I have a ton of tabs open representing the blogging I intended to do this week but never did. Let us begin with the ongoing implosion of the Republican Party.

* Secession! It's everyone's favorite new fantasy. Polls show a quarter of Texans like Gov. Crazy's crazy idea, though said governor is now backpeddling. And if Texas does secede, some people are saying this time we should just let them go.

It would be the world's thirteenth largest economy -- bigger than South Korea, Sweden, and Saudi Arabia. But its worth would crater precipitously, after NAFTA rejected it and the United States slapped it with an embargo that would make Cuba look like a free-trade zone. Indeed, Texas would quick become the next North Korea, relying on foreign aid due to its insistence on relying on itself.

* In less hilarious eliminationist wingnuttery, an Illinois state senator has repeatedly suggested that "Illinois residents 'are ready to shoot anyone who is going to raise taxes' as much as Gov. Pat Quinn is proposing." This talk never should have started back during the election, and really needs to stop.

* The ante's likely been upped for forthcoming Republican antics because the teabagging parties were such a bust while Obama's popularity remains consistently high, no matter what sort of shit they fling at the wall.

* How to become the Republican candidate for vice president. It's easier than you think!

A.B. Culvahouse, a powerful Washington lawyer and former counsel to President Reagan, told an audience of Republican lawyers that for McCain, selecting a vice president came down to three questions: Why do you want to be vice president? Are you prepared to use nuclear weapons? And the CIA has identified Osama bin Laden, but if you take the shot there will be multiple civilian casualties. Do you take the shot?

Fox News apparently has its marching orders: destroy Sarah Palin.

I heard this live on the Fox Report, Shepard Smith's show. It was at the end of the show, a report done by Carl Cameron. But apparently the tensions and drama behind the scenes in the McCain Campaign were far, far worse than anyone in the media allowed us to believe.

According to Cameron:

Palin did NOT know Africa was a continent.
She did NOT know who the parties to NAFTA were.
She threw dramatic temper tantrums over bad press.
She refused to prepare for the Gibson or Couric interviews.

UPDATE: TPM's got the video.

Friday evening links.

* Joe the Plumber...for Congress?

* New Jersey's Star-Ledger cuts it newsroom staff by half.

* Joe "Let's Assume the Best" Lieberman hits another Sarah Palin question right out of the park.

[W]hen asked by The Advocate if Palin is ready to be president from day one, Lieberman said “thank God she’s not going to have to be president from day one. McCain’s going to be alive and well.”

* Palin 2012? The buzz continues!

* Republicans are at each other's throats, and the rats-off-a-sinking-ship watch hits a new high water mark with the first Obama endorsement by a McCain advisor.

* And Barack Obama is well ahead of both Kerry and Gore, eleven days out.

'Whatever happened to Sarah Palin?' Look for stories with that headline over the next few years—with polling like this Sarah Palin will likely never be a serious candidate for national office ever again. And that's good news for all of us, in Real and Fake America alike.

The New Yorker has an interesting first-crack in the "Whatever happened to Sarah Palin?" genre this week, actually, with a post-mortem on how McCain ever came to make such a damaging choice.

With just days to go before the Convention, the choices were slim. Karl Rove favored McCain’s former rival Mitt Romney, but enough animus lingered from the primaries that McCain rejected the pairing. “I told Romney not to wait by the phone, because ‘he doesn’t like you,’ ” Keene, who favored the choice, said. “With John McCain, all politics is personal.” Other possible choices—such as former Representative Rob Portman, of Ohio, or Governor Tim Pawlenty, of Minnesota—seemed too conventional. They did not transmit McCain’s core message that he was a “maverick.” Finally, McCain’s top aides, including Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis, converged on Palin. Ed Rogers, the chairman of B.G.R., a well-connected, largely Republican lobbying firm, said, “Her criteria kept popping out. She was a governor—that’s good. The shorter the Washington résumé the better. A female is better still. And then there was her story.” He admitted, “There was concern that she was a novice.” In addition to Schmidt and Davis, Charles R. Black, Jr., the lobbyist and political operative who is McCain’s chief campaign adviser, reportedly favored Palin. Keene said, “I’m told that Charlie Black told McCain, ‘If you pick anyone else, you’re going to lose. But if you pick Palin you may win.’ ” (Black did not return calls for comment.) Meanwhile, McCain’s longtime friend said, “Kristol was out there shaking the pom-poms.”

