Palin Reads All News Sources!!!!

Maybe we've been underestimating her? She seems well-read.

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

Ben and Andrew have heard about Palin’s newest gaffe. Unreal.

Ben and Thrush’s piece on the politics of the bailout primes an interesting scenario … what if Obama swooped in now and actually did secure the votes? McCain leads, nothing happens. Obama leads, progress. It would obviously be risky, but at this point, it’s hard to imagine the next version of the bill NOT happening.

Andrew thinks the race broke open. I think that’s a little premature.

Nielsen has debate viewership at insane levels.

Marc covers the Atlantic’s changing electoral map, thinks McCain has a failure to communicate, and calls McCain on the carpet on “gotcha journalism.”

Matt and Ezra want to see the progressive response bill, pronto.

Ezra wonders about the toxic mixture of poisoned politics and poisoned economics … sounds like the kind of world in which McCain’s stopped watch is certainly not right, not even twice a day.

Nate sees only bad news for the Republican and thinks there’s no way the bailout failure looks good either.

Also, in another bit of awesome Liberal Dudes prognostication, Nate has the data that the overwhelming dissent for the bailout came from – wait for it – folks in close elections.

McCain Predictably Blames Bailout's Failure on Obama For Putting Politics Before Country

Just as we predicted, McCain's campaign blamed the failure of the House to pass the bailout package on Obama for "putting politics before country."

This criticism is ludicrous. The bailout package did not pass because of a lack of Republican support. 140 Democrats supported the bill, compared to only 65 Republicans.

Had McCain forcefully advocated for the bailout provisions, there would have been enough votes for passage. Yet, incredibly, McCain's camp, criticizes Obama for "refus[ing] to even say if he supported the final bill."

Assuming McCain believes that this legislation is needed to prevent a financial catastrophe, one of two things just happened. 1) McCain failed to effectively rally his party behind this legislation, likely because he was afraid to spend political capital on an unpopular bill; or 2) House GOP members voted against the bill with the plan that McCain would offer a slightly more palatable version, allowing him to be portrayed as a bipartisan savior.

In neither scenario is McCain putting country first. Hello, hypocrisy.

-Law Dude

Alberto Palin

Buried below the latest on the bailout plan debacle, the NY Times reports that Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other officials in connection with the firings of nine of United States attorneys in 2006.

Make no mistake, Gonzales’ politicization of the Justice Department was one of the worst missteps by any Bush Administration official. Criminal prosecutions can ruin lives, and the decision about whether to bring one must be completely divorced from politics.

Mukasey should be credited for taking the step toward holding Gonzales accountable for his incompetence. And most importantly, Mukasey should be credited for the steps he’s taken to reverse the politicization that took place under Gonzales’ watch.

Until August, I would have been confident that no matter who is the next President, truly incompetent officials would not be allowed hold high office. To McCain’s credit, up until he started his run for office, McCain has spoken against his own party to denounce ineffective members of the administration, like Rumsfeld and yes, Gonzales. His recent and ill-advised calling to have the SEC Chairman fired was likely meant to conjure up the image of this earlier McCain.

But McCain has lost my confidence that he would never appoint another Gonzales with the nomination of Sarah Palin. By now it’s become abundantly clear, even to the most conservative publications, that Palin lacks a basic understanding of national and foreign policy issues to be an effective President. If McCain is willing to make his VP pick based on an impulsive political decision without regard to qualifications, I fear his pick for the “lesser” office of Attorney General may be more of the same.

-Law Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

Marc thinks that there are a lot of people who saw Obama for the first time on Friday and thought to themselves, “Wait a minute … where’s the terrorist fist-jabbing, flag-hating, Black Panther cum corrupt Chicago politico?”

Nate explains why McCain is “stuck with Palin.”

TPM reports that MSNBC has an electoral map shifting in Obama’s direction.

Letting Palin be Palin … she could actually be dangerous in the upcoming debate.

Ezra has a clear head on McCain’s health insurance swindle and wants to know where McCain’s real advisers are.

And apparently CBS is sitting on additional, embarrassing Palin footage.

