlanta on September 11 to inveigh against the Bush administration's allegedly pro-torture policies.

Harry Reid on Tuesday: "We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do." Reid on Wednesday: "it would not be helpful at this time to have [Barack Obama and John McCain] come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics…

Watch the Fox News report John posted on how we got into this mess, and then chuckle at Obama's quote to the AP: "Keep in mind House Democrats and Senate Democrats and me and the leadership are all pretty burned up about this thing," Obama said at a news conference after the TV interviews. "This…

Politico's Patrick O'Connor reports that Democratic House financial services committee chairman Barney Frank slammed John McCain for engaging in the bailout negotiations: "McCain is Andy Kaufman in his Mighty Mouse costume - 'Here I Come to Save the Day,'" Frank said as he left a Thursday morning…

Yesterday afternoon, I went to CNN to talk about bailout politics. When I arrived, I was surprised to learn from the other two panelists -- CNN's Gloria Borger and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank -- that a deal on an amended version of the Treasury Department's $700 billion bailout plan was…

The Obama campaign's legal counsel has demanded that radio and TV stations ban anti-Obama ads produced by the NRA.

Bush says he hopes everyone will reach an agreement "very shortly." He spoke briefly to reporters at the beginning of the meeting with the presidential candidates and Congressional leaders. Negotiators are starting to define the strings attached to this package: The tentative accord would give the…

If you've been reading the Arts section of any newspaper, you've probably read about Damien Hirst's auction at Sotheby's, (in)famous for bypassing galleries and dealers and for racking in so many pounds-111.5 million, to be exact. Hirst named the show "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever," but Lee…

Mark Blumenthal updates his battleground state poll of polls this morning. Like Real Clear Politics, he loads new surveys in his modeling every day to produce a new "average" result by state. According to Blumenthal, 12 states now fall into the "toss-up" category: Four show a statistically…

In the wrestling match for credit, Dodd and Barney Frank got out in front this morning, declaring a deal on basic principles for a bailout before McCain's and Obama's meeting with President Bush, and overselling the extent of the agreement somewhat in the process: House Financial Services Chairman…

Politico's Martin Kady II reports that top negotiators in the Senate, Republican Robert Bennett and Democrat Chris Dodd, have reached an agreement on a government bailout of the nation's financial system, granting extraordinary powers to the secretary of Treasury to purchase hundreds of billions in…

A few weeks ago I suggested to my blog friend Kathy Nelson that she read the excellent SNL oral history, Live From New York, as it contains some revealing bits about Al Franken. I had read the book years ago, however, and had forgotten how damning some of the stuff in it was. Kathy has the goods.…

Obama attended the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Here's what Louis Farrakhan, a man who endorsed Obama, had to say: Ranged from the bizarre ravings commonly associated with paranoia schizophrenia: In the background is the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial, each one of these monuments is 19…

So in this election year, cannot even the crossword puzzle escape bias? As Americans across the country take their pencils to the daily puzzle, they are more likely to find themselves filling the grid with the name of the senator from Illinois for its "wonderfully convenient alternating series of…

HERE'S THE SITUATION we McCain-sympathizing/Paulson-plan-skeptics/populist-inclined/but we've-got-to-be-responsible-in-a-crisis types face:

Here's the situation we McCain-sympathizing/Paulson-plan-skeptics/populist-inclined/but we've-got-to-be-responsible-in-a-crisis types face: 1. Something probably needs to be passed soon. 2. There are almost certainly superior alternatives to Paulson or even (especially?) to Paulson-as-modified…

Jim Treacher has a fall-over-funny, Onion-esque item: Misspelling Found in Palin's Personal Journal By Markos Moulitsas Special to the New York Times Saturday, September 20, 2008; A1 Media Bubble, Sept. 20 -- John McCain's presidential campaign is reeling this morning upon allegations that his…

Via Byron York, Bill Clinton was asked by ABC about McCain's decision to postpone the debate and said: "I presume [McCain] did that in good faith since I know he wanted - I remember he asked for more debates to go all around the country, and so I don't think we ought to overly parse that." Video…

From the "If Sarah Palin had said it" files: Fox News's Aaron Burns reports that during a speech in which Biden accused McCain of being "dangerously wrong" on foreign policy, the Delaware senator's gaffes "included saying that President Bush sent a US envoy to Iran, and that the chairman of the…

Bob Schieffer reports: I am told, Maggie, that the way McCain got involved in this in the first place, the Treasury Secretary was briefing Republicans in the House yesterday, the Republican conference, asked how many were ready to support the bailout plan. Only four of them held up their hands.…

File this in the ever-growing "it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren't-so-serious" that characterizes the Bush administration's second-term foreign policy. After North Korea publicly promised earlier this week to restore its nuclear facilities "to their original state," senior US negotiator Chris Hill…

It's Joe Biden spokesman David Wade's thankless job to defend his garrulous gaffe-master of a boss. Here's Wade in action: "Joe Biden is getting the job done every day, and I guarantee Joe Biden will be Mr. October. He's a closer. He's the vice presidential nominee you want slugging it out in the…

Radley Balko argues that our current mess isn't due to the failures of capitalism, but to a "corporatist socialism" abetted by the fiscal irresponsibility of the same elected officials who now want to "solve" the mess with more government. If any private corporation employed the same accounting…

There's a reason voters in presidential races tend to shy away from electing senators. The primary skills of a legislator--talking, compromising, "representing"--are different from those of an executive--deciding, choosing, "executing." There are individuals who have the ability both to deliberate…

THERE'S A REASON voters in presidential races tend to shy away from electing senators. The primary skills of a legislator--talking, compromising, "representing"--are different from those of an executive--deciding, choosing, "executing." There are individuals who have the ability both to deliberate…

LAST THURSDAY NIGHT Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stood surrounded by the bipartisan leadership of Congress to announce that a consensus had emerged that drastic action was needed to save our financial system. On Saturday the first vague details of that action began…

John Podhoretz takes on the already congealing conventional wisdom that McCain suspended his campaign in response to a couple of bad polls.

From the Boston Globe: In response to a question from an American student about whether he supports Democratic nominee Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, Ahmadinejad did not explicitly name Obama but said: "The American government 28 years ago decided on its own to cut its ties with Iran . .…

Recordings of bin Laden reciting his penwork were found on some of the 1,500 cassettes discovered in Kandahar, Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. Flagg Miller, an assistant professor at University of California, Davis, has been studying them and will publish his findings next week in the…

Sen. Joe Lieberman on Hannity: I think this is a great act of leadership by John McCain, this is the guy I've come to know and love for 20 years here in the Senate, over and over again when there's a problem not being solved he gets in the middle of it. And I'll tell you that this thing will not be…

Today, after John McCain announced that he's suspending his campaign and returning to D.C. to focus on passing legislation to address the economic crisis, Harry Reid said that it wouldn't be helpful to have the presidential candidates at the negotiating table: "it would not be helpful at this time…

Well, John McCain has thrown his "country first" curveball, suspending his campaign, taking his ads down, and saying the debate should be delayed if necessary. At first I thought Obama's only decision was between looking like a superficial spoilsport by continuing the campaign as planned or coming…

This is what playing the race card looks like: Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because "anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks." "If Sarah…

John McCain is suspending his campaign and wants to delay the first debate (now scheduled for Friday night) in order to focus on the financial crisis. Here are McCain's remarks as prepared for delivery in New York City today: America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We…

In response to Joe Biden's statement that he and Barack Obama are not supporting clean coal because it's "killing" Americans, the McCain campaign produced this ad: Very nicely done.

Via Ben Smith, Bill Clinton tells CNN's Larry King in an interview about his plans to help Obama win Florida: "You know, they think that because of who I am and where my politic[al] base has traditionally been, they may want me to go sort of hustle up what Lawton Chiles used to call the 'cracker…

Rather than simply donate money to a campaign, you can purchase an accessory from a company that gives part of the proceeds to your candidate or political party. Designer BYLU created chunky, colored enamel bracelets stamped with gold graffiti-style "Obama '08." The bracelets cost $100 each and $50…

McCain-Palin campaign lead pollster, Bill McInturff, and Director of Strategy, Sarah Simmons, conducted a conference call this morning in response to the ABC News/Washington Post poll released today showing Barack Obama opening up a 52 percent to 43 percent lead over John McCain. McInturff sees the…

This Friday night John McCain and Barack Obama meet in the first presidential general election debate in Oxford, Mississippi. The subject: national security. The stakes are high for both camps--or are they? Political scientist Tom Holbrook argues that despite all the emphasis on the debates, these…

Please don't construe what follows as an endorsement of the richly flawed Paulson Plan, but… Over the years, we've all gotten accustomed to Democrats referring to every single spending boondoggle as "an investment." You know the drill - we need to invest in infrastructure or we must invest in…

ABC's Jake Tapper and Matt Jaffe report that Joe Biden is the gift that keeps on giving: "I think we're going to be up very late counting votes," Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., told a kettle of lawyers Tuesday night at a fundraiser for the Democratic Victory Fund hosted by the American Association of…

Via Hot Air, Fox News's Jim Angle reports:

"Our nation has a long and proud tradition of news organizations that are ideological and partisan in nature, the Huffington Post and the New York Times being two such publications." --- The McCain Report

A Democratic legislator in Alaska who sponsored a bill to require the state to pay for the cost of examining the victims of rapes and collecting evidence has told the press that Wasilla, the town where Sarah Palin was mayor, resisted this measure: "It was one of those things everyone could agree on…

Mark Steyn has some rather pointed observations regarding John McCain's political maneuvers during the economic crisis: I dunno about a nine-point lead, Kathryn, but clearly the Obama campaign self-destruct effort managed to stall during Bailout Week. As a general rule, when economic matters are in…

Politico's Ryan Grim reports: After months of demanding that Democrats lift the ban on offshore drilling, Republicans have gotten their wish. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) told reporters Tuesday evening that Democrats were removing the ban from the continuing budget…

AS CONGRESS WINDS down its current session, there's little doubt that plenty of bad ideas will pop out of the woodwork as members put the finishing touches on legislation. Unfortunately, one of the worst ideas to come down the pike in quite some time--federal windstorm insurance--has gained some…

MUSLIMS IN BRITAIN were reportedly incensed over the release of a computer game called "Muslim Massacre," advertised by its creators as a "game of modern religious genocide." The game, available by free download on the Internet, urges players to "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the…

In blog post on Barack Obama's (very misleading) ad attacking John McCain on stem cell research, Ben Smith writes: "Though Palin and the largely irrelevant Republican platform are staunch opponents of stem cell research, McCain has historically supported the research -- the source of the McCain…

How many times, since Sarah Palin was tapped as John McCain's running mate, has the press suggested that she's a "young-Earth" creationist who believes humans and dinosaurs roamed the Earth together, and what's the basis for the accusation? The smear first circulated as a ridiculous viral e-mail…

Jason Furman, a senior economic adviser to Barack Obama, didn't use those exact words. But how else to interpret this comment about the current financial mess that he gave the Washington Post? "This is a major fiscal problem in the short run, but it doesn't alter the long-term fiscal picture."

Following the July 2007 Democratic debate during which Barack Obama said that as president he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea without precondition, Joe Biden told National Review's Byron York that Obama's statement was "naive": Sen. Joseph Biden, who has…

In response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN, Barack Obama says in a statement released by his campaign that he's disappointed Ahmadinejad was allowed to speak (emphasis mine): "I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad's outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he…

...wolves are more equal than caribou, says the Humane Society in its endorsement of Barack Obama. The Humane Society Legislative Fund's president writes that the group has never before endorsed a presidential candidate, but Sarah Palin simply poses too great of a threat to animals: While McCain's…

Financial Meltdown.jpg

Blogger "Angry Bear" has received an explosive communiqué: Dear American: I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need…

In light of the decision in the UK to provide preliminary sex education for six-year old schoolchildren, the Times Online asks five children where babies come from and gets some priceless answers.