McCain had met Palin once, but their conversation—at a reception during a meeting of the National Governors Association, six months earlier—had lasted only fifteen minutes. “It wasn’t a real conversation,” said the longtime friend, who called the choice of Palin “the fucking most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Aides arranged a phone call between McCain and Palin, and scrutinized her answers to some seventy items on a questionnaire that she had filled out. But McCain didn’t talk with Palin in person again until the morning of Thursday, August 28th. Palin was flown down to his retreat in Sedona, Arizona, and they spoke for an hour or two. By the time he announced her as his choice, the next day, he had spent less than three hours in her company.

Meanwhile, Palin is back in the news today with a revealing flub demonstrating that she either (still) has no idea what the vice president does or has a vision of expanded powers for the VP that rivals even Cheney's.

Millions of Americans were watching Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate waiting for a demolition derby moment — another crash by GOP running mate Sarah Palin, another serving of raw material for the writers at "Saturday Night Live."

By that standard, she got out alive, though there were white-knuckle moments along the way: questions that were answered with painfully obvious talking points that betrayed scant knowledge of the issue at hand, and sometimes little relevance to the question that had been asked.

John F. Harris and Mike Allen have a thumbs-down assessment of Sarah Palin's performance in last night's debate. Meanwhile, the Obama camp has already put together a fantastic ad from the debate on a moment I highlighted last night, the $5,000 health insurance tax credit for a $12,000 family-by-family increase in health insurance costs. This is a hilariously bad idea that just about nobody knows about—they should put this ad all over Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and Pennsylvania now that it's too late for McCain to run from it.

(new thread)

10:30 PM Biden ends with a strong assertion of Barack Obama's readiness and then his usual closing about "God blessing out troops." And that's it. I'll be back in a few minutes with reactions.

10:29 PM Palin likes being able to answer these "tough questions." Oh, give me a break.

10:21 PM Palin talks about mavericks again. Sweet Caroline actually threw up on my floor. This looks *really* bad against Biden's answer about his kids and the kitchen table answer—this is the answer where she lost this debate.

10:20 PM Biden dodges the Achilles heel question too after a joke. Biden's breaking up a little bit talking about his kids.

10:18 PM Gov. Palin, what is your Achilles heel? Answer: "I am awesome." What?

10:17 PM: Bad news for Palin, Biden knows what the Constitution actually says about the vice president. Good news for Palin: No follow-ups.

10:17 PM: Biden thinks Cheney is a douche.

10:14 PM Palin is interpreting the Constitutional powers of the vice president. She claims to agree with Cheney, but she's just trying to talk her way out of this question.

10:13 PM Ezra's having the same problem I'm having:

10:03 Sarah-Palin-as-Tina-Fey-as-Sarah-Palin says "it's just so clear I'm a Washington outsider" then she tilts her head and smiles and shrugs and accuses Joe Biden of being "for it before being against it" and says "the American people are craving some of that straight talk." With Palin, we have left the age when satire ruled comedy and entered a period in which reenactment reigns supreme.

10:12 PM: Now Palin's talking about elementary school teaching? How the hell did we get here?

10:10 PM Her answer to the question of what she would do if John McCain died devolved to a repetition of her first answer on taxes and government-being-the-problem. That was weird. Now Palin drops a planned line: "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again," but she flubs it, and the whole thing is just weird.

Why did Ifill ask a question about assassination?

10:09 PM Palin answers the assassination question with a smile. Jaimee says, "She can't wait."

10:08 PM Ifill drops the assassination bomb. Skirting the line there, Ifill. Kendra is visibly shaken.

10:06 PM Those little ums and pauses at the start of her answers are getting longer and longer.

10:04 PM Ambinder: 10:02: Palin gets the name of the commander general in Afghanistan wrong: he's McKiernan, not McClellan. She does not know who he is, clearly.

10:00 PM Interventionism. Palin calls Biden a flip-flopper. She is reading from a piece of paper.

9:58 PM Biden: "Facts matter, Gwen."

9:56 PM Palin's pretty obviously reading from her notes here. I hope somebody's getting clips of this. (Debate Hub is still the best application for this in the world.) (UPDATE: Here.)

9:55 PM Do you know what I like about best about Sarah Palin? The generalities. I can't believe there's 35 more minutes of this. At least Biden is killing on the "more of the same" line: "I don't know how his policy is going to be different from George Bush's."