(Sunday) Afternoon Arugula

While Tavis Smiley interviews Dr. West in the background ...

According to Nate, Obama is stronger now than he’s ever been, and there’s far less time and leeway for McCain to make up the difference.

Matt things ignorance IS dishonesty when you assert the opposite of truth.

Frank Rich has some uncharacteristically nice things to say about McCain … No, I’m just kidding, he thinks he’s a selfish asshole.

Andrew shows us that earmarks won’t cut it when it comes to reining in spending.

A Kos diarist finds an honest – and disheartened – conservative.

And in something completely unrelated, The Onion covers a strange group of phantom-entrapping gentlemen suspected of defying key provisions of the Environmental Protection Act. “Well, that’s what I heard!”

Another New Feature

Until the election, we're going to include that Pollster.com graph on the top right. The graph tracks all valid, national polls and creates an aggregate trend line. It's interactive, so you can click on an individual data point and see the trend as discovered by each particular poller included. I think it's awesome. As always, be wary of national polling and be sure to check Pollster and FiveThirtyEight for good state level data.

-Education Dude

Matt Damon Answered

From the LATimes:

"Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago"

You're welcome, Matt Damon.

With any luck, there are 37 days until we never have to think about this woman again.

-Education Dude

New Feature

Be sure to check out the new Blog Roll!  We should have done this months ago, but I just started exploring Blogger's functionality.  I know, weak.

Before the Sunday Morning Shows

Now Fareed Zakaria joins the chorus calling for Palin’s reassignment.

Matt finds out that McCain didn’t even attend Hill negotiations in person and thinks the debates are pretty boring.

Nate has yesterday’s polls looking very strong for Obama.

Remembering David Foster Wallace

My favorite contemporary author - David Foster Wallace - hanged himself almost two weeks ago. I'm still coming to terms with his death, because I am devastated by the notion that I will never read new words from him. The New Yorker's Deborah Treisman nailed it:

"He was one of the few satirists able to avoid meanness; he was moral without being judgmental. He took on the absurdities of modern life in an attempt to understand or to parse them, not to mock them ... Gleefully compacted as his language could be, it was designed to be unwrapped—and there was always a gift inside for those who took the trouble."

The relevance of his death to a political blog is that DFW wrote what I consider to be the definitive piece about John McCain, and he did it 8 years ago in Rolling Stone. It's long but definitely worth the read. He begins by suggesting what most pundits of the time believed, which is that McCain somehow transcended modern political cynicism, and that the cliches didn't sound so cliche coming from him, because he actually lived the words other politicians spoke: honor, code, duty, etc. (Forgive him for sounding like Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men.) So far, nothing extraordinary about DFW. Except, by the end of the piece, you get this story of how McCain wants to call a young supporter who felt betrayed by the political process due to Bush's push-polling:

"McCain's campaign wants to publicize McCain keeping his promise and calling a traumatized kid, but also to publicize the fact that McCain is calling him "privately" and not exploiting Chris Duren for crass political purposes ... Does the shrewd calculation of appeal here imply that McCain doesn't really care about Chris and want to buck him up and restore the kid's faith in the Political Process? Not necessarily. But what it does mean is that McCain2000 wants to have it both ways, rather like modern corporations who give to charity and then try to reap PR benefits by hyping their altruism in their ads. Does stuff like this mean the gifts and phone call aren't "good"? The answer depends on how gray-area-tolerant you are about sincerity vs. marketing, or sincerity plus marketing, or leadership plus the packaging and selling of same. Nobody else can tell you how to see it or convince you you shouldn't yawn and turn away in disgust. Maybe McCain deserves the disgust; maybe he's really just another salesman."

To have written this in 2000 is remarkable, because most commentators were still suckling at the Straight Talk Express teat. But DFW had a novelist's eye, and I think he realized that the Straight Talk veneer was merely a different brand of cynical politicization, not something different in kind. I will miss this writer deeply.

-Education Dude

Fallows on Obama

It's ridiculously rainy here, so in between bouts bailing out my basement with Education Dudette, I thought I'd blog. I know, it's a CRAZY Saturday.

