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,...

So here we are… almost. Sarah Palin — the supremely unqualified one — is set to make her long-awaited and much-ballyhooed prime-time appearance at the Republican Convention in about an hour. I’m not as pessimistic as Libby Spencer, who predicts, among other things, that “Palin will give a great speech,” that “[t]he GOP base will go wild,” and that the punditocracy will call her pick “a gamechanger,” but I do think she has a lot going for...

TNR’s John Judis, in the Twin Cities for the GOP convention, explains Palin’s appeal, and how McCain has sold out to the theocrats: The convention’s first two days have been a conservative love-fest for McCain’s vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin. McCain’s handlers have also allowed social conservatives free reign in writing this year’s Republican platform. McCain strategists have tried to explain Palin’s nomination as an attempt to secure discontented Democrats...

Poor Cindy McCain. It must be so hard to be a wealthy heiress: Democrats’ attacks on her family’s wealth are unfair and offensive, Cindy McCain said today… on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” For nearly two weeks, Democrats have repeatedly hit Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for saying he is unaware of how many houses he owns, calling the presumptive Republican presidential nominee out of touch with everyday Americans. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention...

As here at TMV, we’ve been all over the Palin pick at The Reaction, and our reaction was essentially this: what a pathetic pick. As our associate editor, Creature, put it, McCain “laid a big fat egg.” Surely that’s clear. Right? Well, not necessarily. I was listening to Buffalo sports radio — call me pathetic, if you must (I much prefer Toronto sports radio) — on my way home from work Friday afternoon. The two hosts, one of whom stressed that he wasn’t terribly...

Unconventional, and surprising. As I wrote recently, I think this a year (and perhaps an age) for big-name, national-celebrity politics. Look at who ran for both parties in the primaries. For the most part they were all big names: Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Richardson, McCain, Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, etc…Huckabee and perhaps Dodd were the major exceptions. Which is why I thought Obama would go with Biden or perhaps Bayh, not Kaine or Sebelius, and why I thought McCain would go with...

I continue to go back and forth on Hillary’s speech last night. It was, on the whole, rather impressive. As I put it last night, she did what she needed to do for Obama, for the Democratic Party, and, perhaps first and foremost, for herself and her political future. Regarding that last point, I didn’t care for all the gratuitous self-promotion, but, of course, such self-promotion is what her more ardent supporters wanted. They still think she deserves the nomination, after all, and, watching...

From yesterday’s Boston Globe: Romney: McCain earned his homes; Obama didn’t Yes, Romney really is a twisted partisan fool. In a speech yesterday in Denver — of course! — he claimed that while McCain deserved all his houses because of his and his family’s “hard work,” Obama “got a special deal from a convicted felon.” That “convicted felon” is Tony Rezko — and the GOP Smear Machine, of which Romney is a willing part, is playing...

Lost somewhere in the wall-to-wall coverage of the Democratic Convention is an interesting development coming out of Iraq: Iraq and the United States have agreed that a planned security pact will require all U.S. troops to leave by the end of 2011, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday, while Washington said no final deal had been reached. “There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on...

I’m being facetious, of course. But she’s apparently on her way to war-torn Georgia, if she isn’t there already. “McCain has been a staunch supporter of Georgia in that country’s clash with Russia, and sending his wife there underscores his commitment,” notes the AP. “It also could deflect attention from Michelle Obama’s convention speech in Denver as the Obama campaign seeks to introduce the family to voters.” Really. McCain may be a staunch...

In China, it seems, Olympics or no Olympics, capitalism or no capitalism, it’s probably best not to protest, not to challenge the totalitarians who run and rape the place: BEIJING — Two elderly Chinese women have been sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor” after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights advocates. The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made...

I was away on vacation in Prince Edward Island for almost three weeks and, since my Monday return, have spent the past few days re-obsessing myself with the presidential race, including the whole Veepstakes saga, about which I’ve written extensively, some here and more over at my place. An announcement from Obama could come at any moment. For what they’re worth, which isn’t much, here are my predictions: Obama — Biden McCain — Romney But there are those nagging doubts....