And But for the Sky There Are No Fences Facin'

To document just how far out of calibration at least my localized coordinate system is, I found my bank serenading me today with "Mr. Tambourine Man" - in the classic version. I have heard muzaks, covers by various pop singers, and possibly even the Byrds chart-topper, typically in elevators and neutral settings where someone with slightly rebellious anti-authoritarian tendencies might briefly be tolerated. This was different. I believe the security guard I shared my surprise with may have briefly twinkled (or possibly that was just reaction to a tinkle running down leg).

I rarely watch these debate things - there is an S/M aspect to them for sure (and can barely bring myself to do so - though I admit I have left work early for these two). There are a number of issues that feed into my general avoidance of debates - historical disappointment at the performances and annoyance that what I saw as victories for my candidate seemed to accomplish little, soiling of previous idealistic view of candidate, etc.

As a result of prior negative debate experiences, I am prone to distrust my instincts while the dust is still clearing. But, getting a little outside my normal shell, here's my first impression, admittedly shaded by a little inevitable net-work. Given the reports on her Gibson and Couric interviews, Palin's "performance" was pretty impressive. I did not observe any of the completely nonsensical jabberwockian statements that seemed to come naturally to her under calmer interview conditions. And she was able to generally avoid nastiness in the form of digs, sarcasm, Marcel-Marceau-like facial contortions, and truly flagrant material.

But some truth-shading, much more distorting the truth, and not a little full lying (she's still earning her republican stripes, of course), not to mention being wholly unresponsive to more than a few questions (e.g., what's your real Achille's heal? how about details on plan for Iraq?), those were the main repertoire.

I have to give Biden at least equal marks for self-control and equanimity. He didn't have nearly as much recent bad behavior to avoid replicating, nor, somewhat remarkably given his much longer presence on the Big Stage, anywhere near as much downside to worry about. But he seemed to me genteel throughout, classy, statesmanlike, and, dare-I-say occasionally almost chivalrous in flashing those gorgeous teeth in a smile in response to gibes when either of his opponents would have been snearing, smirking, or talking to themselves.

And, on content, it was not the slam-dunk I had hoped for either, but Biden was clearly actually willing to get down in the weeds a bit in terms of details, while Palin was obviously on a largely-content-free platitude picnic.

Conclusion? She reassured those already behind her and may have made limited inroads with a few fence-sitters. Overall, decision to Biden.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few days. Too late to catch it now, but I saw hint that Olbermann might have a response tonight.

I'm going to turn first to Christy Hardin Smith, reliable mainstay at Firedoglake, a personal favorite bookmarked site. Like her, I found the Biden family moment, to me just the slightest of quavers in his delivery, quite touching:

This moment, when Joe Biden talked about being a single parent unsure whether his sons would make it after his wife and daughter were tragically killed in a car accident?

Most real thing I've seen in politics in a long, long time.

When Biden was speaking about the folks he grew up with in Scranton and Wilmington -- their fear about how to pay for the heat in the winter, and groceries, and medical bills? You could feel the empathy pouring out of the television.

He wants to help those folks. They are his neighbors, whether they live next door or across the continent.

Sarah Palin has clearly been on camera enough to hit her marks, and deliver her rote, frenzied lines for that closing speech or to launch into yet another hyperactive filibuster. I give her credit for having a great camera presence, but so much of it felt scripted, manic and manufactured -- down to the newly caramelized color of her highlights that they toned down with a color rinse from the usual brassier version for the stage lighting tonight.

Especially the moment where she was griping about corporations taking advantage of folks, while she's spent the last five weeks chumming around with corporate lobbyist cronies of John McCain's. (What ya do, not what ya say, you betcha! *wink*)

Frankly, I have had enough of a manufactured false front in the last eight years, haven't you? I don't want to have a beer with my leaders. I want them to do their jobs, and care enough to do them well.

Joe Biden? He was real. He spoke from real experience, from his heart and his gut. He cared about the subjects, whether it was protecting women from violence or Afghanistan or home heating bills for the poor. And I loved him for it tonight.

Looks like CBS' undecideds poll agrees: Biden -- 46%, Palin 21%. Nate has more.

I enjoyed this pre-debate posting by dday at Hallabaloo. I include it mostly for refreshing candor by press as to their obsessive need to induce a contest and friction, i.e., not letting anyone get too far ahead. Right now that is an instinct we should be very wary of. The "Mo" is clearly with us:

I don't think Sarah Palin intentionally flubbed her pre-debate interviews to lower expectations as much as possible, but that has been the practical effect. And the Obama campaign is trying to dial it back and restore her reputation as an excellent debater, to balance things out.