Anyway, James Fallows nails it on the debate, which he almost always does. I have to say, it's amazing that the guy can write the most prescient commentary on both the U.S. and China. His thesis is that the "strategy vs. tactics" debate that caused so much disagreement between the candidates is somewhat of a microcosm of the entire campaign. McCain is the wily tactician, and Obama is the strategic mastermind. This dichotomy explains both McCain's grumpy condescension and Obama's cool authoritativeness:

"Obama would have pleased his base better if he had fought back more harshly in those 90 minutes -- cutting McCain off, delivering a similarly harsh closing judgment, using comparably hostile body language, and in general acting more like a combative House of Commons debater. Those would have been effective tactics minute by minute.

But Obama either figured out, or instinctively understood, that the real battle was to make himself seem comfortable, reasonable, responsible, well-versed, and in all ways "safe" and non-outsiderish to the audience just making up its mind about him. ... The evidence of the polls suggests that he achieved exactly this strategic goal."

In other words, the base of each party is consolidated, and undecided viewers don't like debaters who come off as bitter and small-minded.

-Education Dude

Last Best Chance

Campaign seasons have a lot of built-in opportunities to change the dynamics of an election. Debates, conventions, and veep choices for example. Last night was McCain's last best chance to fundamentally change this election. Foreign policy was his home turf, and the public seems to be handing the win to Obama.

Don't get me wrong, there are other opportunities for McCain to gain ground, and if nothing else, this man has excelled at making up opportunities to change the dynamics. Like pulling a campaign suspension out of his ass. But this debate - in his policy comfort zone - was his last, structural advantage.

Also, the fact that Obama lives in the world of now and McCain lives in the world of the past could not have been more apparent last night. His constant "Obama doesn't understand" refrain would have been deadly to Obama if it wasn't so apparent that it is actually McCain who no longer understands. I'm sorry Senator McCain, but it's no longer 1968 and your world-view just hasn't kept up.

-Education Dude

The Post-Debate Cigarette

Nate has the post-debate internal numbers looking good for Obama. If this early polling is any indication this event was HUGE for Obama. This is important:

“voters thought that Obama “seemed to be the stronger leader” by a 49-43 margin”

He has never led on that measure.

Marc asks the only really important question: What will SNL make fun of?

Fox focus group even gives debate to Obama.

Ben finds that pundits think McCain won and that voters think Obama won. Nate attributes this to the fact that most voters tune our mentally after the first half and start talking to friends and drinking. Obama definitely won the first half.

Matt has the undecided numbers. Obama wins.

My experience of watching the debate was probably closest to Ezra’s, which means that the Obama camp did a really good job of setting expectations here.

Ezra also has Biden hitting it out of the park.

Afternoon Arugula

Obama doubles lead in aggregate polling.

Phil thinks this is disastrous for McCain.

McCain lowers the bar for debate attendance. Seriously, he had better be fucking AMAZING tonight to make up for this nonsense.

FiveThirtyEight has a really interesting discussion with a pollster about the youth vote and turnout models. Nate also thinks that if McCain is really doubling down on tonight’s debate, it would be fatal to lost the bet.

Matt thinks Palin missed the day in 3^rd grade when they learned the meaning of the word “specifically.”

Matt talks about the now enriched golden parachuter from WaMu. Best line of the day: “Obama should suspend his campaign to go punch this guy in the kidney.”

Ezra has some great “are you better off” data. Answer, probably not. Also, on McCain’s complete lack of leadership.

Even senior McCain campaign officials are nervous about Palin in a debate. Hopefully this isn’t just a game of setting low expectations.

And data geeks, prepare for a pollgasm when learning about Pollster.com’s new interactive tools. Really really cool.