In Southwest Virginia on Sunday, Joe Biden told the United Mine Workers: "I am a hard-coal miner, anthracite coal, Scranton, Pa.," Biden said. "It's nice to be back in coal country. … It's a different accent [in Southwest Virginia] … but it's the same deal. We were taught that our faith and our…

Via Ben Smith, another brilliant Biden quote from his interview with Katie Couric: "When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'" As Reason's Jesse Walker…

No one knows how long it will take the real estate bubble to fully deflate. But it will happen. It is happening. Here's a very hopeful data point from Washington D.C.'s outer suburbs. In Prince William County, the number of residential sales in June, July and August was roughly double the…

David Frum does an excellent job puncturing Josh Marshall's hilarious contention that the Paulson plan is aimed at bailing out the "GOP's Wall Street Friends." Hardy-har-har. For an even more laughable bit of partisan finger-pointing, see Jim Cramer's otherwise entertaining New York Magazine piece,…

In addition to contradicting Obama's platform on clean coal and backtracking on the computer ad, Biden was publicly rebuked by Obama over his initial comments on AIG (in which Biden hastily opposed the AIG bail-out while Obama's statement carefully danced around a commitment on the issue). The…

Pollster Steve Lombardo makes some noteworthy points about the presidential race in a post yesterday at Pollster.com. First, he argues the contest is "on the verge of becoming a single-issue election." Lombardo cites the most recent CBS News/New York Times poll showing "economy and jobs" (48%)…

Joe Biden issued a pretty muddled statement walking back his remarks that this Obama campaign ad mocking John McCain's inability to send an email was "terrible": "Having now reviewed the ad, it is even more clear to me that given the disgraceful tenor of Senator McCain's ads and their persistent…

"If something stupid can be said, you can believe someone on Daily Kos has said it." - Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos.com The founder of the biggest liberal blog on the 'Net, often a breeding ground for smears, conspiracy theories and alleged astroturfing, admitted what many blogosphere…

One contest Ralph Nader can win, hands down:

Barack Obama pledges on his website that his administration will: Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology. Obama's Department of Energy will enter into public private partnerships to develop five "first-of-a-kind" commercial scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration…

There he learned very quickly about the eminent reasonableness of all Obama ads, including the one that derided McCain for his alleged technological ineptitude, an ad which Biden declared "terrible" just yesterday: I was asked about an ad I'd never seen, reacting merely to press reports. As I said…

How's that for a red-meat headline? It has the virtue of being true, according to the research of Stanley Kurtz into Ayers' foundation, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, chaired by Barack Obama: One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could…

Why take the trouble to invest my own time looking for stories on the financial meltdown, when Greg Mankiw has already provided a handy list this morning? Also, see any number of good things posted by Arnold Kling at EconLog, especially the entry, "Delusions on Both Sides" ("Financial institutions…

In a discussion of panicked investors pulling money out of 401(k) accounts, and subjecting themselves to the 10 percent penalty attendant on such early withdrawals, the Wall Street Journal this morning quotes Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, who would like to see Congress eliminate…

From a lengthy profile of "Regular Joe" on the trail in Ohio, in the LAT: Here in the union hall, where CBS anchor Katie Couric has shown up in another sign of the fading Palin mystique, he repeats a remark that caused a stir days before: that wealthier Americans should be "patriotic" and pay more…

Isn't it great to have one of the "greatest political minds and talents of our time" working on behalf of John McCain? He is working for him, right? Here's Bubba on "The View" yesterday, leaving the gals in a state of slightly confused swoon as he finds no end of ways in which to praise John McCain…

Joe Biden has already joined the Hillary 2012 team, apparently, judging by the way he keeps undercutting his own campaign.

Patrick Ruffini and I were colleagues at Townhall.com; he's one of the smartest young conservatives on the web. Thus, I found the following blog post he authored utterly dismaying. Here it is in full: Republican incumbents in close races have the easiest vote of their lives coming up this week: No…

The NRA has released four new ads attacking Obama. This one takes aim at Obama's remarks about folks bitterly clinging to their guns and religion: Hat tip: Hot Air

Justifying their coup against an elected president last month, Mauritania's top generals underscored not only what they claimed was creeping corruption and blatant incompetence but a soft approach to the al Qaeda franchise in North Africa, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [west]. One…

At The Jawa Report blog Rusty Shackleford reports that a professional PR firm appears to be spreading false attacks against Sarah Palin on the Internet. A YouTube video that appears to have been produced by the PR firm Winner & Associates falsely claims Sarah Palin is a member of the Alaskan…

The FBI reportedly arrived at the suspect David Kernell's Tennessee apartment at around midnight Saturday while a party was in progress. They took pictures of the apartment, took down names of the party-goers (though some reports say many of them high-tailed it out of there as soon as they…

Oil prices soairng! Yes, in light of other event this really is good news. The Wall Street Journal reports: Oil prices soared were up more than $25 and their intraday high and finished with a gain of $16.37, or 16%, at $120.92 a barrel in New York as the likelihood of a bailout prompted bets that…

From Bloomberg, "How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis" by Kevin Hassett This being a time of crisis, it is no time for finger pointing. Then again, why not? In this searing and much-discussed piece, Hassett explores who is responsible for enabling the twin ticking time bombs of Fannie Mae…

John McCain said last night on 60 Minutes that he would consider nominating Clinton Administration HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to chair the Security and Exchange Commission in a McCain administration. This may be the dumbest single thing John McCain has said during the course of the 2008…

From Dave Freddoso, noted "right-wing smear merchant" and the expert on all of Obama's misadventures in Chicago: Last week, Sen. Barack Obama compared the Savings and Loan bailout of the late 1980s to the situation of the mortgage-securities markets today: "Too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax…

In a pew survey released Friday, before the bombing in Pakistan, found... rather large tiny fringe of Muslims worldwide who support terrorism

Remember that sneaking suspicion the media was swooning over Barack Obama this summer? Time magazine covers, coverage of Obama with Germans rediscovering their love for mass rallies, etc. Turns out, based on media mentions, the Democratic nominee did get a lot more attention. The chart below…

Sarah Palin was supposed to attend an anti-Ahmadinejad rally today in New York, but after Hillary Clinton backed out of the rally, Palin was disinvited. The New York Sun has printed the speech that Sarah Palin would have given. It's a good, strong speech (and not very long, but I'll highlight a few…

1) From the New York Times, "A Fine Mess" by William Kristol 2) From the American Scene, "Welcome to History" by Jim Manzi Is it a sign that we truly are approaching the End Times that the Boss and John Conyers agree on something of vital importance? Both find the administration's plan to give…

Supreme Courtship

The most discussed box office story of the summer was the enormous success of The Dark Knight, the Batman movie that, we were told incessantly, has made more money than any film in history besides Titanic.

An Appeal to Reason

Lurking just below the surface of the second-guessing about Sarah Palin's fitness to be president is the serious question of whether we still believe in the American people's capacity for self-government, what we mean when we affirm that all American citizens are equal, and whether we tacitly…

The Lost Spy

"I had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree."

Time magazine, the superannuated newsweekly, seems to reinvent itself every few years with slackening energy, in one vain attempt after another to postpone its inevitable, rapidly approaching, and much-anticipated demise. Its most recent incarnation has largely dispensed with the snoozy business of…

At Least He Gives of Himself

The liberal media are angry. Very, very angry. How do we know? Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's chronicler of all things media, says so:

Real Education

He has 300 foreign policy advisers and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee is his vice presidential nominee. And yet Barack Obama's foreign policy is still all twists and turns, forever adapting to every change in the political circumstances.

Conservatives are rushing to crown Alaska governor Sarah Palin as the new Ronald Reagan. And indeed there are similarities. Like Reagan, Palin has a dazzling star quality and an appeal to voters outside the conservative orbit. But there's another likeness to Reagan that conservatives may find a bit…

America's Secular Challenge

It must be hard for people under 35 to imagine how large dog mess (as I am constrained to call it) once loomed in the day-to-day life of the nation. Not the metaphorical kind, which retains its privileged position in the fine arts and political oratory, but the actual stuff, as dropped by real…

Historians looking back on these tumultuous times will no doubt argue over the precise date on which the Age of Palin began. Her speech at the Republican National Convention on September 3 certainly catapulted her to national renown. But there is a good case to be made for her introductory…

On September 16, General Raymond Odierno will succeed General David Petraeus as commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. The surge strategy Petraeus and Odierno developed and executed in 2007 achieved its objectives: reducing violence in Iraq enough to allow political processes to restart,…

I am among those who have never fancied Barack Obama as presidential material. But I share with almost everyone the feeling that the nicest things about the Obamas are their daughters--adorable, charming, happy, and well-brought up. So I was delighted to see the Obama family attacked by a liberal…

I fish because I love to .  .  . because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond…

Bob Woodward has written his fourth book in six years on the Bush presidency. They have ranged from fairly glowing (Bush at War) to excoriating (State of Denial). The latest, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, while less harsh on Bush than State of Denial, is still plenty…

Obama's website has made a couple of policy changes, including on the sensitive issue of Social Security: And this week the Obama campaign modified his position on a sensitive issue: Social Security. Compare the current "Seniors & Social Security" page with the previous version. Now, tell me why,…

Five former secretaries of state took the stage on CNN last night to discuss the challenges facing the next president. So nuanced were their pronouncements and noncomittal their advice that I'm now anxiously awaiting the day they form the wacky cast of a cornpone sketch-comedy show about world…

Factcheck.org: "An Obama-Biden ad says McCain supports 'cutting benefits in half' for Social Security recipients. False!" Obama continued his campaign to scare the elderly by telling another "Social Security Whopper" during a speech in Florida today. Jay Cost looks at the polls over the past three…

DJ Drummond takes a close look at the fluctuation in presidential polling over the last few weeks, and digs down into the partisan identification of respondents. He discovers something curious: multiple polls show John McCain holding steady or gaining among every partisan subgroup, yet losing…

Stu Rothenberg has dubbed Colorado THE state to win this election. I've become convinced that my initial list of five states probably can be boiled down to just one -- one state that is most likely to determine who will be the next occupant of the White House. And that state is Colorado. If John…

At the McCain Report, McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb says the campaign is willing to make an interesting deal with the Washington Post: The Washington Post's Michael Dobbs fact checks the ad this campaign released yesterday titled "Advice": So what evidence does the McCain campaign have…

Via Hot Air, Tony Blair delivers a very effective defense of the Iraq war, beginning about 3 minutes and 30 seconds into the second clip, but watch the whole thing if you have time, especially if you could use a good laugh or two:

In August, the NRSC outraised their Democratic counterparts by almost a million dollars. Republicans raised $5.2 million for the month, compared to a $4.36 haul by Democrats. Dems still have the advantage in terms of their campaign war chest, with $33.67 million in cash on hand - compared to $26.8…

The Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler reports: Don't be shocked if you see the McCain campaign pull the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright out of mothballs in new attacks against one-time parishioner, Barack Obama. McCain advisers say that they see "attack by association" as fair game now,…

In response to this ad on Obama's votes against a bill to protect babies who had survived abortion attempts, the Obama campaign has cut an ad that says "accusing Obama of letting infants die" is "a despicable lie." But as an Illinois state senator Obama acknowledged that these infants who had…

Today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates signed a status of forces agreement for U.S. troops who will operate a radar system in the Czech Republic.

Last week, the Irish foreign minister presented the details of an opinion poll analyzing the reasons behind the island's "No" vote on the EU's Lisbon Treaty on June 12. Three months ago, the latest EU attempt to streamline the 27-nation bloc's institutional structures and decision-making procedures…

AT A RALLY in Iowa on Thursday, John McCain said that Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), should be fired. "Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch," McCain said. "The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment…

Max Boot points out this New York Times report: North Korea said on Friday that it no longer wishes to be removed from the United States' terrorism blacklist, signaling that it is hardening its stance amid reports that its leader, Kim Jong-il, may be seriously ill. The North Korean Foreign Ministry…

The Economist has a glowing review of David Freddoso's book The Case Against Barack Obama: IF YOU find yourself believing that "we are the ones we've been waiting for", or that "this is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow" or even, tout court, that "yes we can", the chances are…

From ABC: Before boarding his flight from Wilmington, Del., to Washington, DC, the loquacious Blue Hen [Joe Biden] displayed some Fightin' Blue Hen alumni bravado in an impromptu airport meeting with the University of Delaware football team. "I was out in Ohio," he said, clutching a football. "I…

Time's Karen Tumuly writes that "McCain Plays the Race Card" in an ad featuring former disgraced Fannie Mae executive Franklin Raines: This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman. Let me stipulate: Obama's Fannie Mae…

A sensationalistic Fox News report declares: "Britain Adopts Islamic Law." This story is referencing a new report, in the Times of London, that the UK now has its first official sharia courts. From the Times: The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases…

Here's a new McCain ad on Obama's connections to former FannieMae CEO Jim Johnson In Green Bay, McCain kept up the assault, saying: Two years ago, I called for reform of this corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congress did nothing. The Administration did nothing. Senator Obama did nothing,…

A new Pew survey demonstrates what many other national polls have revealed in the last few days--the national horserace is about as tight as possible. The latest Pew research finds the race at a near dead heat of 46 percent Obama and 44 percent McCain, nearly identical to the pre-convention 46…

Russia's dispatch of long-range bombers to Venezuela for joint military exercises may not signal the start of a new Cold War, but it does provide more evidence that Hugo Chávez has become the chief source of hemispheric instability. To be sure, the Venezuelan president is increasingly unpopular in…

IF WE NEEDED more evidence that the anti-American vitriol from Europe and the Middle East is largely the product of manipulated imaginations, we have it. A new World Public Opinion poll of 17 nations reveals significant support for the claim that the United States staged the 9/11 terrorist…

IT'S NOT A good idea to stand in front of a stampede and try to talk the cattle into stopping, or to argue with a bunch of lemmings headed for a cliff, that follow-the-leader is not a good idea. Still, we ink-stained wretches of the fourth estate do have responsibilities. So before investors and…

Because my dad was an airman, because my granddad was in both the Army Air Corps and the Air Force, because one of our blog contributors is an active-duty Zoomie, and because we love America.... Happy birthday, U.S. Air Force, formed on this day in 1947. W. Stuart Symington, the first secretary of…

John McCain said today that if he were the president, he would fire SEC Chairman Chris Cox. Some Democrats have made hay of this statement, asserting that because the SEC is an "independent agency," the president can't fire the chairman. For examples of that criticism, see that ABC blog post linked…

Today wasn't the first time Barack Obama asked his supporters to "get in the face" of people who disagree with Sen. Obama. In fact, yesterday's Chicago Tribune carried an illuminating story on the "Obama Action Wire"--Obama's flash-mob tool designed to disrupt media criticism of the candidate in…

I was just about to opine about how Palin's interview with Sean Hannity tonight should include Franklin Raines' and Jim Johnson's names no fewer than 10 times each, perhaps with visual aids depicting their proximity to the Fannie/Freddie mess and relative importance in the Obama campaign. There's…

Good to see the Grey Lady is doing everything it can to deepen the economic crisis. Check out this amazing correction: An article about the effect of the Wall Street crisis on Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs cited two sources who were said to have been briefed on a conversation in which John J.…

Howard Kurtz reports that a new study shows that 77 percent Obama's "commercials were negative during the week after the Republican National Convention, compared with 56 percent of the spots run by McCain." Ken Goldstein, who directed the study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, based at the…

For all of the paranoid Democratic huffing and puffing that Republicans' are supposedly questioning their religious faith, it's surprising that Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) said at a "roundtable discussion on faith" this morning that "I think the Republicans, frankly, in many ways, have not - do not…

As most of the traditional defenders of privacy are curiously quiet on this one, it's left to the police and Wired to come up with some answers. And, it seems they're doing so, quickly. The AP reports the hacker impersonated Palin, using the "forgot your password?" feature to gain access. He simply…

Via Ben Smith, there was a funny exchange between Joe Biden and a reporter during a visit to the NFL Hall of Fame today: [Biden] then approached the print pooler and said, "you look liked you played some [football], man." As the print pooler was saying ‘no I didn't," the candidate moved closer,…

A Fairbanks TV anchor records a catchy little ditty about Sarah Palin titled "I'm a Sarah-ist."

