I’m live-blogging the Biden-Palin debate over at The Reaction. I’ll be updating frequently over the next couple of hours. If you’re interested, click here.

Here’s a sample of some of what the media was saying yesterday: WSJ: “Palin Proved to Be Formidable Foe in Alaska Debates.” NYT: “Past Debates Show a Confident Palin, at Times Fluent but Often Vague.” LAT: “Underestimate Palin at your own risk, former rivals say.” ABC: “Sarah Palin, Debate Champ.” HuffPo: “Why Sarah Palin Is A Better Debater Than You Think.” Politico: “On small stage, Palin scored big debate wins.” You...

I was going to write a post debunking Palin’s response to Katie Couric’s question about the separation of Church and State, but my friend Steve Benen, who knows a lot more about this than I do, beat me to it. Make sure to read Steve’s post here, as well as this interesting article by his former colleague from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Rob Boston, on Jefferson’s famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, from 1802. In brief: While Biden takes a firm stand...

(Am I spending too much time on Palin? Maybe. But it’s important for voters to keep in mind not just what a joke she is but what it says about McCain that he picked such as joke as his running mate. Plus, you know, there’s the debate tomorrow.) My “Painful Palin” series — for the first two installments, see here and here — looks at the Palin-Couric interview, parts of which are still being aired on CBS. Here’s the deal with Part 3 (transcript and video here):...

According to the Politico‘s Jonathan Martin, Sarah Palin is about to be re-introduced, “tak[ing] a more forward-leaning approach and do[ing] additional interviews in the weeks ahead.” First, though, she’s spending some quality time at “McCain’s cabin in Arizona” prepping for Thursday night’s veep debate. And “do[ing] a round of conservative talk radio interviews.” After all, since she can’t quite cut it with Gibson and Couric, and...

The House of Representatives a short while ago voted 228 to 205 against the bailout compromise worked out over the weekend. (It needed 218 votes to pass.). As CNN is reporting, “[a]bout 60% of Democrats voted for the measure, but less than a third of Republicans backed it.” Quick notes: – Kucinich was right. – Bush is apparently “very disappointed” with the result. Presumably much of his disappointment is directed at the renegades in his own party. – Boehner:...

An AP investigation has found that “[t]hough Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual.” There are simply too many examples of corruption and cronyism to repeat here. Many of them are fairly small-time, but they fit in with the pattern we’ve seen so far, the pattern that includes Troopergate and her lobbying to secure earmarks both for...

In general, I thought, McCain looked and sounded bitter, vindictive, and small. While Obama was presidential throughout, agreeing with McCain on occasion, exuding generosity and expansiveness and, above all, presenting a substantive articulation of his policies and positions, McCain dismissed him repeatedly as “naive,” turning much of the debate into an ad hominem assault. He never even looked at Obama. Which is not to say that Obama won, let alone won easily. I’d say it was roughly...

In a column published yesterday on McCain’s “fundamentals,” the NYT’s David Brooks delved into the myth of McCain and came out with all the usual drivel. “I still think of him first in the real world of governing, not in the show-business world of the election,” Brooks wrote. McCain is “a humble man,” “an unfailingly candid man,” a man of far too many accomplishments to list in a single column. Oh, Brooks isn’t at all happy with “the...

Well, there was more disturbing hilarity last night during Palin-Couric II, with Couric trying to be nice and Palin getting lost here, there, and everywhere. (For my comments on some of Palin-Couric I, see here.) It’s so bizarre, in a way. Here’s Palin, running for vice president, on the national stage, saying silly and stupid things and at times unable even to answer Couric’s questions in any coherent, let alone meaningful, way, while showing a complete lack of experience, engagement,...

It’s amazingly insane, not to mention insanely amazing, how appallingly low the expectations are for Sarah Palin. But that’s what happens when she’s kept away from the press and restricted to partisan rallies, when she’s only allowed to speak for herself, or rather to recite the lines that have been programmed into her, during controlled interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, not to mention during an idiotic infomercial with Sean Hannity. And it’s what happens...

The coverage of McCain’s desperate stunt earlier tonight on Anderson Cooper was just atrocious. Although the word “stunt” was used, the overall tone was positive. McCain is risking everything, it seems, to suspend his campaign, a huge “gamble” that is well worth taking. There was no mention of what he actually contributed to the proceedings, if anything, and much of the segment showed McCain walking determinedly through the Capitol, playing to the cameras by trying to...

I’m generally suspicious of most public opinion polling, but, taking it for what it is, I think Americans, or at least a significant plurality of them, are right about this: A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll suggests that by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis that has swept across the country the past few weeks — one factor that may have contributed to an apparent increase in Barack Obama’s edge over John McCain in the race...