Gaffe Avoidance

I think Fallows probably had the best early take on Palin here ... the punchline:

"Let's assume that Sarah Palin is exactly as smart and disciplined as Barack Obama. But instead of the year and a half of nonstop campaigning he has behind him, and Joe Biden's even longer toughening-up process, she comes into the most intense period of the highest stakes campaign with absolutely zero warmup or preparation ... The smartest person in the world could not prepare quickly enough to know the pitfalls, ... So the prediction is: unavoidable gaffes."

and he comes back today riding the vindication train:

"My for-the-sake-of-argument assumption was unwarranted. She is not as smart or disciplined as Barack Obama. If she were, she would sound better than she does at this point. And the McCain team has done absolutely nothing to defuse these problems -- nor, to be honest, has Palin herself apparently learned the first thing about successfully finessing questions she is not ready to handle."

The only issue I take with this is that Palin's biggest sin isn't really the "gaffe." In fact, she may have mastered the only way to avoid constant gaffes: saying absolutely NOTHING, even when she's talking.

-Education Dude

Palin is Not Qualified to be President of the United States

The last 48 hours have made it abundantly clear that a Palin presidency would be a disaster for the United States.

In response a question on why the bailout is needed, she rambles,

"Ultimately what the bailout does is helps those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help sure up our economy."

Just to be clear, the bailout has absolutely nothing to do with health care reform. If anything, spending $700 billion on a bailout is going to make funding health care reform near impossible in the short term.

She is asked by Couric, When President Bush ran for office, he opposed nation-building. But he has spent, as you know, much of his presidency promoting democracy around the world. What lessons have you learned from Iraq? And how specifically will you try to spread democracy throughout the world?

What are good lessons from Iraq? My thoughts: 1- Our intelligence was severely flawed; in the future, steps should be taken to ensure that intelligence gathering is not influenced by political pressure. 2- If we are going to engage in regime change, we should have the planning and resources in place to prevent a country from descending into chaos and civil war. 3- We need enough troops to secure Afghanistan and deter potential adversaries. But leaving the bulk of our military resources in one country for over five years has led to our security being weakened in places like Afghanistan, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

Palin's thoughts?

Specifically, we will make every effort possible to help spread democracy for those who desire freedom, independence, tolerance, respect for equality. That is the whole goal here in fighting terrorism also. It's not just to keep the people safe, but to be able to usher in democratic values and ideals around this, around the world.

Thanks for the specifics. Please don't be president.

In other news, Palin thinks that a blessing for her to be free from witchcraft helped her become Governor.

-Law Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

To me, it looks like McCain decided to inject presidential politics into the negotiation over the bailout package, exacerbating existing Republican wariness of the deal on the House side (remember, all of these folks have to get reelected in a month). And the result was implosion of negotiations. Strong leadership from John McCain.

Marc agrees and has a pretty good take on what actually happened in that meeting.

Andrew on McCain: I’m going to ride in on my white horse and then nap at the table. Mmmmm, naps.

Matt thinks the smart play is for Dems to go all in with a progressive deal, forcing Bush to either cave or cajole House Reps back to the table.

TPM reports that McCain’s ads will be up again Saturday, effectively ending the suspension of his campaign. I didn’t realize he had a preternatural ability to predict the future of the bailout, the failure of which to pass – you’ll remember – is the pretense for that suspension. That soothsaying will be really useful to have in a president. Or, alternatively, maybe his campaign “suspension” was just a giant, silly, impetuous stunt. We report, you decide!

Anonymous GOP lawmaker on resistance to the crisis among his colleagues: "For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?" Well put.

And now even the conservatives think Palin is out of her league.

Also, just a side note … this summer there seemed to be consensus that the only way for Obama to lose this election was if it was entirely about him. In other words, the Republican brand is SO weak right now, that a generic Democratic candidate probably had a better chance than the somewhat unique Obama. Do a quick scan of most media and blogs over the course of the last several weeks and count mentions of McCain or Palin vs. Obama or Biden. Thank you for you mavericky nonsense, John McCain.

Doing His Job

Reader JF has a point with this:

"Barrack Obama and John McCain haven't been elected yet, and until November 4th they are still United States Senators...I just think it's funny that the media has to portray this as a political stunt when in reality, John McCain was just doing his job."