In the last two days, three polls of Virginia voters have been released. Two polls of registered voters showed McCain up big: Christopher Newport University reported McCain was up by 9 points; The National Journal showed McCain ahead by 7 points. But a Public Policy Polling survey conducted among…

Marc Ambinder writes: even though the [McCain] campaign had, it turns out, more evidence for their claim that Obama supported sex-education for kindergartners, it took the campaign a week to lay out the case, and when they did, no one was inclined to believe them because they'd just spent the past…

Barack Obama has released a new two minute commercial in which he looks seriously at the camera and drones on about how he'll provide serious leadership for our serious financial crisis. The heart of the ad refers the viewer to his Plan, helpfully posted at his website. Given the Plan's utter…

Jim Geraghty catches the Post's double standard. Maybe the Post could hire Joe Biden to set some uniform standards for quoting politicians. As you may recall, Biden is an "expert in articulateness."

Not that low, really, according to voters. Memo to pundits and media: Try to keep your underclothes unentangled over negative advertising. Most voters (55%) say the tone of this year's presidential campaign is about the same as in other recent election years, despite complaints from Barack Obama's…

The new tone, at a Nevada campaign stop: "I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face," he said. "And if they tell you that,…

The Democracy Corps (James Carville and Stan Greenberg) released a new poll this week assessing the state of the presidential campaign following the two parties' conventions. The survey reports results from both a national sample and a sub-sample of likely voters in over a dozen battleground…

When the Fannie/Freddie crisis simmered over a few weeks ago, I dismissed the possibility of it making a significant dent on the public consciousness. I figured Fannie and Freddie were too opaque for the common person to understand. After all, even genius congressmen like Barney Frank found the…

The other day I posted the latest ad on behalf of Al Franken's Minnesota Senate bid. The ad is here. First let me say that the loss of a child is a tragedy -- no less so if the child is a full-grown man who's decided to re-enlist in the military over a span of several decades. Upon further review…

The New York Times's Michael Cooper reports on Sarah Palin's first town hall appearance, which took place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Some excerpts: As she took questions from voters for the first time since she was tapped as Senator John McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin was asked here…

In Wednesday's paper, the Washington Post issued this "clarification" about an article published last Friday: A Sept. 12 Page One article quoted Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin as telling a brigade of Iraq-bound soldiers that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who…

WHEN JOHN MCCAIN first started saying he'd "rather lose an election than see the country lose a war," it was a serious aside in a self-deprecating assessment of his own uncertain political future.

LIBERAL COLUMNISTS AND the mainstream media have been unusually tolerant of Barack Obama's exaggerated claims of major legislative accomplishments. Just this week, Obama said his proposal was the "basis" for the economic stimulus package that was enacted last winter, a claim even Democrats regard…

Sarah Palin's email has been hacked. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis issued this statement: This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will…

The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe reports on a new Spanish TV ad produced by the Obama campaign: "They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance," the television ad's announcer says in Spanish as a picture of Rush Limbaugh appears onscreen with quotes of him saying, "Mexicans…

Backing the mission in the worst of times has brought better political times to the candidates of Veterans for Freedom. When John McCain first started saying he'd "rather lose an election than see the country lose a war," it was a serious aside in a self-deprecating assessment of his own uncertain…

Today, Harry Reid said this about the current turmoil on Wall Street: "No one knows what to do. We are in new territory here. This is a different game. We're not here playing soccer, basketball or football, this is a new game and we're going to have to figure out how to do it." The RNC pounced:…

Jack Cafferty adds his voice to the growing chorus that proclaims Obama will only lose because of racism. That's what a sitting Democratic governor has said. It's what Democratic activists say. And a state Democratic official in Ohio agrees: "Race - that's the only reason people in the Valley won't…

In the wake of the suicide bombing this morning that killed 10 innocent Yemenis and no Americans at the U.S. embassy in Sana, Eric Trager has a post at contentions about the failed Yemeni state that's worth reading.

Barack Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe told donors in a video sent out today that the Obama campaign is budgeting $40 million to spend in Florida in the next seven weeks. But as of last week Obama's campaign had already spent $8 million dollars on TV ads, while Team McCain was just beginning…

From Political Punch, "Does Obama Support the AIG Bailout" by Jake Tapper Barack Obama - still voting present after all these years. In dilating endlessly on the AIG bailout, Barack Obama declined to say whether or not he supported it. He did, however, condemn the bailout as sadly reflective on…

Not a moment too soon, I present to you the Palin name generator. Had I been born into the Palin family, it informs me I would be known as Rock Crane Palin. And I, Rock Crane, would be honored to stand with the Palin family, putting country first in this historic time for the United States of…

Lady Lynn Forrester de Rothschild shall henceforth be known only as Lady Lynn Forrester de PUMA, Duchess of the Disaffected Hillary Voters. Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee, will endorse John…

The Senate race in Minnesota has gotten close, and that has apparently led to frustration on the part of Al Franken's supporters. I can think of no other reason that they would resort to such a despicable advertisement as the one they're starting to run:

Some Democrats, such as former Clinton White House official Bill Galston, are going public with their concerns about the trajectory of the Obama campaign. This "open letter" posted at The Democratic Strategist blog articulates a growing worry among some that Obama is on a path to "losing the…

Vets for Freedom is dropping $400,000 on this ad contrasting Obama's statements denying the success of the surge with Gen. Petraeus's remarks: The resolution (S. 636) that the ad urges Obama to support is sponsored by Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman. Graham, Lieberman, and other proponents of the…

As Michelle Malkin notes, Nancy Pelosi called offshore drilling a "hoax unworthy of serious debate" back in July. But then the Demcorats realized just how much of a liability the price of gas is, so they held a vote on offshore drilling last night. As CQ reports: "After watching Republicans gain…

...this is what it would have looked like.* In reality, Babs helped Obama bank $11 million last night. While addressing the Hollywood crowd, Obama blamed his campaign's difficulties on ... the American people. "A lot of people have gotten nervous and concerned. Why is this as close as it is? And…

From Tina Fey's and Amy Poehler's performance Saturday: Palin: I was so excited when I was told Sen. Clinton and I would be addressing you tonight. Clinton: And, I was told I'd be addressing you alone. And, now for the real deal, courtesy of United Jewish Communities: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton…

CBS.com's Jon Friedman has what must be the most bizarre analysis of why Palinpalooza is doomed: The primary reason why the Palin bubble will burst is that the media will decide that they are bored with her. They'll need to move to shine a light on a fresh issue or individual. This is how the world…

As bellwethers of liberal demoralization about this election go, I've not yet come across anything so clanging as the following comment from Hannah Rosin, responding to the phenomenon of Sarah Palin: "One of my many depressed Obama-supporting friends suggests a tidy solution: Repeal the 19th…

Baghdad

Ed Morrissey has the details.

Well, one thing you can say for her. Had she been chosen as VP, Kathleen Sebelius would have been on-message. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius accused Republicans on Tuesday of injecting race into the presidential campaign, arguing that they are using "code language" to convince Midwesterners that…

As John points out below, John McCain has released a commercial on the economy. The ad is titled "Enough is Enough." Did I miss the memo that says whichever candidate says this cliché the most times automatically wins? The video and the text follow: JOHN MCCAIN: The economy is in crisis. Enough is…

CBS reports: David Petraeus, the American general who presided over Iraq's pullback from the brink of all-out civil war, relinquished his command Tuesday to Gen. Ray Odierno under a cascade of official thank-yous. In an elaborate ceremony in a marble-lined rotunda of a former Saddam Hussein palace…

It is generally understood that Roseanne Barr gave the worst rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banned" in television history. But at last night's Monday Night Football game, I'd say Kat Deluna comes a very close second.

Last night, the McCain campaign released documents to show that Gov. Palin did not fire her political appointee, Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, because he refused to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Gov. Palin's former brother-in-law. An internal state trooper investigation found that…

This morning, I had the honor of testifying before the House Budget Committee on the situation in Iraq. The discussion was polite and civilized, and was a reminder that even now it is possible for people who disagree about what to do in Iraq to argue without raised voices and disagreeable language…

Soren Dayton is apparently signed up as an Obama volunteer in Virginia. He just received this E-mail from the campaign: ...you live right next door to a state that is once again shaping up to be a crucial general election battleground -- Pennsylvania. And Obama supporters from across the northeast…

From the Politico, "As Markets Reel, The Blame Game Begins" by Jeanne Cummings First, let's start with this little passage that hits Washington right where it lives: We have to pity the government in a lot of ways," says Robert F. Bruner, dean of the Darden School of Business at the University of…

It looks like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has succumbed to the pressure of expectations. After months and months of speculation over whether Democrats would gain 15 seats this year or 30, recent polls now suggest their gains may not even be that high. And according to veteran…

Silly news organization. That's only a story if Sarah Palin does it. Many CNN commenters are unamused.

With the Left eager to assert that John McCain has just claimed to have invented the Blackberry, it's worthwhile to take a look at what was said: Asked what work John McCain did as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate's top…

David Brooks adds to the conservative oeuvre of Sarah Palin doubt this morning: If the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice. And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It…

Yes, Sarah Palin has the base whipped up like a homemade meringue (Uh oh, cooking-related metaphors. Don't come after me, Carly Fiorina!), but what does she have to offer the eccentric, irate third-party voter who is despearate to vote his conscience, but made it to the polls only to find that Ron…

Perhaps Obama could stop the ritual wringing of hands over negative ads long enough to examine the far more pernicious - "vile" and "sleazy," even - tactics of his own campaign in systematically shouting down its critics. For the second time in less than a month, Team Barry has sent out an e-mail…

In yesterday's Washington Post article by Dan Balz and Peter Slevin, Obama's chief strategist David Axlerod argued McCain's post-convention bounce in the national polls was driven by the Republican ticket's surge in red states. "I think one of the things driving the national polls is that the red…

In the latest FOX News/Rasmussen polls, McCain is ahead of Obama in Florida, Colorado, and Ohio, while the candidates are tied in Virginia and Pennsylvania. From Real Clear Politics: Colorado McCain 48 (+2 vs. last poll, Sept. 7) Obama 46 (-3) Obama leads by 0.6 of a point in the RCP Average for…

Watch it: The spot was produced by the 527 BornAliveTruth.org, which will spend $350,000 airing the ad next week in Ohio and New Mexico. The narrator of the commercial, Gianna Jessen, a woman who survived an abortion 31 years ago, was on Hannity & Colmes last night:

National Review's Byron York tries to talk to the five sponsors of the infamous sex-ed bill at the center of the recent McCain-Obama ad war. Only one of the Illinois legislators returned his calls, and neither he nor the head of the Illinois Education Association can provide a compelling argument…

In all the analysis, commentary, reaction, second guessing and prognosticating on the impact of John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, her most obvious area of experience and expertise is being strangely negelected: She is the only candidate among the four on the…

On MSNBC today, McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina said Tina Fey's SNL performance as Sarah Palin was "sexist," and Allahpundit sighs that it looks like we're holding a "victimization pageant" for the second week. On SNL, Palin was depicted as a lightweight, but what exactly is sexist about that? For…

Harvey Mansfield has a short, brilliant piece on Sarah Palin, Simone de Beauvoir, and feminism, at Forbes.com. Here are the first two paragraphs: Was feminism necessary to produce Sarah Palin's fine performance at the Republican Convention? She is of course no heroine to radical feminists, who…

David Gibson wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Friday: Mr. Biden, the Delaware senator and now Barack Obama's running mate, has a more sophisticated understanding of Catholic tradition, as well as a mixed record on abortion rights (opposing public funding and late-term abortion, for instance)…

In 2008, it is not that the left does not fight hard enough to win elections that is the problem. It's that it continually chooses to fight on the wrong ground. If there's a political Little Round Top in sight, they will charge right up it under the brave leadership of Daily Kos and liberal 527s,…

Photini Philippidou reports that there's a Pakistani protest song "Ye Hum Naheen", Urdu for "This Is Not Us", seeking to redefine Islam as anti-terrorist. The song has stirred 62.8 million Pakistanis to sign a petition, either by name or thumbprint, saying that true Muslims don't support terrorism.…

Tomorrow, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno will take command of operations in Iraq from Gen. David Petraeus, who moves to head up CENTCOM, where he will oversee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a letter to the troops dated Sept. 15, Petraeus thanks those serving in Iraq for their hard-fought…

In light of the reports of voter fraud being committed in Michigan by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a reader sends along this story from a few weeks ago reporting that dozens of ACORN workers are similarly under investigation for voter fraud in Milwaukee: •…

On Saturday, ABC's Jake Tapper looked into reports that the reason John McCain can't email--a matter mocked in a recent Obama ad--is because of McCain's war injuries. Tapper reported that in fact McCain "can type, he occasionally does type, but in general the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones…

During Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City last week, Vogue editor Anna Wintour and Sarah Jessica Parker hosted Runway for Change, a fashion-industry fundraiser for Barack Obama. The event also marked the debut of designer Barack Obama merchandise, like a tote bag by Diane Von Furstenberg,…

It looks more than ever as if the panic on Wall Street is going to become a major issue on election day. If the next President is forced to decide which firms deserve taxpayer bailouts and which don't, who's more likely to be impartial? Take a look at the top recipients of campaign donations from…

From the Detroit Free Press: Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families. The majority of the problem applications are…

Yesterday Obama released his August fundraising numbers, but Obama's camp doesn't say why those numbers are being released a week early. It's clearly an effort to squelch more whispering about the campaign's disappointing trajectory. Attracting much less notice are the abysmal fundraising numbers…

He's taking the stage right now in Michigan, and has already delivered a uniquely Biden-esque line: "I'm a UAW guy. Well, I've never belonged to you guys, but I'm a U.S. Senator because of the UAW." Biden will deliver the speech in St. Clair Shores, Mich., in Macomb County, the area whose voters…

You can read the statements by Obama and McCain on the Wall Street crisis here.