After repeatedly calling Palin first "an extremely good debater," then a "great" one, at the end he ramped it up to "Gov. Palin is one of the best debaters in American politics," at which point the press gaggle interrupted him with its laughter.

"No, she is! Her 2006 debate, she knew where she wanted to take every question, and so I think she'll be relentlessly on message tonight..."

The interviews were conducted on the turf of the interviewer. The debate will be on Palin's turf. It's quite structured, with little time for any back-and-forth between the candidates, so there's not much chance of going off the prepared script, which will be filled with the type of zingers she delivered very well in St. Paul. And the McCain campaign has seemed to figure out that Palin's only way through this is to attack her opponent and take the focus off of her positions and knowledge and onto Biden's.

But more than all of this, Atrios described what is most likely to come out of tonight, and certainly what I'll be looking for:

I'm guessing they twist something - anything - Biden says into being an attack on Palin's children/family somehow.Get ready!

The Wahmbulance is coming to town.

[That may have been the strategery (sory - can't help myself), but Joe must have seen their script - I think it will be quite a stretch to tag him with anything like this. Great job, Joe!}

This doesn't have to be picked up by the immediate snap polls - Democrats seem to have an advantage on those - but afterwards, when it'll be relentlessly hyped by Drudge and Rush and the noise machine. Maybe Lynne Cheney will reprise her role and call Joe Biden "a baaaad man!"

The media is telegraphing this one. They are ready for any slight - Tweety and Kit Seelye obsessed over whether Biden will help Palin with her chair despite the fact that they'll be at podiums. And the culture of victimhood and self-pity on the right will certainly make it so that their ears will be pricked for anything they can twist into an insult. I'm fully expecting it.

And though the media of late has been calling the Republicans on their B.S. and has really internalized the plain truth that McCain has run a dirty, dishonest and dishonorable campaign, this race is getting a bit out of hand, maybe too much for their tastes:

Much of the news media is reporting that Barack Obama is pulling away from John McCain ... and suggesting that, because of low expectations, Sarah Palin need only get through tonight's debate without accidentally endorsing Obama in order to be successful. Put the two together, and it's hard to avoid the suspicion that the media is more than ready to push a McCain-Palin "comeback" narrative -- and, consciously or not, to help that comeback along.

Don't believe that kind of thing happens? Here's Brian Williams and Howard Fineman, in a September 21, 2000 exchange:

HOWARD FINEMAN: The media pendulum swings, as you were pointing out before, Brian. Bill Clinton can resurface in this campaign in a way that might not necessarily help Al Gore. And Al Gore himself has a tendency to begin - when he's ahead especially I think - talking down to the country like he's the kindergarten teacher talking to the class. I think all those factors are at play right now as Bush has really had probably the best week he's had since his convention speech. And Gore has had his worst.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Howard, I don't know of any kind of conspiratorial trilateral commission-like council meetings in the news media. But you bring up an interesting point. And boy, it does seem true over the years that the news media almost reserve the right to build up and tear down and change their minds and like an underdog. What's that about?

HOWARD FINEMAN: Well, what it's about is the relentless search for news and the relentless search for friction in the story. I don't think the media was going to allow just by its nature the next seven weeks and the last seven or eight weeks of the campaign to be all about Al Gore's relentless triumphant march to the presidency.

We want a race I suppose. If we have a bias of any kind, it's that we like to see a contest, and we like to see it down the end if we can. And I think that's partly the psychology at play here.

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I was enchanted to hear that Ralph Stanley endorsed and offered recording OBO Obama. This might even be news of interest in Weiser, ID, Reno, NV, Lubbock, TX, and Washtucna, WA! Which is to say, this is the Ralph Stanley, he of bluegrass fame (courtesy DKos).

["Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship"]

I see this was diaried a few days back, but no one took notice. Now TPM has the audio and I can't believe what an amazing endorsement Obama has received. Ralph Stanley, the 81-year old legend of bluegrass music, should be a McCain voter, and if not that, should at least be swayed by Palin. He is a deeply Christian man who has spent his entire life in rural, conservative SW Virginia. His music is, to paraphrase the good Governor, as six-pack as you can get. He signs about heartache, loss, God, fooling around, and all the stuff that makes life worth living.

I was lucky enough to catch him and his band (now led by his son, who is also an accomplished musician) in a tiny town in West Virginia nearly a decade ago. No concert I've seen approached the beauty of a Ralph Stanley show in a tiny community center before about 50 people. If he comes through your town, definitely check him out.

Enough digression. Here's his endorsement of Obama, which is running on radio in SW Virginia: http://e1.video.blip.tv/...