The problem is that McCain didn't just quit the bickering to go do his job. He announced that he was "suspending" his campaign and put out talking points about that suspension. Then, he had surrogates on TV today attacking Obama. He still had commercials running, which is understandable, since renegging on ad buys across the country is really hard. If he had just come to DC to work, that would be fine ... it's the ostentation of "suspending" the campaign and asking for the canceling of the debate that makes it tough for me to swallow.

-Education Dude

Afternoon Arugula

Marc moves NC to the tossup column.

Ben Smith has Sarah Silverman’s fucking HILARIOUS video for The Great Schlep. This is the Obama campaign’s effort to get young Jewish voters to convince their elderly grandparents in Florida to vote for Obama. Yes, this is serious.

Andrew thinks Palin is like a character on the (British) Office.

He also quite astonishingly discovers that Alaskans have more faith in Biden than in Palin on some issues.

Obama is surging.

Ezra sums it up. Obama=Smart … McCain=Strange

Letterman delivers the best evisceration of McCain since George Will’s. This time with humor!

Part II of Couric and Palin. This time on foreign policy. Matt has video … absurd.

He said, he said. Who’s closer to reality?

Nate thinks debates are like Bugs Bunny. You have to read it to understand.

Phil’s take on McCain’s stunt is somewhat different … He thinks McCain needed to step on Bush’s speech.

McCain’s venn diagram.

Marc still thinks McCain is going for the “fuck you” gambit.

BREAKING- Congress Reaches Bipartisan Bailout- Thanks to John McCain!

Bipartisan Bailout!

The World's Biggest Timeout

John McCain last night decided he wanted to call a timeout on the election. Apparently this is because the he could not afford to watch our country simultaneously participate in a nearly three centuries old democratic process while its remarkably stable - if not terribly efficient - national legislature worked out the details of emergency legislation. No, he must suspend his campaign and come to the rescue on this legislation, the content of which he several months ago declared he "knows much less about" than other major national issues.

What's really going on here?

There are a lot of opinions out there, but it really seems to boil down to two things: politics (his) and politics (his party's). His polls were lagging and he needed to do something characteristically crazy to distract from that fact (see also: canceling day one of the convention, picking Palin). Andrew thinks he's a drama queen, which is maybe why he's so fond of Hail Marys. Palin also had a devastating interview with Katie Couric last night, the remainder of which should air tonight ... if McCain calculated this correctly, roughly nobody will notice that interview due to his stunt. Moreover, it's probably to his benefit to push back the foreign policy debate. That's his strength, but foreign policy doesn't fit the storyline of what's happening right now, so it likely will be quickly forgotten. Also, bonus points if he can actually put off the Veep debate, which, if nothing else, should make for some awesome drinking games (drink if Palin uses circular logic, drink twice when she doesn't even come close to answering the question, drink if Biden condescends).

In terms of the broader party politics here, everyone seems to be in a bind of some sort. The Democrats are in control, and they know action is necessary, but they also don't want to be on the hook for a huge government bailout if there isn't relatively broad bipartisan support; otherwise, this is a great commercial for every Republican candidate to run for the next five weeks (i.e. "The Democrats want to bail out Wall Street, while Main Street suffers"). The Republicans don't really know what the hell to do. They can't really "stand up" to anyone, since they are weak in both legislative bodies, and Bush is increasingly irrelevant. McCain is the wildcard here ... he could swoop in and build consensus with his party, and take credit as the hero. Or, he could swoop in, vote against the bailout, give the finger to his party, and nurse his maverick image.

What this all seems to boil down to is that the only person who benefits by dragging this thing out and politicizing it is John McCain. Everyone else - including Senate and House Republicans who still don't really trust McCain - really should want to agree to a tentative deal before the 4PM meeting at the White House. Palin made the idiotic comment in her interview last night that the country is looking to John McCain for leadership. Sorry, friend, they're not staring at him because he's a leader ... they're staring at him because he's the crazy uncle in the corner whose next move everyone is afraid of.

-Education Dude

McCain to the Rescue!!!