McCain: "The crisis in our financial markets has taken an enormous toll on our economy and the American people -- first the decline of our housing markets followed by the collapse of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and now Lehman Brothers. I am glad to see that the Federal Reserve and the…

Has anyone actually seen the two of them in the same room together? Palin on Fey's portrayal of her: On Sunday, a campaign adviser confirmed that Ms. Palin had, indeed, watched the "Saturday Night Live" skit from her screen at the front of the plane. "She thought it was quite funny," the adviser…

The Obama campaign continues to struggle gaining significant support among white working class voters. Ron Brownstein writes in his most recent piece: In the Diageo/Hotline daily tracking survey this week, Obama was winning just 30 percent of white men without a college education, even lower than…

He'll be the hero you're dreaming of. Barack Obama goes to town on McCain's negative ads today, with the ad, "Honor:"

St. Paul

Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

Minneapolis

As late as August 24, John McCain had reportedly not given up on the idea of putting his old friend Joe Lieberman on the Republican ticket, even though Lieberman is (a) still a Democrat, if a beleaguered one, (b) pro-choice, which would enrage and alienate some of the party's most loyal…

When Joe Biden has taken an interest in domestic policy, it has mostly had to do with crime. Of the 31 substantive domestic policy bills the Democratic vice presidential nominee has introduced since 2006, 20 related to crime and policing. His single most significant legislative achievement--one…

CAMPAIGN FINANCE CRIME

Marriage

John McCain of Arizona chose to introduce Sarah Palin of Alaska to the Republican ticket in Dayton, Ohio, of all places. There are good reasons why Ohio's sixth largest city was chosen for this honor, I am sure; but the venue seemed to annoy a young editorial aide at the Washington Post who grew up…

If by Sea

"Al I ever really needed to know I learned on the basketball court."

Minneapolis

A Phone Call to the Future

"The first order of business should not be some sort of punishment," said Dan Fried, the Bush administration's assistant secretary of state for European affairs, in an interview this past week about U.S. policy toward Russia in the wake of its invasion of Georgia.

Plus ça change

Thirty years of Republican tax policy have now completely eliminated federal income taxes on the poor and lower middle-income Americans, and almost eliminated them on middle America.

The editors of THE WEEKLY STANDARD believe in giving credit where credit is due. The presidential race looks a whole lot better today than it did two weeks ago. For this, thanks are owed to two men--Barack Obama and John McCain--and to that herd of independent minds, the liberal media.

The New Case Against Immigration

For months John McCain has apparently been hoping to use his selection of a running mate to shake up the presidential race. By picking Alaska governor Sarah Palin, McCain has accomplished that--and very likely a lot more than that, more than he or anyone else could have imagined.

Jeffrey Feldman is one of the savvier Daily Kos diarists. In a post today, he offers some advice to the moribund/struggling/bumbling/incredibly lame Obama campaign and the campaign's destructive supporters: STEP 1: STOP WITH THE ENDLESS PALIN DIARIES I'm talking to you, friend. That's right.…

From the Weekly Standard, "Tax Cuts, Real and Imaginary" by Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara As you know, I have a self-imposed guideline that prohibits linking to pieces that appear in our own magazine. No reason to offend my unlinked colleagues. Anyway, new rule - this guideline will not apply to…

ABC's Jake Tapper reports: "Just ask the machinists in Pennsylvania who build Harley-Davidsons," Obama said of McCain's record. "Because John McCain didn't just oppose the requirement that the government buy American-made motorcycles, he called Buy American provisions 'disgraceful.' Just ask the…

The latest polls in Ohio show that John McCain is establishing a consistent lead in the state. Ohio is a bellwether; no Republican has won the White House without it. If McCain can take Ohio, as well as Florida (where he also leads), he probably comes very close to re-creating the winning Bush map…

Charles Krauthammer writes that Charles Gibson doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is. Also, the highly respected New York Times military correspondent Michael R. Gordon analyzes Sarah Palin's answers to Gibson's questions on the Bush Doctrine and Georgia-Ukraine membership in NATO--as well as the…

Today the Obama campaign released an ad that mocks John McCain's inability to use a computer or send an email. Jonah Goldberg points out a 2000 Boston Globe article that reported: "McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes." Writes…

The campaign should really start sending out carbon-offset and organic soap gift baskets because every time a Democrat talks, things seem to get a little brighter for them. Earlier this week, it was Joe Biden admitting Hillary might have been a better VP pick than him. Today, it's Obama denigrating…

As much as I'd like to believe Sarah Palin herself Army-crawls across the tundra in white, fur-lined skirt-suits to catch wild wolves between her teeth in mid-air without mussing her hair or lipstick, I had to look into the actual facts surrounding the animal-rights group's anti-Palin spot, linked…

Jennifer Rubin flags the TaxProf's analysis of Joe Biden's miserly donations to the poor: Joe Biden today released ten years of his personal income tax returns, drawing further attention to the tax issues raised by Sarah Palin's tax problems associated with her per diem reimbursements while…

In the wake of last night's McCain-Obama forum on national service at Columbia University, you really ought to read Andrew Ferguson's article "Self-Interest Is Bad?" from the July 21 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

palinred.jpg Sarah Palin's red peep-toe Naughty Monkey pumps

Via Allahpundit, here's the video, noted by Mary Katharine, of Whoopi Goldberg asking John McCain on The View if she would become a slave under a strict interpretation of the Constitution. In response to Goldberg's ridiculous question, McCain says that she made an "excellent point." Why did he say…

HEADING THE LIST of a long, long, exceedingly long--we did say long, didn't we?--list of pundits, reporters, bloggers, and publications who have been suddenly been struck by a wave of nostalgia for the "old" John McCain, or the "real" John McCain, or the John McCain of 2000, Time's Joe Klein has…

Via Mark Hemingway, a 527 called Freedom's Defense Fund is airing this anti-Obama ad in Michigan. A few days ago, the Obama campaign quietly unleashed 527 groups to go on the attack. They're going to have an awfully hard time crying foul about this ad featuring Obama's anti-American pastor of 20…

Unlike me, I bet you don't read the left wing blogs. I don't blame you - I sort of get paid to read them. But even before I hopped aboard the Weekly Standard gravy train, I read the lefty blogs. I liked to know what my ideological (and temperamental) opposites were thinking, even if I did find them…

Via Ben Smith, Defenders of Wildlife has this new ad: The ad's narrator says that Sarah Palin "promotes brutal and unethical aerial hunting of wolves and other wildlife. Using a low flying plane, they kill in winter when there is no way to escape." How is aerial hunting in winter more "brutal" or…

Following up on Bill Kristol's post here, it is simply not the case that the Bush administration "promoted" the "idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," as the Post puts it on the front page. Here is David…

John McCain appeared on "The View" this morning, where the questioning from Barbara Walters and the other hosts quickly and predictably devolved. McCain answered a question about whether he would "work to overturn Roe v. Wade," by saying that he and Palin would work to nominate judges who have a…

A senior Senate leadership aide asked me yesterday, "Is it cool to be a Republican again?" He was, of course, responding to the array of positive public opinion data released in the last week following the GOP convention. I'm sure most Americans rarely conflate "Republican" and "cool," but some…

Now, a successful legal defense: The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone…

Andy McCarthy has an excellent post cutting through the nonsense that Sarah Palin supposedly doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is. McCarthy writes that many people disagree about what exactly the Bush Doctrine is: To take just one example, the eminent Norman Podhoretz and I have strongly…

After a week of Democratic hand-wringing about Obama's apparent loss of the excitement, change narrative, and control of this presidential race, which conservatives have watched with gleeful surprise (my favorite freak-out is here) , Obama's about to get serious. Some Democrats said Mr. Obama…

As Dean Barnett writes below, the Obama campaign has officially pledged to "take off the gloves" and fight those dastardly Republicans with "ferocity". Rawr! Jake Tapper notes, however, that this tack has been taken before by (losing) Democratic candidates: Like any number of Democratic candidates…

David Axelrod has released a memo this morning that points to the tough and substantive strategy that will guide Team Barry from this point forward. "We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him," vows the brains of the Obama campaign, "but we…

On September 9, Fred Kagan testified before before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the challenge posed by Russia and how the United States should respond. Kagan's remarks, provided here in full, are well worth reading: Representative Berman, Representative Ros-Lehtinen, distinguished members…

From the New York Times, "Hanging on to Biden's Every Word" by John Broder The New York Times finally has noticed that a garrulous gaffe machine serves as Barack Obama's running mate: (Biden's) a human verbal wrecking crew. This is the fellow who nearly derailed his nascent presidential campaign…

It seems pretty clear the Left will be going after her for asking for a clarification of the term, "Bush Doctrine." For my part, I don't think it's out of bounds to ask for a clarification on a very broad question about a very broad concept. The "Bush Doctrine" is defined by Wikipedia (a decent…

It's being taken in some quarters as revelatory of inexperience that Sarah Palin sought clarification when ABC's Charlie Gibson asked her about the Bush Doctrine. To review, here is the passage from the transcript. GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine? PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?…

Here are the headline and the first two paragraphs from an article posted online that apparently will be on the front page of Friday's Washington Post: "Palin Links Iraq to 9/11, A View Discarded by Bush" By Anne E. Kornblut
 Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 12, 2008; A01 FORT…

When autocracy sneezes, Asia catches cold. Russia's naked power grab in the Caucasus will have global repercussions, nowhere more so than in Asia. While Europe now contemplates a return to long-term tension on Russia's southwestern borders, Moscow's act of war will have lasting effects far from the…

While politicians debate the identity of the "pig" at whom Barack Obama took a poke, the nation has stored up another problem for whichever candidate is unfortunate enough to inherit the White House come 2009. Hank Paulson did what he had to do, or at least what he thought he had to do, when he…

Detroit

Here are the headline and the first two paragraphs from an article posted online that apparently will be on the front page of Friday's Washington Post:

Gibson: What do you think of the Constitution? Palin: ...Could you be more specific? Gibson: [stares over glasses] Kos: OMG SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE CONSTITUTION IS!!!! --From the very funny Jim Treacher.

PhotobucketAP Today, the president and a crowd of 16,000 dedicated the first permanent memorial to the nearly 3,000 victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "The day will come when most Americans have no living memory of the events of September the 11th. When they visit this memorial,…

ABC News blares the headline: "GOV. SARAH PALIN WARNS WAR MAY BE NECESSARY IF RUSSIA INVADES ANOTHER COUNTRY", and lefty bloggers are acting as if Palin were Dr. Strangelove in high heels. All Palin said was that Ukraine and Georgia deserve NATO membership--a measure that the Senate unanimously…

ABC has two clips up now, one in which Gibson asks her if she's ready to be vice president and possibly president. In the other, he asks her "if the Iraq war is a holy war." The second question is based upon a misrepresentation of this clip of Sarah Palin speaking to a group at her former church in…

As Sarah Palin's son Track deploys to Iraq today, ABC's John Berman writes a story titled "Is Sarah Palin Politicizing Son's Military Service?" Berman reports that Palin, that flighty hockey mom, may have put her son's life in danger when she acknowledged his deployment to Iraq during her speech at…

Perhaps the best and most moving commercial/homemade YouTube of the campaign season. It's a must-see.