I don't know how to embed audio, so please forgive me. Anyhoo, if Virginia is close now, this should help Obama immensely. Ralph comes off as truly behind Obama, and puts in such a way you'd be a fool not to vote for him. Bravo!

Update: Here's part of the transcript, according to our friends at TPM...

"Howdy, friends. This is Ralph Stanley, and I think I know a little something about the families around here," the spot runs.

"Barack'll cut taxes for everyday folks -- not big business -- so you'll have a little more money in your pocket at the end of the year," he continues. "I also know Barack is a good man. A father and devoted husband, he values personal responsibility and family first."

And, wrapping up, ponder this post at Down With Tyranny regarding some significant additional signs of the lack of attention to the elephant-mortar. Yee-haw!

[Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea]

This morning when asked why Obama is gaining momentum everywhere in the country while his own polling numbers are tumbling, McCain sputtered and groused to his buddies at Fox that "life is unfair." With support from voters solidifying around Obama's calm, measured approach-- and rejecting the McCain campaign's erratic and hysterical reactions to everything-- the battlegrounds for November have been shifting into "safe" Republican states like North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia and Florida. In fact, Florida Republicans are panicking. So are congressional candidates tied to McCain.

Recall that McCain has an unbroken record this year when it comes to coattails: three contested special elections (all in heavily Republican districts, "safe" seats in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi) were won by Democrats when McCain's efforts on behalf of Republicans backfired badly. Polling news from around the country is looking gloomier and gloomier for the Republicans, even in areas they thought were safe for them. The NRSC has given up on races in New Mexico and Virginia where they once thought they could hold onto seats of retiring Republicans. This morning's Washington Post declared that the GOP's gradual decline in Virginia has turned into a free fall (And, by the way, this isn't just happening in the DC suburbs, as this Kos diarist-- click on the link-- makes clear when he explains the importance of bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley's endorsement of Obama.)

Long-serving members of Congress and the state legislatures are not only leaving office but also blasting their party on the way out. Just a few years after running his party's national congressional campaign effort, Rep. Tom Davis of Fairfax County is leaving Congress embittered by the Republicans' hard-right positions and frustrated that there appears to be no home for moderates who might appeal to suburban voters.

Virginia's GOP "gave me the middle finger," Davis said after party leaders maneuvered to hand its nomination for the retiring John Warner's U.S. Senate seat to former governor Jim Gilmore, rather than allow a primary between the hard-right Gilmore and the moderate Davis. "Anybody who compromises, you go back to your party base and you're an apostate. You're squishy. You're weak."

Two of Virginia's longest-serving GOP leaders, Sen. John Chichester of Stafford County and Del. Vince Callahan of Fairfax, left the legislature this year with harsh words for their party-- and both have endorsed Democrat Mark Warner in this fall's Senate race."

I'm extremely distressed by the path it's taking," Callahan told me of the GOP in Virginia. "It could end up being a minority debating society. We can't be a party about immigrant-bashing or gay-bashing or any other bashing. We should be a party of fiscal responsibility, which is how I got into it."

Even worse was some of the startling congressional polling news that came in from around the country. Maybe they're hoping Mooselini will turn this around for them tonight, but it looks like the Republican brand is as toxic as astute prognosticators have been saying it was. Let's start in Texas, where Blue America-endorsee Larry Joe Doherty has been in an under the radar struggle with another lockstep, rubber stamp Bush millionaire, Michael McCaul, whose father-in-law, the Clear Channel CEO, bought him the seat after DeLay had the district gerrymandered to be safe for a garden variety Republican. That same district is no longer viewed as safe. New polling data shows him rapidly closing the gap with McCaul. Yes, Texas.

And look at North Carolina. In fact, more specifically, look at NC-08 in the south-central part of the state that became near and dear to many activists from all over America in 2006 when a stalwart working families supporter, Larry Kissell, came within 324 votes of dislodging weak and useless Bush rubber stamp Robin Hayes. New polling suggests that this year will not be close. A new Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner poll conducted September 28-29 shows Larry Kissell leading Representative Robin Hayes by 11 points, 54- 43%. Obama is also ahead of McCain by roughly the same margin in NC-08 and Democratic Senate Candidate Kay Hagan is leading Elizabeth Dole by 14 points (55%-41%). 8th District voters believe that Larry will do a better job on the economy than Hayes, who supported the job-destroying CAFTA bill, and that Kissell is more likely to stand up for North Carolina's workers.