9:54 PM Ezra Klein: "9:52: Like John McCain, Sarah Palin is firmly against a second Holocaust. The silence of the Obama/Biden ticket on this issue is deafening."

9:51 PM Biden drops the Spain-bomb.

9:50 PM There's a little bit of shouting at the TV in my house right now.

9:49 PM Dictators hate our freedoms. Check.

9:48 PM Palin calls Obama naive and dangerous, but unlike John McCain she can say "Ahmadinejad" on the first try.

9:45 PM Biden is doing really well on Pakistan and terror. Palin tells us to trust al Qaeda when it says that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. Trust al Qaeda? Really, Governor? That's not change we can believe in.

9:43 PM Biden: "John McCain voted against funding the troops." "John McCain and Dick Cheney said..." "John McCain has been dead wrong." Good answer, Joe.

9:42 PM Democrats want to wave the white flag of surrender in the face of "the Talibani."

9:41 PM Biden says what Obama should have said last week: John McCain is the only one who doesn't want to leave.

9:40 PM Here comes the surge. Palin tries to pit Biden against Barack by reading his own words to him. That's good note-carding.

9:38 PM Biden wins the gay marriage dispute, but only on points.

9:36 PM Biden keeps getting in the last word. That's good stuff. Next question: gay marriage. Biden just came out very strongly in favor of marriage equality, though he tries to dial it back a bit at the end of the sentence and begins to crouch it in Constitutional terms. Palin chooses to insist that she's tolerant and mentions that some of her best friends are gay.

9:32 PM Biden: "If you don't understand what the cause is, you can't come up with a solution." Right.

9:30 PM Drill, baby, drill. Here comes climate change. Palin doesn't want to argue about the causes—didn't Jon Stewart decimate this line last night?

9:29 PM Michael Crowley is on Palin note-watch.

The camera behind Palin's podium just caught her furiously (but discreetly) shuffling papers as Gwin Ifill was asking her question; and Palin took at least one glance down midway. Something to keep an eye on over the next 90 minutes.

9:26 PM Tim gets a gleam in his eye when she uses one of her catchphrases: "rears its head."

9:25 PM Biden is taking a "There you go again" tack. It seems to be working, at least where I'm sitting.

9:23 PM I just noticed her flag pin. I think it's Bejeweled. Meanwhile, Palin's off on energy. Then she admits that she's only been at this for five weeks—that was a weird line.

9:22 PM Marc Ambinder: I just got 5 fact-check e-mails from the Obama campaign...can't look at 'em all when they arrive at once.

9:19 PM Biden kills on it, uses his first punchline: "I call that the ultimate Bridge to Nowhere." But he really does need that eyelid lift.

9:18 PM $5,000 tax credit issue. Palin bungles it badly, Biden smells blood.

9:18 PM Biden loves the middle class. Kendra says he needs an eyelid lift, and you know, she's right. Palin is turning into Tina Fey before our eyes.

9:14 PM Things are blowing up already. Biden says she didn't answer the question, Palin says she'll answer the questions the way she wants. Biden's walking a fine line on the "don't be a bully" issue, but it looks like he's not interested in treating Palin with kid gloves.

9:13 PM Now we need to learn to live with less, says Palin. That's change we can believe in.

9:12 PM Palin drops another "darn right." Folksy!

9:12 PM Biden goes after McCain, deregulation, and the cost to blow up your gas tank.

9:10 PM The sub-prime lending meltdown. Who was at fault? Palin blames the predatory lenders. Now she's telling us not to live in debt. Interesting lecture from a millionaire.

9:08 PM Everyone in the room is enjoying Palin's winks. Sweet Caroline says, "I can't believe she's flirting with us."

9:05 PM That's it? They don't get to talk back and forth at all? That's ridiculous.

...okay, Biden doesn't want to let that be the rule. Good on him.

9:04 PM The bailout. So far Joe Biden has not said anything stupid, mission accomplished. Palin does okay too.

9:00 PM Here we go. Olbermann is comparing Biden-Palin to the Patriots-Giants last January. I thought this guy was supposed to be on our side.

8:36 PM My band is now fully assembled: I've got Tim, Kendra, and Sweet Caroline here on backup.

8:14 PM TPM Understatement of the Night: For the McCain camp to be conceding that the must-win battleground is comprised of red states, some of which Obama holds leads in, and that two states that haven't voted Dem in decades are now real battlegrounds, doesn't seem like a very strong position at all.