Yup, it's official. Obama turned down McCain's proposal to suspend campaigning and cancel the first debate. Which can mean only one thing. Obama doesn't put country first.

McCain, on the other hand, will charge back to Washington and forge a bipartisan compromise for the bailout plan. Surely, Democrats will be eager to work with McCain because McCain has suspended his campaign. Democrats will know that McCain would never use any legislation passed during campaign suspension time in order to score political points.

Obama's plan? Some elitist bipartisan statement between him and McCain about what the legislation should look like. Nevermind that both agree the bailout is necessary and that since McCain took on a populist flipflop, both now agree on broad provisions, like CEO pay limits and limits on Paulson's unfettered discretion to spend $700 billion. Also, forget that other legislators are hesitant to enact legislation out of fear that one campaign can use its passage for political points. Surely, a joint statement between the candidates providing an outline of bailout legislation will do nothing to help attain its passage.

In times like these, I'm glad we have one candidate that puts country first.

-Law Dude

PS- Here's a video of Obama not putting country first:

Polls Imitate Liberal Dudes

Three weeks ago, we criticized the Washington Post and the NY Times for saying, without any support that Palin's selection would result in disaffected Hillary supporters flipping to McCain.

At the time, we argued:

Virtually no one in the mainstream media has decided to take the radical step of waiting until there is a poll conducted on the effect of Palin’s selection on former Hillary supporters before making generalized statements of how disaffected Hillary supporters are “energized” by the pick.

Let’s get real. When those poll numbers get back, an insignificant number of former Hillary supporters will now support McCain because of the pick. It is completely irresponsible of the media to create a narrative by selectively seeking anecdotes from cherry-picked citizens, instead of relying on scientific polling data.

Well, those polls are in. And since the Palin pick, Barack's support amongst white woman has grown.

-Law Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

Looks like Hillary is getting out there in a bigger way. Good thing, since Bill seems hell bent on some other shit.

Ezra brings us his take on the NYTimes report that McCain campaign chief Rick Davis’s lobbying firm had contracts with Fannie and Freddie until a month ago:

“That is to say, the most powerful individual in McCain's campaign and the most powerful adviser in the planning of his presidency have been vacuuming in money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Try to square that with McCain's explanation of the crisis: 'There are certainly plenty of places to point fingers … The financial crisis we're living through today started with the corruption and manipulation of our home mortgage system. At the center of the problem were the lobbyists, politicians, and bureaucrats …'”

Unfortunately the following words from McCain were not “… who now run my campaign,” which would have been the most honest and accurate depiction of the situation.

McCain camp responds.

Ezra looks at the likelihood of McCain free-riding on the bailout. (That’s not like free-basing, for the record)

Matt shows us how much the economic situation could tilt things toward Obama.

Nate thinks someone is shorting Obama on Intrade to screw with the market and looks at another strong day of polling for Obama.

Afternoon Arugula

Ta-Nehisi thinks some folks – like Sandra Bernhard – need to dial back the Palin venom.

The press seems to be pushing back a little on the lack of access to Palin.

Rick Davis’s firm lobbied for Fannie and Freddie … TPM says this catapults McCain to the head of the class in hypocrisy.

Is the Times cowing to the McCain campaign??

The “No Talk Express.” Chlorophyll? More like bore-o-phyll!

Also, with all the talk of financial regulators, I thought we’d mount up for old time’s sake.

Can’t believe we missed this … hilarious.

Data Freaks

I link to FiveThirtyEight.com all the time, but I thought I would give a special shout out today. This site is essential if you are at all interested in the data that goes into campaign decision making. Their model is based on probabilistic outcomes generated from running multiple election scenarios, using aggregates of national and state polling data as inputs. They explain their methodologies in great detail at the site, and they are extremely transparent about how and when they tweak weightings, etc.

The key insight that drives a lot of the writing on FiveThirtyEight is that elections are not won by planning to win the most electoral votes; they are won by maximizing the likelihood of getting 270 electoral votes. For this reason, they focus not just on "swing states," but rather tipping point states ... whereas swing states are the states that could "go either way" on November 4, the "tipping point" states are "among the closest states –- taken alone or in combination –- that would give the losing candidate at least 270 electoral votes if transferred to him from the winner’s column, with no wasted electoral votes."