Even in red, red Idaho, the Democratic house candidate Walt Minnick has pulled ahead of Republican far right extremist Bill Sali, 44-38%! And one of the sweetest polls of all came out of southern Ohio this morning where Vic Wulsin's momentum has caught up with rubber stamp incumbent Mean Jean Schmidt in OH-02. Momentum Analysis calls the race a dead heat with 16% of the voters still undecided. Vic's spokesperson, Kevin Franck, points out that the poll found that 85% of voters are worried that the economic crisis on Wall Street puts their families at risk.

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[Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me, I'm not sleepy and there ain't no place I'm goin' to . . .]

It Ain't No Use to Sit and Wonder Why

Having neglected the Govacuda last night, I am feeling some compulsion to compensate here, especially in anticipation of tomorrow's "debate." However, not being possessed of a truly cast-iron digestive tract, I will start with something a little easier to take (buttermilk before a binge, sort of), and may even take the liberty of planting something lighter along the way. But just so you know, I'm saving the best for last!

Being a bit Gaye-transfixed while posting, I was briefly enamored of "Let's Get It On" for title here with innocent On With The Show implications. But with more intimate implications of MG's song-in-my-ear threatening to produce gag-reflex in light of blog theme, A Change Is Going To Come.

Jon and Stephen apparently have been having fun in front of the camera. Digby is on it like a bee on honey:

Dear God, I love these guys:



In the midst of re-creating the controversial New Yorker cover illustration of Barack and Michelle Obama for the cover photo that graces this week's print edition of Entertainment Weekly, Jon Stewart stops briefly to pose a taste question. As he stands by the catering table in ''secret Muslim'' garb, he ponders, ''Would it be weird to be dressed like this and have a bagel, salmon, and a schmear?'' Pseudo-blowhard Stephen Colbert has his own worries. Striking his best Michelle-as-Black-Panther pose, he glances at the original cartoon and realizes that he's ''hippier'' than the potential First Lady. Gesturing at his own waist, he moans, ''I could drop a baby like a peasant.''

[...]

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Do you think anything will change if the Democrats control the White House and both houses of Congress?

JON STEWART: Look at what they promised when they took over Congress. I've never heard such hardcore rhetoric. ''The era of the blank check is over! And we will send a sternly worded memorandum — nonbinding — to somebody at the White House. Not necessarily the inner executive circle, we certainly don't want to offend, but...'' And then they got in and were like, ''Really, you want to eavesdrop? Okay, we'll let this one go. But this is the last blank check! Unless you want another. But let me say this: The next one will not be blank, because we'll just write in the memo line. Can we write in memo? Would you be bothered by that?''

STEPHEN COLBERT: One of the things I love about my character is I can make vast declarations and it doesn't matter if I'm wrong. I love being wrong. So my character can tell you exactly what's going to happen: The Democrats are going to change everything. We're going to have gay parents marrying their own gay babies. Obama's gonna be sworn in on a gay baby. The oath is gonna end ''So help me, gay baby.''

STEWART: Then they'll head right over to the abortion mixer. There'll be a dance, and then there'll be a little tent set up outside, just in case anybody wants an RU-486.


I've honestly been wondering lately how I ever got along without them. They are truly instrumental in keeping me sane.


I believe I know of what she speaks!


Josh Marshall at TPM noted a while back the increasing squeaking of wrung hands on the far right over their vp candidate:

From Politico ...

A growing number of Republicans are expressing concern about Sarah Palin's uneven -- and sometimes downright awkward -- performances in her limited media appearances.

Conservative columnists Kathleen Parker, a former Palin supporter, says the vice presidential nominee should step aside. Kathryn Jean Lopez, writing on the conservative National Review, says "that's not a crazy suggestion" and that "something's gotta change."

Tony Fabrizio, a GOP strategist, says Palin's recent CBS appearance isn't disqualifying but is certainly alarming. "You can't continue to have interviews like that and not take on water."

And Blue Texan takes note at Firedoglake of the apparent conclusion that Palin is so high-risk that she can't even be trotted out to do the traditional post-debate ankle-biting.

The polls and the CW are coalescing around a solid win for Obama last night. But one thing that shouldn't go overlooked is that after Obama's steady performance, Biden was all over the talking heads shows after the debate, stomping on McSame's head.

I especially like this clip because he specifically mocks McSame's lame claim that Obama didn't know the difference between strategy and tactics.

And this begs the question -- where the hell was Palin?

The total mismatch between the veeps continues to drag the McSame campaign down. Biden was able to get his tasty shots in while the pie was still cooling, while Palin was sequestered somewhere as far away from a TV camera as physically possible.

If the McSame campaign doesn't even trust Palin to spin for the top of the ticket after a debate -- about as easy an assignment imaginable -- what does that say about what they think of her?