8:04 PM How crazy is America c. 2008 that shooting a man in the face isn't the worst thing Cheney has done?

8:02 PM Pre-spin watch: Palin to attack Biden?

Sarah Palin plans to go on the attack in tonight’s debate, hitting Joe Biden for what she will call his foreign policy blunders and penchant for adopting liberal positions on taxes and other issues, according to campaign officials involved in prepping her for tonight’s showdown.

7:57 PM Some might ask why I'm starting my VP debate liveblogging an hour before the debate actually begins. Because I forgot Missouri was in the central time zone I'm a maverick, that's why.

I'll repeat what I said the other morning:

I'm reserving judgment on the debate until I actually see it. It's very hard to say how the expectations game is going to work; traditionally, the candidate perceived as unimpressive benefits from asymmetric expectations and thereby "wins," and in that sense Palin can't lose. But I'm not sure there's ever been a candidate as manifestly unprepared as Sarah Palin—and basically any mistake she makes, even relatively trivial ones, will serve to ratify the Tina-Fey caricature that has achieved critical cultural mass. In that sense she can't win. So I have no idea what's going to happen.

I still have no idea what's going to happen. I think Biden will do fine—he's an old hand at this, and well-aware of the pitfalls. The sole question is whether Palin can fake it on substantive questions for several minutes at a clip, whether Ifill will let her get away with it, and whether Biden will be able to call her out on it without looking like a jerk.

It's a low bar, but seeing her on Couric, I'm genuinely not sure she can cross it. Here's hoping for an implosion.

The much-hyped Supreme Court section of the Katie Couric interview aired a few hours ago, and it's just as cringe-inducing as anticipated.

COURIC (to Palin): Why, in your view, is Roe v Wade a bad decision?

PALIN: I think it should be a states issue not a federal government -- mandated -- mandating yes or no on such an important issue. I'm in that sense a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas. Now foundationally, also, though, it's no secret that I'm pro life that I believe in a culture of life is very important for this country. Personally that's what I would like to see further embraced by America.

COURIC (to Palin): Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

PALIN: I do. Yeah, I do.

COURIC: the cornerstone of Roe v Wade

PALIN: I do. And I believe that --individual states can handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in in an issue like that.

COURIC: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?

PALIN: Well, let's see. There's --of course --in the great history of America rulings there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are--those issues, again, like Roe v Wade where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know--going through the history of America, there would be others but--

COURIC: Can you think of any?

PALIN: Well, I could think of--of any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a Vice President, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.

Transcendentally bad. But Matt makes the point that Palin's Couric problem has come from the fact that Couric asks follow-up questions—indeed, that she is gently insistent on getting a substantive answer to every follow-up—and that Ifill will have far less opportunity to do the same tomorrow, especially given the last-minute criticism of Ifill's long-announced book:

Meanwhile, if you watch Palin’s interviews you’ll see that she’s perfectly capable of parrying an initial question with some nonsense and then shifting to her pre-prepared talking points. What was so devastating about the Katie Couric interview is that Couric would gently — very gently — prod Palin with follow-ups that revealed she doesn’t know anything about anything. But with this cloud of suspicion hanging over her, Ifill will probably treat Palin with kid gloves and she’ll be able to turn in the sort of competent performances she offered on the Hugh Hewitt and Sean Hannity shows.

For this reason I want to remind everyone that a Palin meltdown is by no means guaranteed tomorrow—it depends on her ability to spontaneously improvise non-answers to tough questions and Ifill and Biden's willingness to let those non-answers stand. Biden in particular is in a tough spot—he can't allow himself to look like a bully, which means he'll either have to point out that she's speaking nonsense very carefully, with kid gloves, or else hope the comparison speaks for itself.

So Palin may muddle through with nonsense, or she may completely implode. We won't know till it happens.

The fringe theory that John McCain's campaign suspension gimmick was designed purely to distract attention from Palin's interview with Katie Couric gains some credibility with the previews CBS is putting out: Palin on Russia and Palin on the bailout. This is just ridiculous—for one, you can see her look at her notes in the bailout clip, and two, what she's saying doesn't make any damn sense at all.

That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

Ready on Day 1.

More on G.C.S.G. '08.

* It's being widely reported now that McCain is threatening to not show up to the debate if a deal hasn't been reached by Friday. Just who is this supposed to threaten?