In any event, the site is an orgy of pretty data, so be sure to check it frequently. Also, whenever someone comes to you, freaking out, like, "I just saw the Camden County Community College poll, and they have McCain up by 38 points in New Jersey," go to FiveThirtyEight and listen to the man in the picture below:


(Hat tip to Ta-Nehisi on the picture. He's awesome.)

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

George will continues his disemboweling of McCain.

Per Ambers and others, it is no longer acceptable to ask questions of the McCain campaign.

Andrew and Ta-Nehisi think it will backfire.

Andrew on the slippery slope between presidential democracies and dictatorship. Also, on “deference” to Palin. In his words:

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Marc updates the Atlantic’s electoral map. The big takeaway is that – despite the noise around the republican convention – nothing much has moved to the right. He also thinks it would be really stupid for the Obama campaign to be spreading viral videos, a claim that Ben basically debunks.

Matt sympathizes with Tucker Bounds for having to explain the smoke and mirrors that is the McCain budget plan.

And seriously, if progressives and liberals don’t grow some balls now, when will they?

Totally unrelated, but Matt is totally right with respect to The Wire not winning any Emmys. Here is Jacob Weisberg from Slate:

“It’s like them never giving a Nobel Prize to Tolstoy,” said Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and a correspondent for Slate.com. “It doesn’t make Tolstoy look bad, it makes the Nobel Prize look bad.”

HuffPost starts to push the “Keating Five” meme. Video from Countdown as well.

Matt Littman has a good debate formula for Obama. Democrats are right on the issues; make sure you expose McCain's supposed strengths - the surge, experience, bellicosity - his weaknesses.

Doom and Gloom

So, there's a theory floating around out there that the many "missteps" of the Bush administration are actually calculated and calibrated actions, designed to destroy "government" as we know it. The most popular tracts dealing with this theory are Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew, and - to a lesser extent - Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. If one were to contextualize the recent financial disaster through their lenses, one might suggest that putting the federal government on the hook for nearly $1 trillion of flimsy assets - belonging mostly to rich people - might be devastating to the federal government's abilities to create and sustain programs that help, roughly, every other American. I don't necessarily agree with the most extreme versions of this theory, but suffice it to say, the free-market right has a preternatural ability to be opportunistic about imposing ideology when crisis strikes.

This post by Devilstower on Daily Kos does a pretty remarkable job of spinning this scenario out, with sufficient detail to help a layperson understand. Again, I'm not endorsing the totality of what is said here, but it's worth reading the whole thing. Here's the conclusion:

"The sub-prime mortgage crisis that has not only come so close to utterly destroying the markets, but has ruined the value of many people's homes and left millions with mortgages they can't pay, was also the outcome of the deregulation created by [conservative ideologues]. The very predictable outcome. When taxpayers are left holding the bag for $1 trillion this time around, it's hard to believe it's any sort of accident.

This is enemy action. This is a bullet deliberately fired into the economy by men willing to exercise their ideology regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Men who have every expectation that they can plunder the system again and again, while the public picks up the tab. John McCain may not have had his finger directly on the trigger, but he was there. He assisted. These were his personal friends and philosophical comrades. He may not be the high priest, but he has been a loyal acolyte in the cult of deregulation.

It may come as a surprise to the champions of deregulation, but nobody likes regulation. The restrictions that were placed on banks, S&Ls, and other institutions in the 1930s weren't put there because someone thought it would be fun. They were put in place because they addressed problems that had just been clearly and painfully revealed. They were put in place because they were necessary."

-Education Dude

Morning Hors D'oeuvres

McCain was lobbied by Fannie and Freddie too. Given the number of lobbyists in his inner circle, his average coffee break probably involves being lobbied.

Andrew’s quote of the day is George Will eviscerating McCain on “This Week” and finds an old interview with DMX.