And then we have Cynthia Boaz posting at Truthout with a truly upsetting post that points out a disturbing case of life-mimicking-art in connection with Palin with the title "Welcome to Gilead, Governor Palin." Although I have not read Handmaid's Tale, I have read enough other Atwood (Assassin, Oryx) to be confident she can do dark futurism with the best of them. Boaz sees Palin as somewhat of a protype of the "Aunts" in Handmaid, sinister figures with the assignment of keeping the childbearing Handmaids subservient and submissive on behalf of the uber-dominant males. Sounds like David Lynch doing a guest spot directing Big Love - or just a normal Cheney clan reunion (hopefully without the guns). But here we are, suddenly thanks to McEgomaniac's willingness to sacrifice all for personal power living la vida dystopia:



If you've ever read Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, "The Handmaid's Tale," you will recall the key role that was played by the women assigned to be the "Aunts." The story revolves around a futuristic American society in which fundamentalist Christians install a gender-based caste system where each woman is assigned a specific societal function. It is a commentary on the dangerous erasing of the line between church and state in the contemporary United States. The merging of religion and government is carried out by a group of older, white male "commanders" whose propaganda demands that citizens be constantly terrorized into submission and obedience. The resulting regime is Atwood's vision of the worst-case scenario: an American police-state theocracy where every woman's identity is reduced to her sexual attributes, and each is assigned to a category based on her physical qualifications. Subtle references to racist philosophy are mixed into the literalist religious rhetoric.


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Joan Walsh at Salon has been tracking the Palin "interviews" more closely than I. Frankly, when I have watched in real time, I find it sort of in the Spike Jones/Three Stooges/Jerry Lewis category, where the buffoonery (purposeful in the latter cases, a key distinction) is of such an intensity that it is tough to actually parse or recall what has been verbalized. And perhaps that was a successful gameplan in earlier times for the Gov, when recording devices were probably rarely present when she oped those rosy lips.


There can no longer be any doubt: Sarah Palin is absolutely, positively not qualified to be commander in chief, and she doesn't belong on the Republican ticket. I can't imagine her being ready for a 3 a.m. call on a national security emergency; I can't imagine her fielding one on an economic emergency, either – the possibility Paul Krugman convincingly framed Monday morning.

Her stunning ignorance about Israel, Iran and the Bush Doctrine in the Charlie Gibson interview almost three weeks ago was frightening, but the dim way she answered virtually every question Katie Couric asked last week was even more chilling. I singled out her delusional-sounding rant about "if Putin rears his head" over Alaska, but Jeffrey Goldberg pointed to something arguably more awful: her clueless answer to a Couric question about what happens when democracy doesn't yield results the U.S. likes, as in the case of Hamas in Gaza. Here's what she said:

"Yeah, well especially in that region, though, we have to protect those who do seek democracy and support those who seek protections for the people who live there. What we're seeing in the last couple of days here in New York is a president of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who would come on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends, Israel ... and we're hearing the evil that he speaks and if hearing him doesn't allow Americans to commit more solidly to protecting the friends and allies that we need, especially there in the Mideast, then nothing will."

So we're going to protect Hamas? Don't tell our friends in Israel. Palin clearly had no idea what Couric was talking about. Ever since, she has continued to gaffe her way through the campaign: On Saturday she said she'd go after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan – even though that's against the McCain position, and McCain had to contradict her publicly. Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria says it best: All too often, when Palin opens her mouth, what comes out is "gibberish."

Rebecca Traister writes persuasively about a recent outbreak of misplaced Palin pity among liberals – the New York Times' Judith Warner, the Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, the New Republic's Christopher Orr have all expressed sympathy for the sinking VP nominee. I'm with Traister; I'm not feeling it. Palin "didn't blink" when McCain asked her to join the ticket, didn't think twice, because she's a supremely self-confident woman with a limited worldview, impressed with her own greatness and not terribly curious about anyone else. She reaps what she sows. I'm with conservative Kathleen Parker and Zakaria: I believe Palin would be a menace as commander in chief, and she's got to get off the GOP ticket.

I don't expect that to happen; McCain is too stubborn, and having been prevented by the Christian right from choosing a relative moderate like Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge, it's hard to imagine him bucking them now. McCain risked his entire reputation for integrity with his cynical choice of Palin, and he'll have to live with the consequences. One consequence is the loss of respect by many journalists who once admired him. As Zakaria puts it: "For John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true." But McCain's reputation isn't the worst casualty of the Palin choice; if he's elected, the consequences will be more dire for the rest of us.