* By the way, contrary to reports, Friday's debate will not focus exclusively on foreign affairs—Jim Lehrer informed the campaigns last week that there would be economic questions too.

* From the Dept. of You've Got To Be Shitting Me: Ben Smith reports that the McCain campaign has generously offered to move Friday's presidential debate to next week's VP debate, with the VP debate rescheduled to some unknown date in the future.

* Edge of the American West has an exclusive copy of the email McCain sent to Ole Miss asking for an extension.

On Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 12:00pm, John McCain wrote:

sorry to bother you and i know this request is late but i have been really busy and i want to call an emergency meeting with the president and understanding all the material is taking up a lot of my time so i find myself woefully underprepared and i am throwing myself on your mercy. can i get an extension over the weekend on the debate so i can present my best work to you? or should i get a dean’s excuse?

thanks,

john

* And slightly lost in the midst of all this is the fact that McCain gave Letterman the finger to do it. Letterman's not happy.

David Letterman tells audience that McCain called him today to tell him he had to rush back to DC to deal with the economy.

Then in the middle of the taping Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"

Earlier in the show, Dave kept saying, "You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his Metamucil."

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second-string quarterback, Sarah Palin. Where is she?"

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

Afternoon news.

* The Rick Davis lobbying revelation is the big campaign story today as the McCain camp struggles to find some way to respond. The indispensable Steve Benen dissects their first attempt here, with this succinct summary of why this matters:

Remember, the McCain campaign walked right into this one, insisting that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were largely responsible for the Wall Street crisis, and any associations between a candidate and officials at the lending companies are necessarily scandalous.

Talk about leading with one's chin....

More at HuffPo and TPM, which notes that Davis "quietly canceled" a scheduled lunch with reporters today.

* A report from the Pew Center says that cell-phone-only voters are not being properly counted in the polls. And Marist's poll of swing states has Obama sweeping the map: IA, NH, OH, PA, and MI, where he has (according to this one poll with a high margin of error) a nine-point lead.

* Kos says the Palin pick is already paying unexpected dividends, as if McCain had been more responsible he probably would have picked Romney.

But think, what if McCain had picked Mitt Romney as his veep choice, like so many of us were fervently hoping?

Sure, the rollout wouldn't have give McCain a fraction of the attention and excitement that Palin generated. The GOP ticket's (now evaporated) post-convention bump would've been smaller, and maybe Romney would've been less effective at revving up the fundy base.

But right now? Romney would be kicking ass. The media would treat him with deference as an economic expert, and let's be honest, he does looks straight out of central casting for the role of "serious businessman who we should defer to on the economy". McCain wouldn't have to hide him. Romney could make the media rounds, being taken seriously no matter what GOP gibberish he spouted. Rather than flail and cower, a McCain/Romney ticket would look sure-footed and confident, projecting gravitas in a time of uncertainty.

What's more, McCain would no longer look like a political opportunist in his VP choice. He'd be lauded for being such a "maverick", picking his greatest primary rival. The GOP and its apologists could say, with a straight face, that McCain put "country first", and actually get away with it since it's obvious McCain personally loathes Romney.

Good thing Mittens was snubbed.

* Also at Kos, Meteor Blades argues that the Congressional Democrats' myriad failures on energy this seession are not as bad as all that.

Hurrah! What a relief. This summer’s rush to remedy 27 years of bad energy policy in just a few weeks had generated a mish-mash of contradictory proposals that couldn’t possibly be fully discussed or vetted. Better to wait, as I've said from the get-go.

Sunday morning politics linkdump. Sorry for all these linkdumps, by the way—it was a busy week. Next week should see a return to a little bit more sustained commentary (including the exciting return of debate liveblogging!).

* There have been some interesting debates about poll biases lately. Ron Fournier (grumble) at the AP covers a study that argues Obama would be further ahead were it not for racial animus, by as many as six points. FiveThirtyEight throws cold water on this, as well as looking closely at the possibility of a "cellphone effect" in the polls. If Obama does 2.8% better in polls that include cellphones, that suggests a shifting map like the one below, turning Virginia light-blue and strengthening small Dem leads in Ohio and Colorado.



* A study from political scientist Alan Abramowitz argues that Obama will win, when all is said and done, with 54% of the popular vote. That he's naively comparing historical models with this year's unprecedentedly diverse tickets in both camps shows how seriously we should take this analysis.