This New York Times front-page story, ostensibly about hockey, reveals so many of the press corps's persistent tics when covering the Palin family (and conservatives, in general) that I can hardly resist a detailed look. Here's the Times formula: 1. First, take a 'Gorillas in the Mist' approach…

Her debut is tonight with Charlie Gibson. ABC is teasing this: Exclusive: Gov. Sarah Palin warns war may be necessary if Russia invades another country. TV Newser has more: • "The top priority is to defend the United States of America. I know that John McCain would do that." • "With new…

No wonder Hillary had to try so hard to make sure "every voice was heard." After lunching with a roundtable of women at Philadelphia's Down Home Diner, McCain shook hands with supporters and strode up to a podium to deliver a statement. But as he spoke, chants of "Obama, Obama, Obama" filled the…

The Obama campaign seems committed to criticizing Governor Palin for having requested earmarks for her state--something that all governors do. Given Obama's unwillingness to own up to his impressive record for pork-barreling, it's useful to take a look at how Senator Obama has voted on anti-pork…

And Alaska loves Sarah Palin: palincrowd.standalone.prod_affiliate.7.jpeg.jpg The above photo of the crowd greeting Sarah Palin as she returns home to Alaska for a few days was captured by the Anchorage Daily News. Update: Video of the homecoming via Allahpundit:

THe WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that John McCain spoke to General David Petraeus this afternoon at 1:45. A McCain aide says the two men discussed ways to consolidate the success in Iraq and regain the offensive in Afghanistan. McCain and Petraeus also spoke about the broader war on terror and the…

I'll admit to having been left baffled by almost every story I've read about the Large Hadron Collider. Stephen Barr, however, has written a short piece for First Things that left me less baffled than the others. I mean this as high praise. You can read it here.

Reihan Salam summarizes (1) Congress reversed its decision to earmark funds for the Bridge, but funds were still allocated under Alaska's state budget. Rather than seek federal and state funds for the bridge, Palin zeroed out the project over the objections of many powerful and influential Alaska…

Joe Klein writes: Democrats do have the facts in their favor. Polls show that Americans agree with them on the issues.

Today marks a special day at the Weekly Standard. Mary Katharine Ham, the Mary Tyler Moore of the blogosphere and the real star of the O'Reilly Factor, officially joins our team to fill the capacious blogging gap left by the on-leave Michael Goldfarb. (Actually, we expect her to more than fill the…

While a certain indignation about Barack Obama's 'lipstick/pig' remarks is understandable, and probably necessary, it is encouraging to see that women are also turning Obama's words to their advantage, wearing T-shirts and carrying signs--"God, guns and lipstick made America great"--that suggest…

Jonathan Martin reports: Addressing a somber gathering in Shanksville, Pa., this morning, John McCain said those passengers on United Flight 93 who fought back against the terrorists may have saved his life. "It's believed that the terrorists on United Flight 93 might have intended to crash the…

From the New York Post: KATURIA D'Amato was annoyed when she boarded a Delta flight from JFK to Seattle yesterday and learned her baby, Alfonso, 7 months old, and the boy's nurse were seated at the other end of first class. The resourceful wife of former Sen. Al D'Amato asked a man if he'd switch…

sarahpalintriggettyimgs.jpg

William Kristol wrote about how the heroic response to 9/11 defines America in this 2004 editorial: New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently criticized the Bush administration for being "addicted to 9/11." He praised John Kerry for "wanting to put terrorism back into perspective." Friedman…

I like to remind people that we don't elect presidents by national plebiscite. So don't overly obsess about national polls. National surveys have a place - they can reveal significant patterns on measures such as enthusiasm and trends among key voter groups, such as undecided Americans. But in the…

On the homepage, we've posted Matt Labash's report from New York a few days after 9/11/2001, and his follow-up story from a year later on Edlene LaFrance, a woman whose husband was murdered in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Seriously, where do they find people like this? A woman named Wendy Doniger, writing at the Washington Post's religion blog, claims that Sarah Palin does not speak for women, has no sympathy for women, and in fact is not a woman. Doniger writes: "It's evident that almost her only qualification in…

Say what you want about the New York Times, at least they're consistent. Whenever there's a highly classified military operation that needs to be leaked to the masses, the Old Gray Lady is there. President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special…

Quoth the film critic Roger Ebert: And how can you be her age and never have gone to Europe? ... Sarah Palin's travel record is that of a hopeless provincial. ... Palin is a shallow, chirpy person with those vaguely alarming eyeglasses. Now her fans all want a pair. Remember back when women wore…

A columnist for The Guardian warns American voters that the world will not easily forgive us if we decline to be led by The OneTM. But first, there's this British worry over the manner in which the sycophantic American media has rolled over for Sarah Palin: I watch as the Democrats stumble,…

IT'S WIDELY ACCEPTED now that Barack Obama would be better off if he'd picked Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate instead of Joe Biden. Obama had his reasons, particularly his discomfort with her as his actual vice president if he's elected. Still, Obama sacrificed a stronger…

I've probably missed it. Can someone point me to Hillary Clinton's defense of Barack Obama today against the charge of "sexism." It's been more than 24 hours since the McCain campaign made that accusation, after Obama's ill-chosen remarks about putting lipstick on a pig. So I'm sure Hillary must…

Fairfax, Va.

Earlier today, Politico reported that South Carolina Democratic party chairwoman Carol Fowler said Sarah Palin's "primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion." In a conference call with reporters, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham fired back. Graham says he is…

From Real Clear Politics, "Obama On His Heels" by Jay Cost On Sunday, David Axelrod appeared on Fox News Sunday and declared that Team Barry wasn't running against Sarah Palin. This pronouncement signaled that the Obama campaign had finally realized that attacking John McCain's running mate (not to…

From the Wall Street Journal, "The Foreign Policy Difference" by Fouad Ajami An op-ed piece bylined by Ajami is always cause for excitement. You know you're about to read something packed with original insights and expressed with great elegance. Today's work is no exception, as Ajami tackles the…

The Boston Globe reports: Campaigning in Terre Haute, Ind. on Saturday, Barack Obama, mocking claims by John McCain and Sarah Palin that they will challenge their Republican Party if elected, got off a pretty good line. "Maybe what they're saying is, 'Watch out George Bush,'" Obama said with…

Now that Sarah Palin's religion is an object of intense scrutiny, the media finds itself, for the umpteenth time, applying a double standard. Her belief that the universe is no accident but was created by God and her habit of praying have been noted and dissected in the mainstream media. So have…

Palin is having an impact. I saw it myself at the McCain-Palin rally held earlier today at Van Dyke Park in Fairfax County, Va. My sense is that the crowd was substantially larger than it would have been had McCain showed up there with a running mate who is not Sar-ah. I break her name down into…

Below is an excerpt from Governor Palin's speech in at the McCain rally in Fairfax, Virginia this morning. There were in excess of 20,000 excited supporters on hand. In this clip, Palin lays out her record of reform at both the city and state level. She also went after Barack Obama on earmarks, in…

The noble son of Welsh coal miners has stepped in it again. At a fundraiser last night, Biden talked tough about the kind of questions he would put to Sarah Palin. He vowed he would ask her about "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down...John…

The latest from Vets for Freedom On Capitol Hill, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are urging their colleagues to adopt a bipartisan resolution that recognizes the success of the surge. Say the senators in part: It was exactly one year ago today that General David Petraeus returned to Capitol Hill…

FAIRFAX, VA--At the McCain-Palin rally here in Northern Virginia, a former Hillary Clinton supporter, Lillith Lynett Long, just gave a speech in which she raised the issue of Obama's anti-American former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Obama and the Democrats were silent, she said, as "Rev. Jeremiah…

I'll tell you, the New York Times is a publication that really knows how to put lipstick on a pig. To put it simply, Barack Obama has been a darling of the derelict siblings Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while John McCain has not. Nevertheless, a Jackie Calmes article in today's ‘Paper of Record'…

A Hillary-backer makes the case that both Barack Obama and Joe Biden are elitists who deserted a public school system that needs parents like them. Ms. Tsing-Loh -- a self-described PTA secretary in Los Angeles -- laments that the Obamas and Bidens have chosen to send their kids to expensive…

In the copious interviews that Bob Woodward has given promoting his new book, The War Within: Secret White House History 2006-2008, he has put forward a new reason meant to explain the success of U.S. forces in Iraq since January 2007: a "secret program" that the military used to kill terrorists.…

The McCain campaign has put out a new ad criticizing Obama for supporting sex-ed for kindergarteners, but Marc Ambinder and Allahpundit both say that the program Obama supported merely taught kids what amounts to inappropriate touching by adults. Jim Geraghty, however, points out that the text of…

Did the crowd at Obama's rally today think his "lipstick on a pig" line referred to Palin? The AP says 'yes': "You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke even if it's not what Obama…

SECRETARY OF STATE Condoleezza Rice's visit to Libya last week represents the final step in a decades-long U.S. effort to reform and rehabilitate the rogue state. A charter member of the U.S. Department of State's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, after its nuclear program was disclosed in 2003,…

DEBORAH WYE, CHIEF CURATOR of prints and illustrations at the Museum of Modern Art, laments that German expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) is still "not so well known in the States as he should be." And so she has organized a show devoted to a single chapter of his work: the Berlin…

In the coming week, while Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman push for a vote on a resolution recognizing the success of the surge, Vets for Freedom will be running this ad. Will Barack Obama sign-on? Based on his interview with George Stephanopolous that aired Sunday on This Week, it's not clear. On…

From the Wall Street Journal's Amy Chozick: Barack Obama says the John McCain-Sarah Palin policies don't represent change, they're "just calling the same thing something different." "You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig," Obama said during a town-hall style event here Tuesday night. The…

Four polls conducted in August showed John McCain with modest lead--anywhere between 2 and 6 points--in North Carolina. A new SurveyUSA poll of likely voters conducted Saturday through Monday shows McCain-Palin leading Obama-Biden 58 percent to 38 percent. McCain has also shored up support in…

Barack Obama backed out of his public-financing commitment, simply to ensure he had more money to spend, but now it looks like he's getting his just deserts: It turns out he won't have more money after all. As a result, he has to hold dozens more fundraisers between now and election day, which both…

Former Democratic presidential candidate and senator from Alaska Mike Gravel on the Troopergate scandal: "Troopergate" is going to come out in [Palin's] favor when they really get down for the details of it. This trooper should have been fired ... if the unions didn't want to step up to the plate.…

Victoria McGrane reports: Biden had an awkward moment during a rally in Columbia, Mo., Tuesday. At the start of his remarks, he pointed out several state lawmakers in the audience for praise. When he got to Chuck Graham, a state senator from Green Meadows, Biden urged the lawmaker to "stand up…

Recent polling reveals a predictable partisan reaction to Sarah Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee - Republicans swooned, Democrats were less impressed, with "independents" somewhere in between. Sharp political divisions among self-identified partisans are not surprising. But a closer look…

From the Boston Herald, "Media Loves to Hate Sarah Palin" by Howie Carr Howie is something of a civic treasure up here in Boston - a great radio host and an even better writer. (His book on the Bulger Brothers is a tremendous read.) In this column, he hilariously documents the left's various…

From CBS News's Ryan Corsaro: Was Joe Biden referring to Sarah Palin, a mother of a child with Down syndrome, when he made this comment? "I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there's joy to it as well, the joy and…

Boston Things are pretty grim up here, and not just because John Kerry's reelection is a certainty. Many of us are sitting shiva for Tom Brady's knee while the TV sports anchors are replaying Tom Brady's injury like it's a latter day Zapruder film, pointing at his left knee and saying, "Down and to…

Jerome Armstrong looks at recent polls, and points out the elephant in the room: Neither ABC or CNN, in their polls, offered up the results broken down by partisan identification. Under this sort of scenario, the only possible way Obama could be ahead, or tied, is if party ID dramatically favors…

From the Washington Post, "You're Not Accountable, Jack" by Bob Woodward This gripping story recounts the amazing and pivotal role retired General Jack Keane played in getting David Petraeus the commitment he needed from the administration when the congressional vultures were circling above the…

Quoth Joe Biden in Green Bay yesterday: "She's going to have to answer questions," he says. "My plan is to do no different than I get ready to debate Elizabeth Dole on the floor of the Senate." He'll assume, he said, that she's "as smart as I am, as though as I am, and knows as much as I do." As…

A few days before President Bush announced the surge on January 10, 2007, Joe Biden warned: "If he surges another 20, 30 [thousand], or whatever number he's going to, into Baghdad, it'll be a tragic mistake." Barack Obama echoed Biden's remarks on January 10, saying: "I am not persuaded that 20,000…

According to CBS News's Maria Gavrilovic, Barack Obama "used comedy to mock and ridicule the McCain-Palin ticket" during a town hall meeting in Michigan last night and "got a lot of laughs." Here are some of the jokes: When discussing McCain's energy plan, Obama poked fun at his line on drilling.…

From the Washington Post, "Too Cool to Fight" by Richard Cohen Before reading on, please be advised that I will not be held responsible for the coffee you are about to spit over your monitor. Proceed at your own peril. Richard Cohen has served up a piece of pro-Obama fluff so ludicrous in its…

From Townhall.com, "Is Trig at the Heart of Media's Reaction to Palin?" by Mona Charen Charen offers an excellent contribution to the growing field of theories as to why the left has suffered such a complete meltdown over Sarah Palin: Fully 80 percent of parents who receive a diagnosis of Down…

In the Washington Post front-page story "Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home", James V. Grimaldi and Karl Vick breathlessly report that Sarah Palin and her family billed some expenses to the state. The angle of the story is that although "Palin cast herself as a crusader for fiscal…

The new ABC/Washington Post poll News must be generating some smiles in the McCain camp. Strategists for the Arizona Senator's campaign have worked hard, looking for ways to boost his support among women. Boosting support among women - particularly white, suburbanites has challenged the campaign…

In the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Holmes and Laura Meckler report: At a rally today, Sen. McCain again asserted that Sen. Obama has requested nearly a billion in earmarks. In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year. It…

YOU MIGHT HAVE heard that September is National Preparedness Month. Or that it is National Cholesterol Education Month. But did you know it is also, for the first time, National Tortilla Month? In a member's resolution, California representative Devin Nunes states, "I would like to recognize…

In his latest story on the so-called "Troopergate" scandal (background here), the Washington Post's James V. Grimaldi reports a false statement made by state trooper Mike Wooten, Sarah Palin's ex-brother-in-law, as if it were a fact. Grimaldi writes that Wooten "contradicted Palin's statement that…

In an earlier post I noted that the Obama campaign left something out of its new pro-abortion rights radio ads that started running last week in key states-its ostensible commitment (it's in the platform) to "reducing abortion." In his appearance yesterday on ABC's "This Week," Obama, talked about…

Blogger Beldar has an excellent idea for the McCain campaign: I respectfully suggest that the McCain-Palin campaign announce - simultaneously with Sen. McCain's carefuly considered change of position on drilling in ANWR, preferably from some of the mud flats there so that camera crews can capture…

Why doesn't Barack go and make these promises personally? Mindful of the audience in front of her, she then touched up gay and lesbian issues. "In a world as it should be," Obama said, "we repeal laws like DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'" She also said an Obama…

Barack Obama, on the campaign trail today in Flint, Michigan: Well, how about Gov. Palin? She's you know, an up and comer from Alaska. She - they're starting to run an ad now saying she opposed the bridge to nowhere. Well now, let's get the facts clear here. When she was mayor, she hired a…

From the Washington Post, "Program Aids Veterans Entering Corporate World" by Keith Richburg This is one of the most interesting and inspiring stories you'll find out there today: NEW YORK -- Ed Pulido joined the Army at 18 and spent 19 years in uniform. He lost his left leg four years after being…

Byron York has all the scary details.