Matt thinks we should remember the last time Bush asked us to ignore the details due to crisis situations before signing off on the bailout and ponders the administration’s financial ineptitude.

This TPM reader has the best take on the bailout … money shot:

“ … I saw Hank Paulson talking about homeowners taking out mortgages that were higher than they could afford and about them needing to live up to their obligations. I find it incredible that he would use language like that while asking taxpayers to send a trillion dollars to Wall Street because investment banks made irresponsible investments and aren't able to live up to their obligations.”

Ambers digs into the data in AP’s race survey and thinks the McCain camp is trying to pivot to a new depiction of Obama. There’s only so much time to make something stick, guys.

Ezra summarizes a popular essay floating around from Prof. Zingales of the U of Chicago.

Mallaby’s column on what the government should do. By the way, nobody I’m reading seems to think this bailout is a good idea, as designed. Anyone see upside?

Edsall has a good take on the various ways the economic crisis can affect the electorate.

Albert Hunt at Bloomberg analyzes the candidate reactions. Obama trounced McCain.

$700 Billion for Wall Street, No Money for Health Insurance and Infrastructure

The New York Times asks a great question:

How is it that the administration and Congress, which have not tried to find huge amounts of money to, say, improve the nation’s health insurance system or repair bridges and tunnels, can now be ready to come up with $700 billion to rescue the financial system?

And then punts....

[This] question will surely come up again, involving as it does not just issues of spending policy but also more profound questions about national aspirations.

I understand that the goal is for Treasury to eventually resell toxic mortgages, making the price tag possibly less than $700 billion. And I'll trust that this action is necessary to avoid a greater catastrophe. But can someone answer the NY Times question?

-Law Dude

PS- I don't think anyone can argue that earmarks are a good thing. But on days when Congress is expected to spend 700 BILLION DOLLARS, McCain's railing against a few million spent on pet projects seems a bit out of place.

Saturday Night (Election) Fever

If you're like me, you've been spending this weekend decompressing and pondering the fickleness of the American financial system. I also did some shopping. With that:

Nobody likes Palin anymore.

And seriously, what the fuck is she talking about?

Nate’s projections have Obama winning 72% of the time. A remarkable swing from last week. I told you …

John Stewart for Secretary of State

In three sentences, Stewart sums up why "After 9/11, the world has changed" is not a good explanation for war in Iraq:

"Nineteen people flew into the towers. It seems hard for me to imagine that we could go to war enough to make the world safe enough that 19 people wouldn't want to do harm to us. So it seems like we have to rethink a strategy that is less military based."

See the interesting part of his interview with Tony Blair here:



-Law Dude

A Great Gun Compromise

Here’s a common-sense gun policy for both sides of the debate. Less gun control in rural areas, more gun control in cities. Hunters can go hunting, urbanites can feel marginally surer that when an argument breaks out, fists are thrown and bullets aren’t shot.

What’s wrong with this policy? Well, the Supreme Court may have shot it down in District of Columbia v. Heller, the D.C. Guns case. There, the Court interpreted the Second Amendment to mean that the right to bear arms is an individual right and not a collective right, applying only to militias. Individual right could mean a right to a hand gun in the home no matter where you live.

Was this a sensible decision? The plain text of the Second Amendment seems to support an individual right:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

But the question of individual vs. collective right misses the point. Just because the Second Amendment has a textual command giving individuals the right to bear arms, that does not mean the right is unlimited. Rather, individual right or not, cities should have the flexibility to restrict gun use as a means to reduce murder rates.

To illustrate this point, let’s look at what the First Amendment. If anything, the text of the amendment is even more direct:

Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech. . . .

Despite this clear command, the Supreme Court has been sanctioning laws abridging free speech for 90 years. An individual can be punished for statements likely to incite a crowd to imminent lawless action, for true threats on another’s life. As the saying goes, the First Amendment does not protect a right to yell fire in a crowded theater.

So Supreme Court, follow you own example. Even if an individual has the right to bear arms, that shouldn’t bar cities from passing laws aimed at reducing gun violence.

-Law Dude