* A new PPP poll shows North Carolina tied. Other recent polls show South Carolina within six, West Virginia within four, and MontanVoteRonPaula within two.

* There's evidence of a "Palin effect" in Florida driving undecided voters to Obama.

* The Spine tries to get a handle on Obama's early-voting advantage, beginning as early as this Friday in Virginia. The second link has some stats of interest for Dukies and Durham residents:

In addition, more early-voting centers are being located at colleges and universities, a change that significantly affects student turnout. Students at the University of North Carolina and N.C. State were able to vote on campus throughout the two weeks leading up to North Carolina's primary contest in April. At Duke University, however, students had to make their way to voting sites in the city of Durham. While turnout for Durham County was 52% in the Democratic primary, only 11% of eligible Duke students voted. This fall, however, Duke will have its own early-voting center, open for business starting Oct. 16.

* The McCain camp has successfully demanded the VP debate rules be changed to protect Sarah Palin.

*Judge orders Cheney not to destroy his VP records.

* SNL mocked McCain this week. He also preemptively mocked himself with an article in Contingencies arguing (for reals) that "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." Straight out of the Dept. of Bad Timing. Obama's already taken aim at this.

* Will Obama raise my taxes? A helpful widget.

* And American Stranger has a long post on ideology that seems to take as one starting point my post on Slavoj Žižek, Obama Supporter. Essentially Ryan takes aim at the various binds the Left finds itself in with regard to political action, and I largely agree with what he says—though I certainly hope I wasn't in mind as his example of sell-out "liberal 'pragmatism' a la The New Republic." My point, both in the earlier post and now in this one, is simply that the U.S. President has a tremendous ability to make life better or worse for real people with real lives, all over the world, many of whom (believe it or not!) do not have cushy long-term contracts with elite universities. Naderite "Oh, they're all the same!" negativity only makes sense to people who are inoculated by class and privilege from the consequences of that power.

The mere recognition that the perfect not be the enemy of the good doesn't quite throw my lot in with TNR, I don't think, and certainly not so long as we also keep in mind that the good not be the enemy of the better. Our discomfort with pragmatic compromises—and we should be discomforted by them, every time and in every case—isn't by itself a reason not to be pragmatic.

As someone who genuinely likes Barack Obama and genuinely dislikes John McCain (2008), I have to admit to feeling a certain amount of joy this week. The McCain camp just can't seem to do anything righ. I came home from the library today to find, just for instance, the following breaking news from McCainLand:

* Sarah Palin promises to institute as one of her major reforms Barack Obama's successful "Google for Government" law from 2006.

* John McCain, fresh from planning regime change in Spain, promises to get tough and fire someone the president doesn't have the authority to fire.

* Then the McCain campaign decides to preemptively accuse Obama of lying about it.

* The polls are showing that Palin is the strategic mistake she's always seemed to be.

* And FiveThirtyEight has characteristically excellent swing state analysis, showing just how deep in the weeds McCain actually is.

McCain Offense States
New Hampshire -1.6
Michigan -3.1
Pennsylvania -3.5
Wisconsin -4.5
Minnesota -4.9

In other political news, Bill O'Reilly is officially the last person on Earth to realize what a horrible disaster Bush has been as president. So I guess that's pretty much everyone.

I know things can change quick in this business, but it's been a wonderfully bad week for Republicans. Schadenfreudelicious.

Contrary to reports that his fund-raising had slowed, Obama raised $66 million in August. First on the agenda, based on the racheting up of rhetoric I've mentioned in other posts, should be ads hitting McCain hard on his constant lies.

Meanwhile, in the New Yorker, George Saunders explains why he's more qualified to be vice president than Sarah Palin.

Now, let us discuss the Élites. There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. That is also why they love me. She did not go to some Élite Ivy League college, which I also did not. Her and me, actually, did not go to the very same Ivy League school. Although she is younger than me, so therefore she didn’t go there slightly earlier than I didn’t go there. But, had I been younger, we possibly could have not graduated in the exact same class. That would have been fun. Sarah Palin is hot. Hot for a politician. Or someone you just see in a store. But, happily, I did not go to college at all, having not finished high school, due to I killed a man. But had I gone to college, trust me, it would not have been some Ivy League Élite-breeding factory but, rather, a community college in danger of losing its accreditation, built right on a fault zone, riddled with asbestos, and also, the crack-addicted professors are all dyslexic.