Here's Obama in Flint, MI today, obviously rejecting David Axelrod's command that he's not running against Sarah Palin: Well, how about Gov. Palin? She's you know, an up and comer from Alaska. She - they're starting to run an ad now saying she opposed the bridge to nowhere. Well now, let's get the…

From Mother May I Sleep With Treacher, "Here's how Palin should handle those who are trying to destroy her, sometimes known as 'the press'" by Jim Treacher Treacher, one of the sharpest and funniest guys on the web, knows how Palin should handle the jackals in the press if/when they should escape…

A recently-surfaced anti-Bundeswehr poster showing three German soldiers standing next to the flag-draped coffin of a comrade killed in a 2002 helicopter crash in Afghanistan has caused considerable political uproar in Germany. The cynical poster--first published about five years ago by the Berlin…

Variety reports that Barack Obama is headed to LA on September 16 for a fundraiser headed by Steve Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg: Barack Obama will be in Los Angeles on Sept. 16 for a fund-raiser at an as-yet-undisclosed location. Save the date notices went out late last week from Andy Spahn,…

Barack Obama - a man who requested nearly a billion dollars in earmarks during his short time in the Senate, including some for his wife's employer - is criticizing Sarah Palin support for earmarks. Today, Obama's spokesman said: "Despite being discredited over and over again by numerous news…

Ramesh Ponnuru points out that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are trying to dismiss questions about abortion as theological matters. In an interview that aired on This Week yesterday, Obama said that his statement at Rick Warren's saddleback forum - that determining when a baby gets human rights is…

John McCain and Barack Obama face different challenges when it comes to winning swing voters - a fickle, and, as the election nears, shrinking group of Americans. Jeffrey Jones, one of the Gallup editors, wrote last week that the number of swing voters is declining - an expected pattern now that…

At Commentary's website, Peter Wehner responds to Bob Woodward's take on the surge.

There was an interesting, if little-noticed piece in the Delaware press over the weekend about Joe Biden's home. It helps explain how Biden can continue to make the argument that he's an ordinary guy, despite drawing a fat Senate salary for longer than most Americans has been alive. The secret: his…

If you regard the Intrade market as a pretty reliable gauge of American politics, it's worth noting that the presidential race has moved from a healthy Obama advantage to a virtual tie. And it's happened quite quickly. Here's a snapshot of the price of a share in Obama for president over the last 3…

From the Daily Kos, "Tie-Breakers. Advantage Obama. Advice? Take Nothing for Granted" by Joe Trippi Having scrubbed itself of the ugly Trig Trutherism that more prestigious publications still wallow in, the Daily Kos is still able to host diaries written by respectable people like Joe Trippi.…

Ed Morrissey makes an important observation about the new Gallup poll showing McCain-Palin leading by 10 points among likely voters: But the most significant internal from this poll comes on the economy. McCain's definition of Obama as another doctrinaire tax-and-spend liberal has begun to take…

From the New York Times, "A Heartbeat Away" by William Kristol The Boss and I both found David Axelrod's Fox News Sunday declaration, "We're not running against Governor Palin," to be rather pregnant with implications. After ten days of wild and sometimes unnervingly insane thrashing, the Obama…

In the Shadow of Progress

Earlier this summer, I was discovered to have a basal carcinoma, which sounds terrifying, but is in fact merely a precancerous sore that was easily cut away by a dermatologist. The sore was at my hairline--wasn't it William James who said of Josiah Royce that he showed "an indecent exposure of…

Not long ago in the London Times, Tom Stoppard published an essay that surely had most of his West End friends wincing. Titled "1968: The year of the posturing rebel," it was a look back in "embarrassment" at the spectacle of anti-establishment consensus 40 years ago, and an attempt to hoist a…

At 5:20 A.M. Friday, August 29th, Bill McAllister awoke to the ringing of his home phone. McAllister had turned his BlackBerry off before heading to bed. He usually leaves it on, but "It was a slow news day here," he says with a laugh.

"When I think of California, I like to believe that WE [sic] are one big family," says Maria Shriver. She is the state's first lady and wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the beefcake governor who is expected to do another of his star turns at the Republican convention this week. Maria has acted on…

Frightening claims are being made that U.S. prisons are breeding grounds for Islamic terrorism. The premise is that the dangerous and unstable people who populate prisons can all too easily be swept into radical religion and terrorism. A 17-person blue-ribbon task force, assembled by researchers…

A Cuppa Joe Biden

A spectre is haunting the liberal elites of New York and Washington--the spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism, rising out of the American countryside, free of the taint (fair or unfair) of the Bush administration and the recent Republican Congress, able to invigorate a McCain…

Conservative intellectuals and pundits who are overcome with enthusiasm for wooing "Sam's Club Republicans," as opposed to the more traditional country club Republicans, might want to stop off at a Sam's Club or, just as good, a Wal-Mart store to chat with the customers who are not new…

Girls of Riyadh

"Location, location, location," as everyone knows, is the appropriately redundant rule of contemporary travel writing. It's proven in every bookstore, where titles on Italy and France sometimes outnumber those on the rest of the world combined.

St. Paul

It's not so much what you say, as how you say it. Never is that more true than in the funding of campaign speech. The latest presidential dust-up involves the irresistible combination of a billionaire corporate raider, the sixties, the Department of Justice, and something judges dreamed up called…

Like most aging autocrats with declining legitimacy, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak seeks to perpetuate the prevailing order. Today, the man who has ruled longer than almost any pharaoh is leaving no stone unturned in his quest to secure the longevity of the regime and a seamless transition of power.…

William Ewart Gladstone, in his 1866 budget speech, warned that Britain faced the prospect of exhausting its domestic coal within a century and had poor prospects of finding sufficient alternative energy sources. This was not an idiosyncratic point of view. The year before, the economist William…

Tehran

St. Paul

Akron, New York

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

As noted here last week, Sarah Palin supports contraception, contrary to some reports. On Sunday, the LA Times took a closer look at Palin's statements on contraception: In July of [2006], she completed a candidate questionnaire that asked, would she support funding for abstinence-until-marriage…

NOW IS THE TIME to try to determine what the rest of the year will look like. For three reasons. First, traders, investors, politicians and executives are back at work, either refreshed or wearied from their summer vacations. Second, as Gerry Baker pointed out in The Times last week, "September is…

From the New York Times: In the press galleries at the convention, journalists wrinkled their noses in disgust when Piper, Ms. Palin's youngest daughter, was filmed kitty-licking her baby brother's hair into place. But to many Americans - including some I talked to in the convention hall - that…

Wow: The Republican National Convention has given John McCain and his party a significant boost, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken over the weekend shows, as running mate Sarah Palin helps close an "enthusiasm gap" that has dogged the GOP all year. McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among…

Barack Obama addressing donors at a high-dollar fundraiser hosted by the aging rock star Jon Bon Jovi: "I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven't been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife - I didn't put up for…

From The Scrapbook: Palin-Norfest.jpg (Actually, the governor visits the Little Norway Festival, Petersburg, Alaska, 2007.)

Rasmussen shows the race all tied up: In the first national polling results based entirely on interviews conducted after Sarah Palin's acceptance speech, Barack Obama gets 46% of the vote and so does John McCain. When "leaners" are included, it's all even at 48%. Zogby's online poll shows…

Blogger Charlie Martin has helpfully compiled all of the smears that the left has hurled at Sarah Palin. 54 and counting! Given that we're more than halfway to the century mark in Palin smears, I think it's time to take another brief look at the left's method of smear dissemination. Yesterday on a…

From the Iowa Hawk, "When America's Communities Need Organizing, America's Community Organizers Will Be There to Organize Them" by David Burge We all knew Dave was the most brilliant satirist on the internet (or anywhere in the media for that matter). What we didn't know was that Dave is also a…

Over at Spiritual Politics, Mark Silk makes the interesting observation that Sarah Palin is "the first movement evangelical ever to occupy a place on a GOP national ticket since the emergence of the religious right." Silk doesn't say what a "movement evangelical" is, but a fair definition would…

Obama did get something done as a community organizer! It was the first step in an informal partnership between Obama's constituents and Friends of the Parks that led to renovations and increased security in a handful of far South Side parks and playgrounds. Ensuring that swings have seats and…

Personally, I credit the green jell-o backdrop. The Gallup tracking poll is in and like Rasmussen before it, Gallup is showing a big bounce for McCain. McCain is up three from yesterday, and now trails Obama by four points. More importantly, both polls consist of three day rolling averages. Only…

As you know, the Republican party bravely cast aside the massive community organizer vote this week. Some have questioned whether the serial shots that RNC speakers took at community organizing were fair. Since I've been sarcastically referring to Barack Obama as "the longtime community organizer"…

1) The Speech - In case we needed a reminder that the great orator in the race represents the other party, Senator McCain's acceptance speech provided it. Soaring rhetoric and a mastery of the teleprompter aren't this candidate's strong suit. The general mediocrity of the speech and the…

Drudge reports that Oprah may not invite Gov. Sarah Palin to be a guest on her show.

Sarah Palin's favorability rating is 10 points higher than Joe Biden's; she edges out Obama and McCain by one point. Rasmussen reports: A week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million…

Via Sonny Bunch, Markos Moulitsas writes: So apparently Republicans hate community organizers. A reader sends me a pithy response: Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor. I guess I must have missed the story about Jesus and the new job training center on the South Side of…

Phillip Butler, an American POW during the Vietnam war, has received attention for a recent ad in opposition to John McCain. The short ad is an excerpt from this longer piece: Butler is a hero whose service and bravery merit our praise and thanks. But there's no indication in anything he says here…

On Thursday, ABC's Jake Tapper reported: "The Detroit Free Press invited a panel of Michigan voters to weigh-in on Gov. Sarah Palin's speech last night. Their reactions run the gamut, but the independents didn't seem to care for her very much." The blog Riehl World View pointed out that two of the…

THERE IS A REASON I chose "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" as the subtitle of the study of energy policy I just completed under the auspices of the Washington-based Hudson Institute. That reason: decades of listening to politician leaders of both of our parties promising "energy independence,"…

Bob Shrum, the Democratic campaign strategist, is known for two things mainly--his long losing streak in presidential races, including such highlights as McGovern '72, Kennedy '80, and Kerry '04--and the trademark themes of almost every one of these races, "I'll fight for you" and "I'm on your…

Hilarious exchange just now on CNN. David Gergen was complaining, as David Gergen always does, about partisanship in Washington. If you've worked for Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan and believe in little other than the importance of getting along -- it's probably your most compelling talking point.…

ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg has what might be the smartest take yet on the Sarah Palin pick. Great stuff on McCain's flirtation with Joe Lieberman, on the meaning of the Palin selection, on what it says about McCain, and on what she says about America. The picture of Palin was painted last night:…

The Washington Post reports today that African American Republicans are frustrated by the lack of minorities showcased in the Republican Convention this week, and in the party in general: Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint…

I can't believe there is any concern at all that tonight's NFL opener will somehow detract from viewership of John McCain's nomination acceptance speech at the convention. After all, kickoff is at 7:07pm EST and McCain will probably appear around the 10pm mark. This would put the Redskins-Giants…

Those trying to tarnish Sarah Palin's speech last night have decided to criticize Palin's alleged insult of community organizers: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." MoveOn.org wrote in an email that Palin's speech…

Sarah Palin may not be "going to Washington to seek [the] good opinion" of "reporters and commentators," as she put it in her speech last night. But some of those reporters and commentators offered surprisingly positive (as these things go) opinions about her speech. For example, the Washington…

The Obama campaign is harping on a talking point about how Sarah Palin's speech needs to be discounted because it was written by a former Bush speechwriter. This is one of the silliest complaints on record. Especially when Obama's star scribe, is a former Kerry speechwriter. Somehow, this fact…

Sarah Palin's speech last night apparently had an audience of some 37 million TV viewers, just a million fewer than tuned in last week for Barack Obama. Thank you, liberal media, for your herd-like idiocy and mean-spirited irresponsibility; you made her smashing success possible.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden has - and this is so unlike him - made another gaffe: "Campaigning in Virginia today, Biden accidentally demoted Palin from governor to lieutenant governor," NBC news reports. Here's the quote: "And the other thing I heard, I heard a very - by the way,…

Oops: Obama referred to the Penn State Nittany Lions, as the "Nittaly Lions". Calls to mind John Kerry's gaffe in 2004, when he called the Green Bay Packers' Lambeau Field, "Lambert Field".