In an article posted at TNR on Friday, Jon Chait draws stark and disturbing parallels between Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle. With Palin’s record, her alleged “experience,” revealed as the facade of lies and deceptions it really is — as governor of Alaska, “[s]he appointed unqualified cronies, abused her power to punish personal enemies, and has displayed a Cheney-esque passion for government secrecy” — what remains is, in essence, a right-wing tabula rasa open...

Okay, enough with the Palin-centrism for a moment — or at least for this post. (Although I will continue to make the case that Americans deserve to know the truth about Sarah Palin, I’ve certainly been caught up on the whole Palinpalooza phenomenon, if on the highly-critical side of it.) There is, after all, a genuinely admirable and qualified person who was tapped as a major-party running mate, and of course that’s Joe Biden. I made the case for him a while ago, back before Obama...

“Sarah Palin’s latest explanation for why she fired Walt Monegan,” writes TPM Muckraker’s Zachary Roch, referring to the Troopergate scandal, “is that he had gone over her head in seeking federal money for an initiative to combat sexual assault crimes, before she had approved the program.” Yeah, sure. It’s insubordination, it’s this, it’s always some excuse. But, even if this is the real reason, even if she is now, finally, telling the truth: [I]f...

Below are my personal reflections on Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, who died yesterday. I originally posted this last night at The Reaction, where I also put up photos and videos. If you’re interested, go take a look. And share your thoughts here or there. ********** Richard Wright, a founding member of Pink Floyd and the band’s long-time keyboardist, died yesterday at the age of 65. (The BBC has an obituary here, the NYT here, BD here.) I have been struggling with what to write. When...

This (from Sullivan), a response to this (from Kristol), is brilliant: Memo to Kristol: you may think Palin is sophisticated enough to grasp the high-level fantasies and abstractions that you have devised in your own head to defend the indefensible. But she isn’t, buddy. She has a degree in sports journalism from the University of Idaho, and went to several colleges in several years. She thinks Leo Strauss is a brand of jeans. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. Remember:...

The CW at the moment is that McCain is surging in the polls. (And, indeed, he is ahead of Obama nationally, up by 2.8 points in the RCP Average.) But what are the polls really saying? Specifically, what are the state-by-state polls saying? Here’s the indispensable Nate Silver with yesterday’s numbers: [T]he popular vote and the Electoral College are significantly diverging. Although the Republicans seem to be polling stronger than they were in the pre-convention period almost everywhere,...

That’s the question posed by ABC News. But it is even a question? Of course she is. Just as she seems to think that living near Russia gives her foreign policy expertise, so does she seem to think that having a son deployed to Iraq gives her military and national security expertise. Which is why she keeps bringing up Private First Class Track Palin’s imminent deployment. She’s using it to try to score political points, to boost her credibility, of which she has none, and to try...

Ever think you’re living in some Matrix-like bizarro world — you know, sort of like Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine? Ever think up is down, left is right, and so on and so forth? Well, that’s how it feels with McCain-Palin surging out of the RNC, drawing even with Obama-Biden in the polls, and basically dominating the political landscape of late. Some things just don’t make any sense. How is it possible, in 2008, with all that has happened over the past seven-plus years,...

See, this is what I’m talking about. Obama, like he should, is going after McCain on the issues — not just on Iraq but on key domestic issues like health care, abortion, and, now, education: Our kids and our country can’t afford four more years of neglect and indifference. At this defining moment in our history, America faces few more urgent challenges than preparing our children to compete in a global economy, Obama said at an event yesterday in Ohio. The fact is, Obama and the...

An Israeli cabinet minister (and former Mossad agent) has floated the possibility of kidnapping Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and bringing him to trial for war crimes in The Hague. “[A]ll options are open in terms of how he should be brought,” said Rafi Eitan, who, while with Mossad, helped kidnap Adolf Eichmann. Ahmadinejad has made threats against Israel, but he hasn’t exactly committed war crimes. He’s no Eichmann. What’s more, unlike Eichmann, he is the (democratic)...

“Wasilla: The Meth Capital Of Alaska.” That’s the title of a post by Andrew Sullivan, who quotes an article from the Juneau Empire. Now, it this fair game? Is this an issue for the presidential race? Yes, in a way. Let me explain. Obama is from Chicago (if not originally), and Chicago obviously has its problems, but he hasn’t romanticized or mythologized Chicago the way Palin has her hometown. Indeed, Obama has spent much of his life, including as a community organizer, working...

Seriously, this is a joke, right? That’s what I was asking myself during pretty much the entirety of Palin’s speech. What a joke. But, let’s give credit where credit is due, Libby Spencer nailed it: “Sarah Palin will give a great speech. She will lie her face off.” Check and check. Though the “greatness” of the speech needs to be considered relative to the expectations, which were disturbingly low. She gave a great speech from the perspective of the base,...