Sarah Palin was also the mayor of a very small town. To tell the truth, this is where my qualifications begin to outstrip even hers. I have never been the mayor of anything. I can’t even spell right. I had help with the above, but now— Murray, note to Murray: do not correct what follows. Lets shoe the people how I rilly spel Mooray and punshuate so thay can c how reglar I am, and ther 4 fit to leed the nashun, do to: not sum mistir fansy pans.

On the politics front, the new GOP line (apparently) is that Sarah Palin isn't ready to be president after all—yet.



I'm certain that over the next couple of weeks the press will be pounding her and the campaign wanting to know where the access is. There'll be a lot of process stories about why isn't she talking to reporters. There'll be a lot of noise that voters, frankly, don't really care about—and as frustrated as the press is gonna be it's a smart move by the campaign because, like I said, voters don't really care about these process stories, but if she goes out and makes a mistake, that is something that [voters will] care about, and that's something that will haunt [McCain] for awhile, so I think this is a smart move.

GOP strategist Todd Harris goes on to say that she'll be getting prepped for as long as two weeks before she talks to anyone in the media. The Jed Report says it best:

This has got to be one of the craziest messaging decisions ever: Harris is conceding that Palin’s not even ready to be a vice presidential candidate, let alone be president.

Kevin Drum, too:

The McCain campaign is scared to death. They knew nothing about Palin before they announced her, they relied on a cursory vetting process that has turned out to be shot full of holes, they realize now that she has no settled views on any issue of national importance and could blurt out anything at any time, and they're terrified about what might crop up next. So they're keeping her in the deep freeze.

Has it really come to this? The absolute lack of confidence McCain has in his own pick to be vice president is mind-boggling; the absurdity of this past week truly marks a singular event in the history of our Republic, and if things go wrong it'll be probably be used (alongside Florida 2000) to mark the start of its final decline.

This is monarchism, not democracy. A candidate for office needs to be accountable to the voters, not to a vague mish-mash of identitarian buzzwords. If we as a nation passively accept the Palin candidacy, if we demand nothing more than this from the Republicans or from ourselves, then American democracy is simply dead.

(Of course, a candidate should also be trusted to talk about something other than their own love of self, but we're sitting by and letting John McCain fail that test, too.)

In more positive news, at least Joe Biden continues to win my respect. Give 'em hell, Joe.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the seriousness with which the mainstream media has handled John McCain's veepstakes roll of the dice: there's negative pieces on the poorly vetted, poorly thought-out selection in the New York Times, Washington Post, and L.A. Times today. However, I'm not hopeful this attitude of diligence and responsibility will last past tonight—Palin's ability to read a speech to an adoring crowd will be taken as "proof" that she's ready to take over as president if something happens to John McCain. (And yes, thank you, I'm already fully aware of the irony.)

I had high hopes the caught-flat-footed Lieberman video I uploaded last night would go viral and destroy McCain's credibility for all time. That hasn't happened (yet!), but so far it has been picked up by Washington Monthly / CBS Online, Cynical-C, and Crooks and Liars. Alongside the Daily Kos diary I hope that means it's catching some eyes. It's an incredibly revealing, damning, and best of all self-inflicted indictment of McCain's gamble from one of his top supporters; I can't say enough good things about it. Show it to anyone you can.

LATE UPDATE: I've uploaded video of this. It has to be seen to be believed: Lieberman acts as if "let's assume the best ... let's assume that nothing bad will happen" is a remotely reasonable thing to say about a vice-presidential pick. Even putting aside McCain's age and health, the entire reason for vice presidents is the fact that bad things can and do happen.



The fact that he feels he must frame his answer in this way indicates how uneasy even stalwart McCain supporters are about the idea of Palin actually taking office as president. The rest of us know after eight years of Bush that hope is not a plan.

--
I just heard Joe Lieberman explain on MSNBC that we don't need to worry about Sarah Palin's qualifications for the vice presidency because, and I'm quoting as best I can, "let's assume nothing bad will happen."

Seriousness.

I hope that video is on YouTube soon.

UPDATE: (from the comments)

Andrea Mitchell: Do you feel Sarah Palin is qualified to be commander-in-chief if God forbid, something should happen to John McCain?

Joe Lieberman: Well…you know…let’s assume the best (chuckles uncomfortably). John’s in great shape, he’s gonna be the president and let’s assume that nothing bad will happen…why should we? But if it does…yes, she’ll be ready.