Today Gloria Steinem criticizes Sarah Palin, writing that she "opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality." Steinem believes that McCain's selection of Palin "is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters." But other women disagree. Steinem…

Here are some highlights from a Nielsen ratings press release: * The Sara Palin speech generated 37.2 million viewers, just a 1.1 million viewers short of Barak Obama's record-breaking speech on Day 4 of the Democratic Convention. The Palin speech was carried on only six networks while the Obama…

I've heard a fair amount of morning-after caviling from conservatives that Sarah Palin didn't spend more of her speech talking about public policy and issues. David Frum, for one, asks: "Where does she stand on immigration - an issue to which a President McCain will surely return? How reliable is…

Paul Mirengoff compares the Washington Post's headlines today on Palin and the RNC with the Post's headlines last week following Obama's speech.

1) I know I'm waddling in late here, and my tardiness presents a bit of a problem. There aren't many ways of saying, "It was a great speech!" that haven't already been exhausted. But it was a great speech, a campaign altering speech. For reasons still unknown, the Democrats based their entire…

Dave Barry on "Palin-palooza": "As the Republican convention nears its conclusion and John McCain prepares to make his acceptance speech, we in the news media, having finally grown weary of the endless speculation and gossip about Sarah Palin, are turning our attention, at long last, to additional…

The greatest threat to stability in Iraq is violence by Iranian-backed militias, known as Special Groups. As Coalition and Iraqi Forces refocused their efforts on combating such groups, they launched a number of offensives in the spring of 2008 that left these Iranian-backed networks fractured and…

Oliver Kamm is always worth reading: The isolationist Governor of Texas who called, in the 2000 presidential debates, for the withdrawal of US forces from the Balkans - which was one reason I strongly favoured Gore in that election - also shifted markedly in office. But he not only adapted to…

I just watched CNN's Soledad O'Brien sandbag former White House Communications Director Nicole Wallace by asking her how Sarah Palin can claim to be a defender of special needs children when she cut the budget for that Alaska office by 62 percent. Wallace wasn't familiar with the charge -- which…

The Obama campaign attacks Governor Palin's speech last night by noting that it was "written by George Bush's speechwriter." This is the best they can do? The fact that - and I am not making this up - a speechwriter helped a politician with her remarks has been a recurring motif of attacks on Palin…

Sarah Palin slammed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last night, and his press secretary responded by calling her speech "shrill and sarcastic." The term "shrill" is a word we've heard used to describe female candidates before. During Hillary Clinton's campaign, pundits everywhere called her…

Joseph Bottum notes that Sarah Palin did not mention abortion in her speech last night, prompting Amanda Shaw to reply: Sarah Palin didn't talk about abortion, and I don't think she needed to. . . . When she stood up on the stage before all of America, with her pregnant daughter by her side and her…

You read that right. Last night was the first night of the 2008 Republican National Convention. Monday was rained out. Tuesday was uneven and at times seemed forced. Wednesday was blast-off. Huckabee and Giuliani gave two powerful speeches, topped only by what came after. The looks on the…

Let's imagine that in 2003 a cop in Chicago had tasered a 10 year-old child and issued a threat that a member of Barack Obama's family would "eat a f***ing lead bullet". Now let's further pretend that Barack Obama became the governor of Illinois in 2004. Would it be unethical for him to inquire to…

For the third time in five days Washington Post has published a story on the investigation into Sarah Palin's firing of Alaskan public safety commissioner Walt Monegan. The Post's first report on the alleged scandal that Palin fired Monegan because he refused to fire Palin's ex-brother-in-law was…

Now we see why the liberal establishment has been trying for the last few days to destroy Sarah Palin. She is a threat to their hopes to take the White House this year, a threat to their broader claims to speak for youth, for women, and for the future, and a threat to their attempt to control the…

NOW WE SEE why the liberal establishment has been trying for the last few days to destroy Sarah Palin. She is a threat to their hopes to take the White House this year, a threat to their broader claims to speak for youth, for women, and for the future, and a threat to their attempt to control the…

St. Paul That was easy. Sarah Palin delivered what may have been the most important speech ever by a vice presidential candidate and made it look like she'd been performing on the national political stage for years. And she made John McCain look good for having picked her as his running mate.Yet,…

St. Paul

Several times today I've heard this justification of the attacks on Sarah Palin's family: She is using her family for political benefit so they are "fair game." An NPR commentator said today that her family became a legitimate subject for scrutiny because they appeared with her on stage when her…

Sarah Palin had to do one thing: She had to show that she belonged. Had she bombed or even stumbled a bit, the media's "unqualified" narrative would have gained currency and the questions about her vetting would have taken on new significance. She didn't. The speech was a masterpiece. She was…

In case you missed it--or want to watch it again--here's Gov. Palin's speech: HT: Hot Air

Forty-four years ago, an actor named Ronald Reagan gave a speech supporting Barry Goldwater and launching his own political career that was known ever after, by his ever increasing group of followers, simply as "The Speech." If the McCain-Palin team pulls off an upset in two months, the performance…

A killer speech. Gov. Palin introduced herself and her family, then touted her experience in Alaska--while highlighting her energy expertise. She forcefully argued the case for McCain and the case against Obama--while skewering the inanities--"community organizer" ... "presidential seal"--of the…

CNN has shown Palin's speech flashing across the teleprompter screen twice. Are their cameramen really that incompetent?

Disgusting: A spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women, noting Palin's opposition to abortion rights and support of other parts of the social conservative agenda, told Politico, "She's more a conservative man than she is a woman on women's issues. Very disappointing."

You can read more about it here--a rare entry on Snopes.com that's actually true.

"I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich, but because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me."

Via Ace, Megyn Kelly takes a senior editor at US Weekly to task for the magazine's cover story on Sarah Palin: "Babies, Lies, & Scandal." US Weekly's editor defends the cover saying that the "Lies" are the rumors peddled by the bloggers "who were speculating that the daughter had actually given…

Mickey Kaus has a typically thoughtful, elegant, and counter-intuitive assessment of why, exactly, the press has been so irresponsibly hostile toward Sarah Palin. I won't spoil it, but it involves a detailed accounting of the how the internet and traditional media have evolved over time in a new…

In an interview tonight with Neil Cavuto on Fox, oilman T. Boone Pickens predicted that Sarah Palin will change John McCain's mind on drilling in the Arctic National Widlife Refuge in Alaska. McCain has opposed drilling in ANWR and Palin is the nation's most outspoken advocate of drilling there. "I…

BidenFilePhoto.jpg Delaware's Mr. Congeniality.

Via Allahpundit, video of McCain meeting with the whole Palin family after touching down at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport:

Via Allahpundit, Jake Tapper reports

John McCain spoke to staff and advisers working in the campaign War Room at the Minneapolis Hilton this afternoon, and forcefully vowed to fight hard to defend his running mate Sarah Palin against attacks from the media and Democrats. "They're not doing right by our vice president, they're not…

John McCain spoke to staff and advisers working in the campaign War Room at the Minneapolis Hilton this afternoon, and forcefully vowed to fight hard to defend his running mate Sarah Palin against attacks from the media and Democrats. "They're not doing right by our vice president, they're not…

Larry Kudlow writes about Sarah Palin's experience dealing with energy issues: Coming from the natural-resource rich state of Alaska, Palin is an experienced energy expert. She knows more about the economics of energy than senators McCain, Obama, or Biden. And in this year of the oil-shock economy,…

How many remember the story of Graeme Frost -- the 12-year old boy selected by Democrats last year to deliver a radio address on children's health insurance? Unlike The Left went absolutely bonkers over the efforts of conservative bloggers to learn more about Frost and his family, to better…

In an article on the response of conservatives to the media coverage of Sarah Palin, Politico's Jonathan Martin examines the "time-honored and strategic effort by Republicans" to "blame the media". One example of the McCain campaign's strategy: Tuesday, the campaign ratcheted up the criticism,…

Sarah Palin is a pro-life, social conservative. And she attends churches that scholars of evangelicalism usually label as evangelical--a non-denominational church in Juneau and an Assemblies of God church in her home town of Wasilla. So you can see why evangelical leaders (such as James Dobson)…

People are skeptical of John McCain's ability to adopt a "change" or "reform" message in a year that overwhelmingly favors Democrats. As one Republican strategist has put it, by choosing Palin, McCain's "steel hammer of experience has turned into a rubber mallet." Maybe. From the looks of things…

On posing as Richard Riordan's security detail at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles: "The security detail consisted of me and six other guys, mostly newspaper cartoonists. We wore dark suits and sunglasses, and plugged the curly cords from our hotel phones directly into our ears and…

The Wall Street Journal's letters page today contains a fascinating nugget: "Under 45, lover of the outdoors, a Republican reformer who has taken on the Republican Party establishment, has many children, and a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor's…

Keith Marsden: "The U.S. employment rate, measured by the percentage of people of working age (16-65 years) in jobs, has remained high by international standards. The latest OECD figures show a rate of 71.7 percent in 2006. This was more than five percentage points above the average for the euro…

Robert J. Samuelson examines the latest census numbers: The real economic report card is both better and worse than the imagined. The big advances of the rich (which occurred mostly in the 1980s and 1990s and reversed slightly last year) haven't prevented most Americans from achieving grudging…

St. Paul It was the most poignant moment of the convention so far. At exactly 9:55 pm CST last night, Senator Joe Lieberman stood before thousands of Republicans and requested their indulgence. Speaking directly into the cameras, he asked independents and open-minded Democrats watching the…

Politico reports that Barack Obama has a new radio ad challenging John McCain on abortion that's running in at least seven states-Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Colorado. I've not heard it, as I'm not in any of those states. But here's the ad as Politico has it: "Let me tell…

USWeekly.jpg Steve Hayes has a piece on US Weekly's cover story trashing Sarah Palin; he notes that US Weekly's publisher is a big Obama contributor and the cover was sent out to news organizations around the country. Quite a revealing contrast with US Weekly's Obama cover, no?

The Economist describes everyone's favorite impeachment-loving congressman from Ohio: "Dennis Kucinich, a short congressman from Ohio and sometime presidential candidate who claims to have seen a UFO, added a touch of levity [to the Democratic convention] by jumping manically up and down at the…

John McCain is an unusual politician. He relishes the atypical. His convention is no different. Where the Democratic convention was focused and on-message, this convention seems loose, slightly disorganized, all over the place. Where the Democratic convention was packed to the gills with screaming…

Television viewers would have been hard pressed to find media commentary in the last few days that was, on balance, favorable to Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It ranged from the appallingly biased on MSNBC which ran a "Breaking News" subheading as McCain was about to introduce…

While Fred Thompson fired up the crowd tonight, the lovely and classy lady in red, First Lady Laura Bush, got some of the loudest applause before her speech that emphasized the many women in the Bush administration. She also noted the administration's work for AIDs relief and got a good laugh for…

From the McCain Report: In light of the smearing of Governor Palin by Obama surrogate Robert Wexler and Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski, both of whom alleged Palin was a supporter of Patrick Buchanan and therefore a "Nazi sympathizer," this statement from Buchanan today seems noteworthy: Let me say…

Consider this a public service message. For those of you in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area who are, like me, aggressive carnivores, you cannot get a better meal than the one prepared for you at JD Hoyt's in Minneapolis. I ate there last night with my colleague Matt Labash and we had the best food…

Yesterday in St. Paul, Republican National Convention platform chair Congressman Kevin McCarthy presented the official GOP platform, which was created with input from thousands of Americans. Kevin McCarthy is a freshman congressman from Bakersfield, California. Last year, I profiled him in THE…

Lindsay Lohan (!) notices how bizarrely obsessed the media are with Sarah Palin's family: "I think the real problem comes from the fact that we are taking the focus off of getting to know Sarah Palin and her political views, and what she can do to make our country a less destructive place," Lohan…

Joseph Bottum has a bracing post looking at the reaction in some precincts of the left to the smears being spread about Sarah Palin and her family. When some commenters on the Daily Kos site complained that the smearing of Palin was beyond the pale, other commenters objected to the objection.…

Time's Mark Halperin has posted an advance copy of the cover of US Weekly magazine, the tabloid published by Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner. That cover shows a smiling Sarah Palin, holding her youngest son Trig. The screaming headline: "Babies, Lies and Scandal: John McCain's Vice President." Wenner…

Time's Mark Halperin has posted an advance copy of the cover of US Weekly magazine, the tabloid published by Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner. That cover shows a smiling Sarah Palin, holding her youngest son Trig. The screaming headline: "Babies, Lies and Scandal: John McCain's Vice President." Wenner…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD now has a YouTube Channel! We'll also post our videos here on the blog. My director/camerawoman Catherine Daniel and I met some Republican delegates yesterday as they entered the Xcel Center for Day 1 of the Republican National Convention: Check back soon for more videos from…

St. Paul John McCain needs to win back "disaffected Republicans" if he hopes to be the next president of the United States. This voter group supported President Bush in 2000 and 2004 but since then has grown disenchanted with the party brand over issues like earmarks, spending, and managerial…

From the Wall Street Journal, "Why McCain Still Has a Chance to Win" by Peter Robinson Forget the somewhat off-key title, which I would wager Robinson had nothing to do with. (That's how it goes when you contribute op-eds to major dailies - trust me.) You'll love this column, as it more clearly…

This fascinating op-ed seriously complicates the inequality debate: This is a stunning moment in economic history: At one time we worked hard so that someday we (or our children) wouldn't have to. Today, the more we earn, the more we work, since the opportunity cost of not working is all the…

Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatimah Ali warns that, "If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness--and hopelessness!" I'm not sure about the race and class war stuff, but I'm sure we will see a huge…

These Rasmussen numbers show that, contrary to what you may be hearing, politics remains polarized. The two parties have vastly different views of the economy, the war, President Bush, and now Governor Palin: "69 percent of GOP voters believe the choice [of Palin] was a good one, while nearly as…

Don LaFontaine, known as the "voiceover guy" because of his numerous voiceovers for movie trailers, has died. Here's my favorite LaFontaine moment:

It's from Sen. Lindsey Graham: "'The Congress has transcended party for the first time in my lifetime,'' Mr. Graham said. 'People think we all suck.'"