UPDATE: I hadn't seen the latest Couric-Palin-McCain interview when I wrote this. What a disaster. Asked by Couric about the criticism from Republicans about whether she's "ready," a smily, lip-licking Palin cut her off: "Not only am I ready but I am willing and able," she exclaimed, and she went on to talk about her experience as Wasilla mayor and governor. She and McCain tag-teamed questions about her mistaken Pakistan answer, with McCain dismissing the whole situation, I think because she'd been at a pizza parlor? Really, it really made no sense. I don't even understand why McCain was there with her, like a cranky chaperone. It was just awful.

And don't trust a liberal on this one. On CNN Ed Rollins agreed: "It looks like a father taking care of the daughter…she had to go back there with Katie and prove to everybody she can handle it." Boy, Republicans have to be dreading the Thursday debate, huh?

Which brings me to this great post by Rebecca Traister, also at Salon, entitled "The Sarah Palin Pity Party." I have been known to be a bit of a softy, with heart commonly firmly on sleeve, but Traister nails my feelings. I will attempt to do some portion-control on your behalf, but strongly recommend you return to this buffet and indulge yourself. After all, we only get one VP debate!

Is this the week that Democrats and Republicans join hands -- to heap pity on poor Sarah Palin?

At the moment, all signs point to yes, as some strange bedfellows reveal that they have been feeling sorry for the vice-presidential candidate ever since she stopped speaking without the help of a teleprompter. Conservative women like Kathleen Parker and Kathryn Jean Lopez are shuddering with sympathy as they realize that the candidate who thrilled them, just weeks ago, is not in shape for the big game. They're not alone. The New Republic's Christopher Orr feels that Palin has been misused by the team that tapped her. In the New York Times, Judith Warner feels for Sarah, too! And over at the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates empathizes with intelligence and nuance, making clear that he's not expressing pity. Salon's own Glenn Greenwald watched the Katie Couric interview and "actually felt sorry for Sarah Palin." Even Amy Poehler, impersonating Katie Couric on last week's "Saturday Night Live," makes the joke that Palin's cornered-animal ineptitude makes her "increasingly adorable."

I guess I'm one cold dame, because while Palin provokes many unpleasant emotions in me, I just can't seem to summon pity, affection or remorse.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just like all of the rest of you, part of the bipartisan jumble of viewers that keeps one hand poised above the mute button and the other over my eyes during Palin's disastrous interviews. Like everyone else, I can barely take the waves of embarrassment that come with watching someone do something so badly. Roseanne Barr singing the national anthem, Sofia Coppola acting in "The Godfather: Part III," Sarah Palin talking about Russia -- they all create the same level of eyeball-squinching discomfort.

My approach? Carefully overlook when the interviews are scheduled to be broadcast and read about the outcome later. Will not be able to justify that approach with debate, however.

But just because I'm human, just because I can feel, just because I did say this weekend that I "almost feel sorry for her" doesn't mean, when I consider the situation rationally, that I do. Yes, as a feminist, it sucks -- hard -- to watch a woman, no matter how much I hate her politics, unable to answer questions about her running mate during a television interview. And perhaps it's because this experience pains me so much that I feel not sympathy but biting anger. At her, at John McCain, at the misogynistic political mash that has been made of what was otherwise a groundbreaking year for women in presidential politics.

In her "Poor Sarah" column, Warner writes of the wave of "self-recognition and sympathy [that] washed over" her when she saw a photo of Palin talking to Henry Kissinger. Palin -- as "a woman fully aware that she was out of her league, scared out of her wits, hanging on for dear life" -- apparently reminded Warner of herself. Wow. Putting aside the massively depressing implication that Warner recognizes this attitude because she believes it to be somehow written into the female condition, let's consider that there are any number of women who could have been John McCain's running mate -- from Olympia Snowe to Christine Todd Whitman to Kay Bailey Hutchison to Elizabeth Dole to Condoleezza Rice -- who would not have provoked this reaction. Democrats might well have been repulsed and infuriated by these women's policy positions. But we would not have been sitting around worrying about how scared they looked.

In her piece, Warner diagnoses Palin with a case of "Impostor Syndrome," positing that admirers who watched her sitting across from world leaders at the U.N. last week were recognizing that "she can't possibly do it all -- the kids, the special-needs baby, the big job, the big conversations with foreign leaders. And neither could they." Seriously? Do we have to drag out a list of women who miraculously have found a way to manage to balance many of these factors -- Hillary Clinton? Nancy Pelosi? Michelle Bachelet? -- and could still explain the Bush Doctrine without breaking into hives? This is not breaking my heart. It is breaking my spirit.

Exactly.