Morning links.

* The protests in St. Paul turned violent yesterday, with police tear-gassing the crowd.

They had come in their thousands – grandmothers, veterans, young families and even disgruntled Republicans bearing banners and peace flags, to demand an end to the five-year conflict. And for the most part, the demonstrations passed off peacefully.

But once the main antiwar march had finished, splinter groups embarked on a violent rampage, smashing windows, slashing car tyres, throwing bottles and even attacking Republican delegates attending the nearby Xcel Centre.

Many of those involved identified themselves to reporters as anarchists. These protesters, some clad in black, wreaked havoc by damaging property and starting at least one fire.

* Washington Monthly has a nice pair of posts detailing the entire Sarah Palin fiasco so far, if you haven't been following the coverage closely here and elsewhere. And for a good articulation of the gambling frame I've been pushing as the best way to understand John McCain, see Josh Marshall.

* Barack Obama loves science and science funding.

* Google releases its long-awaited browser, Chrome, tomorrow. MetaFilter's talking about it.

* Neal Stephenson and the 10,000-Year Clock. There's more Stephenson links at MeFi.

* “The Night Gwen Stacy Died": The End of Innocence and the Birth of the Bronze Age.

Return of the son of the totally moronic baby smears: the seventeen-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin is pregnant. There are political points to be scored here, both about the unhappy consequences of abstinence-only education, about the parental choice to run for national office under these circumstances, and about the unlikely-in-context claim that McCain knew but chose Palin anyway—but let other people score them. I don't plan on saying anything else about this.

More and more evidence mounts that the McCain camp didn't actually vet Palin at all. They didn't read a single article in the Wasilla newspaper, and they didn't talk to Walt Monegan, the man at the center of her still open abuse of power ethics investigation—nor, apparently, did they talk to anyone else. They've been pushing as one of her few notable accomplishments her opposition to the "Bridge to Nowhere," which has turned out to be, well, bullshit. Nearly recalled as mayor, she left the small town of Wasilla over $20 million dollars in debt. That's after she tried to censor the town library and fire long-time town employees without cause for "not fully supporting her efforts to govern."

Oh, and her husband works for BP, one of the largest employers in Alaska, which is not in any way a conflict of interest.

And those are just the highlights. Given all this, I get a sinking feeling when I see how much attention the already ubiquitous, totally moronic baby smear is getting. Even Andrew Sullivan is pushing it now, though he's careful to hedge his bets. That's just not a basket in which I want to put Barack's eggs; it's the raw irresponsibility of John McCain's cynical and poorly thought-out VP pick—a roll of the dice from a chronic gambler—that we should be talking about, not whether a seventeen-year-old girl does or doesn't have a "baby bump" in a given photo.

The Juno/Juneau parody poster on Gawker made me laugh, but that's the only upside here. I don't think we'd want anything to do with the baby thing even if by some impossible chance it all turns out to be true.

John McCain says he made this decision because he looked into Putin's Palin's eyes the one time they met and saw a soul mate. The only thing we should be saying about Palin is that this is not the way to make the most important decision of your candidacy. The Palin pick is stone-cold proof that John McCain has neither the judgment nor the temperament to be president.

So leave her kids alone. Keep your heads on straight, netroots.

Last words for a while on Palin.

* Andrew Sullivan of all people has been absolutely brutal, all day, hitting just about every objection to Palin in order. He's also pushing the gambling meme, which I'm convinced is the key frame through which to view this very reckless, lunatic choice.

* More gambling: Dan Gerstein, a former adviser to Sen. Joe Lieberman, in the New York Daily News:

"In picking an unknown, untested, half-a-term woman governor from Alaska to be his running mate, John McCain is following in a long line of reckless men who have rolled the dice for a beauty queen. Except in this case, McCain is taking one of the biggest, boldest gambles in modern American political history."

Sometimes you have to roll the hard six?

* Sullivan and Ben Smith together point out the worst vetting lapse I've heard thus far, that Palin supported Pat Buchanan for president in 1996 and 1999. That's mind-boggling. Was she vetted at all?

* Maybe not: as of Sunday, he'd still wanted Lieberman, and the final decision was only made last night.

* Ezra's been good today too, particularly on the cable news coverage.

* Robert Elisburg's verdict: The Worst Vice-Presidential Nominee in U.S. History.