Former community organizer Barack Obama and his campaign have had a lot of fun sneering at former mayor Sarah Palin's lack of experience. But that's quite an odd line of attack when you consider the following: Obama served as a senator from Illinois for 664 days before signaled on October 22, 2006…

The Times reports on Europe's toothless response to Russia's invasion of Georgia.

Fred Thompson will forcefully defend the selection of Sarah Palin tonight in a speech Republicans are characterizing as "red meat." He will argue that the feeding frenzy over Palin's is the result of "panic" from the Democrat-friendly mainstream media. "What a breath of fresh air Governor Sarah…

By now we know that evangelical Protestants--generally supportive of Republican candidates but eagerly courted by Democrats this year--are a crucial voting bloc in the November election. Thus it was big news when Rick Warren, the evangelical megachurch pastor, recently asked both John McCain and…

From Political Radar, "Huckabee Strikes Partisan Tone at RNC; Blasts Biden, Defends Palin" by whoever at ABC has to write Political Radar Since I'm a Romney guy, Huckabee once had an unerring ability to get under my skin. But now that we've all come together under the same happy big tent, I must…

The smearing of Sarah Palin is getting uglier. Time's Mark Halperin has posted an advance copy of the cover of US Weekly magazine, the tabloid published by Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner. That cover shows a smiling Sarah Palin, holding her youngest son Trig. The screaming headline: "Babies, Lies and…

Via Allahpundit, classic Fred: Link: sevenload.com

The prevailing view in the mainstream media is that Sarah Palin doesn't have a prayer of luring female voters for Hillary Clinton to the John McCain-Palin ticket. Gerald Seib disputed this notion in his excellent column in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday. And the numbers in the latest Journal/NBC…

Is Sarah Palin about to approach Chuck Norris levels of legendary awesomeness? Sarah Palin Facts says yes! Death once had a near-Sarah Palin experience. Sarah Palin always beats the point spread. Sarah Palin uses French Canadians as bait to catch giant king salmon. When Sarah Palin booked a flight…

The genius of Borat was always lost on me, but these videos of Jason Mattera at the Democratic convention last week are fall-over funny. Mattera went around trying to get Democratic radicals to sign a petition to improve the quality of life for terrorist detainees. As Mattera explains to one mark,…

Dave Barry on Day One of the Republican non-convention convention: "There was a big protest march in St. Paul against war and fascism and injustice and corporations in general, so these things should be pretty much eliminated any minute now."

The New York Times follows Joe Biden to his hometown: "I give you my word as a Biden," [Biden] said, "if [Obama] grew up in my neighborhood as he did in Kansas being raised by his grandparents, he'd be our friend, he'd cover our back. That's Barack Obama." (Actually, Mr. Obama was raised by his…

In response to accusations that in the 1990s Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party - a third party that seeks a vote on making Alaska a sovereign state - the McCain campaign has provided records showing that Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982. Jake Tapper has…

There are many differences, of course. George W. Bush had been targeting Dick Cheney as his runningmate for eight months -- since a November 2007 fundraiser in Texas, well before Bush won the Republican nomination -- and by working closely with Cheney on the vice presidential search, eventually…

Why is Joe Lieberman speaking at the Republican convention tonight? Simple. John McCain asked him to. Lieberman, the independent Democratic senator from Connecticut, long ago endorsed McCain for the presidency over his own party's nominee, Barack Obama. But speaking to thousands of excited…

John O'Sullivan is a fan of the governor's: Palin seems to be one of those extraordinary, ordinary people that America throws up at irregular intervals. She combines conservative views with highly unconventional drive and ability. Her appointment has injected real excitement into the Republican…

Patrick Ruffini: "Palin as #2 represents the triumph of Apolitical America in Presidential politics in extremis. Elitists on both sides are asking 'Who is this woman?' To them, Palin is the ultimate arriviste, having leapfrogged several more-pedigreed candidates on the Republican side, and…

McCain aides whose judgment I trust are impressed by Sarah Palin. One was particularly amused by this exchange: A nervous young McCain staffer took it upon himself to explain to Palin the facts of life in a national campaign, the intense scrutiny she'd be under from the media, the viciousness of…

Ed Morrissey has gone through the bother of producing a thorough transcript of Barack Obama's painful soliloquy on why he's ready to handle any disaster as president. I think you'll find the Hyde Park Hamlet's logic as impressive as his eloquence: Anderson Cooper: Some Republican critics say, you…

Having spent over a decade as a headhunter for lawyers in another life, I've seen many résumés. And every résumé tells a story. The stories told by Barack Obama's and Sarah Palin's résumés could hardly be more different for two people of roughly the same age and aspirations.

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With the convention on-hold, I made a pilgrimage to the Mall of America this morning, and I mean it as no insult to say that the Metro Twin Cities area is what New Jersey would have been like had everything gone right. In any event, the MoA is a place of many wonders, not the least of which is its…

From the Washington Post, "Palin's Pregnancy Problem" by Sally Quinn Behold the logical train wrecks and serial cheap-shots that ensue when big media types pretend to try to understand the Evangelical community: And now we learn the 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. She and the father of…

St. Paul

From Time.com, "In Wasilla, Pregnancy Was No Secret" by Nathan Thornburgh The suddenly ubiquitous Thornburgh provides actual reporting in lieu of speculation regarding Bristol Palin's pregnancy. Thornburgh better be careful - he could receive a lifetime ban from some fevered precincts in the…

Dave Barry: "And now the eyeballs of the nation turn to this quintessentially Middle American or possibly southern Canadian city, where in the next few days, weather permitting, the Republicans will answer the Democratic Party's call for change by sounding, loud and clear, their own bold campaign…

From Time.com, "Where Palin Made Her Name" by Nathan Thornburgh This is a touching and extremely well written profile of Wasilla, AK and its most famous resident: It's Friday night, and there have got to be 500 people packed into the Sluice Box, a beer-soaked clapboard honky-tonk at the Alaska…

Jay Cost has a characteristically astute observation about the Palin pick: I think many people are surprised to discover that McCain intends to carry a positive message into the fall. Many of us had assumed that this election would be a referendum on Barack Obama, with McCain serving as an…

Barack Obama told the media to "back off" the story that Sarah Palin's 17 year-old daughter is pregnant, but left-wing bloggers can't resist the temptation to sink their fangs into Gov. Palin because she opposed spending tax dollars on "explicit sex-ed programs". "Palin family sticks with…

"Minnesota nice" is truly no myth. The members of the press have had a more than welcoming reception from the moment we stepped off our planes at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport where we were greeted by a small army of local volunteers passing out snack boxes for all RNC visitors.…

The New York Times reports: In a brief press conference in Monroe, Mich., here to talk about Hurricane Gustav, Senator Barack Obama was asked about the suggestion by some Republicans that Democrats - particularly liberal bloggers - have pushed a story about the family of Ms. Palin, who was named…

If anyone in the media is expecting any leader of the religious right to say that Bristol Palin's pregnancy casts shame upon her family, they're not going to get it. James Dobson has not always been known to make refined remarks, but he just made a very poignant statement in defense of the Palins…

Anderson Cooper almost got hit by a cardboard sign in the streets of New Orleans! But did he go inside? No, there's no cameras inside! He's brave! When everybody else is coming out, he goes in! He's like the 9/11 fireman of CNN hosts! Or Al Roker! Either/or! Go Anderson! Go Gore-Tex!

Barack Obama told Steve Kroft this yesterday: "[O]ne of the reasons that I love Joe [Biden] and one of the reasons I think he's gonna be such an effective vice president is he's blunt when he's right, and he's blunt when he's wrong. And that means that I can trust his counsel." Really? Since when…

It's otherwise known as logorrhea - "excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness." Named after its most famous sufferer, the senior senator from Delaware. Chance of a cure: nil. [T]he weekend offered Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden one of their first opportunities to spend an extended period…

Gerard Baker compares and contrasts Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. A taste: Executive experience Obama: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of his campaign staff and a vast crowd of traveling journalists Palin: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of…

Bristol Palin, the governor's 17 year-old daughter is 5 months pregnant; she plans to marry the father. Here's the official statement of Sarah and Todd Palin provided by the McCain campaign: "We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us.…

Paul Krugman is shocked that the president of the United States of America has access to - get this - classified information: Mr. Bush is playing Commander in Chief. On Sunday morning the White House Web site featured photos of the president talking to Gulf state governors about Hurricane Gustav…

Three polls--all conducted entirely after the Democratic National Convention concluded--show the presidential race to be a dead heat. CNN: Obama-Biden 49, McCain-Palin 48 Rasmussen: Obama-Biden 49, McCain-Palin 46 Zogby: Obama-Biden 45, McCain-Palin 47. According to the polls, many voters still…

How much does experience matter to voters? Not much, if the recent past is any guide. How much experience did Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush have in foreign affairs prior to becoming president? None. How much would Barack Obama have? Less than a little. Democratic…

Elites in the media and in both political parties don't like John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. But conservative activists are incredibly enthused. It is likely that, if Palin performs well, popular opinion at large will also respond favorably to her. What…

Good news out of Iraq, via Reuters: The U.S. military handed over Iraq's Anbar province to Iraqi security forces on Monday, less than two years after it almost lost the western region to a Sunni Arab insurgency. "We are in the last ten yards of this terrible fight. The goal is very near,"…

St. Paul The GOP convention begins this afternoon amid grave concern for the citizens of the Gulf Coast. And while the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul Minnesota looks much like conventions of the past, this party gathering is like no other. Convention planners spent most of the day Sunday undoing…

The car was parked across the street from the ice-cream parlor: a little, old convertible we'd gotten cheap to tool around the Black Hills. Or, at least, it was cheap to purchase. Actually owning the thing turns out to be a more expensive proposition. Your typical British motorcar from the 1980s…

Shortly after 1 P.M. on March 5, 2008, John McCain strode into the White House Rose Garden with George W. Bush. McCain wore a dark gray suit and a colorful, striped tie. Bush appeared in a slate blue suit with his trademark light blue tie. The president grinned broadly and seemed relaxed, almost…

History by Herbert

What's So Funny?

As Russian tanks rumble through Georgia, and Western pundits talk of the "new Cold War," one trope keeps reappearing in their discourse. Russia's newly aggressive stance, we are told, is partly our fault: After the fall of Communism, the West went out of its way to humiliate and trample Russia…

Lake Forest, California

Passing a newsstand not long ago on K Street in Washington, I was startled to spot the cover of a recent issue of Playboy. "Red-Hot Russian Sex Bombs" proclaimed the cover line above a photograph of a slim blonde-headed young woman wearing a white fur chapka, and demurely holding a large matching…

Chestnut Hill, West Virginia

Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor who is currently running to represent that state in the Senate, delivers the keynote address at the Democratic convention on August 26. The bar is high. Four years ago, when the Democrats gathered in Boston, a little-known Senate candidate from Illinois…

Tell No One

A funny thing happened this summer: John McCain taunted Barack Obama into making a trip to Iraq, whereupon the press looked around and finally noticed what those who were paying attention had known for some months now. The country portrayed for the last four years by the press and the Democrats as…

Paradise Lost

A young man who was brought to the United States as a toddler, Jian Li, has shaken up the civil rights establishment and Ivy League colleges and rekindled a fierce debate over racial preferences at America's elite institutions of higher learning. For parents and applicants navigating the college…

Bob Bullock

This week, the least qualified man to receive a major party nomination for the presidency of the United States in modern times will be anointed by his party. He could well win the general election.

Detroit

For over a decade I worked as a headhunter specialized in placing lawyers. I've often wondered what I would have made of Barack Obama's résumé if it had come across my desk.

Can't get enough of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin? The Anchorage Daily News has kindly posted a photo gallery here.