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So here it is, finally. And as unpleasant as it may be to watch the humiliation of a woman who waltzed into a spotlight too strong to withstand, I flat out refuse to be manipulated into another stage of gendered regress -- back to the pre-Pelosi, pre-Hillary days when girls couldn't stand the heat and so were shooed back to the kitchen.

Sarah Palin is no wilting flower. She is a politician who took the national stage and sneered at the work of community activists. She boldly tries to pass off incuriosity and lassitude as regular-people qualities, thereby doing a disservice to all those Americans who also work two jobs and do not come from families that hand out passports and backpacking trips, yet still manage to pick up a paper and read about their government and seek out experience and knowledge.

When you stage a train wreck of this magnitude -- trying to pass one underqualified chick off as another highly qualified chick with the lame hope that no one will notice -- well, then, I don't feel bad for you.

When you treat women as your toys, as gullible and insensate pawns in your Big Fat Presidential Bid -- or in Palin's case, in your Big Fat Chance to Be the First Woman Vice President Thanks to All the Cracks Hillary Put in the Ceiling -- I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't take your own career and reputation seriously enough to pause before striding onto a national stage and lying about your record of opposing a Bridge to Nowhere or using your special-needs child to garner the support of Americans in need of healthcare reform you don't support, I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't have enough regard for your country or its politics to cram effectively for the test -- a test that helps determine whether or not you get to run that country and participate in its politics -- I don't feel bad for you.

When your project is reliant on gaining the support of women whose reproductive rights you would limit, whose access to birth control and sex education you would curtail, whose healthcare options you would decrease, whose civil liberties you would take away and whose children and husbands and brothers (and sisters and daughters and friends) you would send to war in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and wherever else you saw fit without actually understanding international relations, I don't feel bad for you.

I don't want to be played by the girl-strings anymore. Shaking our heads and wringing our hands in sympathy with Sarah Palin is a disservice to every woman who has ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because this is an utterly fair dismissal, based on an utter lack of ability and readiness. It's a disservice to minority populations of every stripe whose place in the political spectrum has been unfairly spotlighted as mere tokenism; it is a disservice to women throughout this country who have gone from watching a woman who -- love her or hate her -- was able to show us what female leadership could look like to squirming in front of their televisions as they watch the woman sent to replace her struggle to string a complete sentence together.

In fact, the only people I feel sorry for are Americans who invested in a hopeful, progressive vision of female leadership, but who are now stuck watching, verbatim, a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

Palin is tough as nails. She will bite the head off a moose and move on. So, no, I don't feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for women who have to live with what she and her running mate have wrought.

I See My Light Come Shining

They say ev'ry man needs protection,They say ev'ry man must fall. (Dylan, "I Shall Be Released")

The news is fast and furious these days, keeping the stakes high and at least for some the interest level also elevated. However, as with the "bailout," as the media seem to have christened it, there is a risk under these conditions of taking leave of our senses and/or failing to stop and actually consider what is going on.

The federal government certainly seemed to go through some sort of no-time-to-think seizure over the last week. While my powder is still only faintly moist on the merits of the revised bill reportedly hammered out over the weekend, in hindsight I am glad it failed as it may allow for some creative thinking rather than just pastiching of the awful original SecTR ultimatum.

Glenn G has a good long article at Salon on the subject. I am excerpting only briefly, given the number of interesting sources I have tagged for this post. Pursuit of link strongly encouraged:

Retired New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston, writing at The New Republic yesterday, makes a critical point, in a piece entitled "Celebrating the Bailout Bill's Failure":

Whether you favor the $700 billion bailout or not, the House vote today should make you cheer -- loudly.

Why?

Because the majority vote against it shows that Washington is not entirely in the service of the political donor class, by which I mean Wall Street and the corporations who rely on it for their financing. These campaign donors, a narrow slice of America, have lobbied and donated their way into a system that stacks the economic rules in their favor. But faced with as many as 200 telephone calls against the bailout for every one in favor, a lot of House members decided to listen to their constituents today instead of their campaign donors.

Johnston's celebration that "Washington is not entirely in the service of the political donor class" is probably premature given that Congressional leaders are falling all over themselves to assure everyone that this deal will pass in a few days after it is tinkered with in one direction or the other. I recall all too well celebrating a similar "victory" back in March, when House Democrats astonishingly refused to comply with the demands of the "donor class" -- and the entire political establishment -- to pass Bush's FISA bill to grant retroactive amnesty to the entire lawbreaking telecom industry, only to watch them jump into line and do what they were told a few months later. The corporate donor class and political establishment may lose a battle here and there, but they almost never lose the war, since they own and control the political battlefield.

Still, Johnston's overarching point is absolutely right. For better or worse, yesterday's vote was the rarest event in our political culture: ordinary Americans from all across the political spectrum actually exerting influence over how our Government functions, and trumping the concerted, unified efforts of the entire ruling class to ensure that their desires, as usual, would be ignored. Time's Michael Scherer described quite well what a stinging repudiation yesterday's vote was for those who typically run the country without much opposition:

There was a lack of trust, a loss of confidence, a popular revolt.

Nearly every major political leader in America supported the bailout bill. The President of the United States. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. All of them said the same thing. Vote yes.

But the leaders anointed by the U.S. Constitution to most reflect the will of the people voted no. This is a remarkable event, the culmination of a historic sense of betrayal that the American people have long felt for their representatives in Washington D.C. Roughly 28 percent of the Americans approve of President Bush. Roughly 18 percent of Americans approve of Congress. These numbers have been like that for years.

Now those bad feelings have manifested themselves in the starkest of terms. Not enough of the American people believed their leaders. And so the politicians that were most exposed ran for cover.

Can anyone even remember the last time this happened, where the nation's corporate interests and their establishment spokespeople were insistently demanding government action but were impeded -- defeated -- by nothing more than popular opinion? Perhaps the failure of George Bush's Social Security schemes in 2005 would be an example, but one is hard-pressed to think of any other meaningful ones.

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Dan Froomkin devoted much of his daily White House Watch column to the increasing irrelevance of the president in matters that count these days, under the title "Put a Fork in Him":

President Bush put what was left of his influence on the line in his push to get Congress to pass a massive financial bailout. So yesterday, when House Republicans killed his proposal, it wasn't just the stock market that took its biggest tumble in history.

Bush is now wiped out.

Dan Eggen and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "The vote marked the biggest legislative defeat of Bush's tenure and underscored the vanishing influence of a president who could once bend a pliant Congress to his will on wars, taxes, surveillance and a host of other high-profile initiatives.

"The defeat also brought into focus some of the key characteristics of Bush's troubled second term, including his weakened hold on his party, his tendency to delegate major responsibilities to aides and his continued reliance on alarmist rhetoric in an effort to get his way. Bush left much of the sales job for the rescue plan to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., and his last-minute warnings that 'our entire economy is in danger' appeared to have little impact on the debate. . . .

"Several GOP strategists and lobbyists said the White House deserves considerable criticism for the way it handled legislative advocacy for the Paulson program. Some faulted the president for not personally lobbying lawmakers until the end, leaving it to Paulson, Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and other aides. The president began calling GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate over the past few days, White House officials said.

"Other Republicans said Bush gave too much leeway to Paulson, whom they consider tone-deaf to politics, in fashioning a plan that initially gave him broad powers with no oversight."

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Richard Wolf, Kathy Kiely, Fredreka Schouten and John Fritze write for USA Today: "When President Bush came on television at 7:35 a.m. Monday to urge passage of a $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan, fellow Republicans working out in the House gymnasium jeered his remarks."

Ken Herman writes for the Cox News Service: "The fact that Bush's party rejected the bailout underscored the peculiar position he is in, and decreasing influence he has, during an economic crisis that will dominate his final months in office.

"'No one should be surprised that a presidential appeal couldn't stop this rebellion given Mr. Bush's poll numbers, and given that the idea of defying the lame-duck president was part of the public conversation among House Republicans before the meltdown at the White House meeting last week,' said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas government professor.

"For years, Bush, preaching GOP orthodoxy of smaller government and free markets, has pitched homeownership as a part of the American dream. Now, it's become part of a national economic nightmare."

Craig Crawford blogs for CQ: "George W. Bush's White House has gone belly up, not unlike those big banks that failed. The president's political credit was revoked today as his financial bailout failed to pass in the House of Representatives.

"This is what happens to a president who lied to Congress to start a war, among other things -- even if this time he is proposing the best thing for the country."

Justin Webb blogs for the BBC: "With the Republican revolt in the House of Representatives, President Bush is now confirmed as the weakest Commander-in-Chief in modern history.

"He puts Jimmy Carter in the shade. Just as well America faces no serious problems."

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And then there is this from Anonymous Liberal, hypothesizing about republican back-room shenanigans gone wrong (oh, too bad, so sad!):

The more I think about the events of yesterday, the more I'm convinced that a substantial faction of the GOP has essentially written off John McCain and instead has its eyes on a 2010 and 2012 resurgence. How else can you explain the RNC releasing an ad attacking the very bailout bill that John McCain is trying to rally support and take credit for?

Ben Smith reports that the ad was cut and released before the House voted yesterday, at a time when everyone thought that the bill would pass (albeit narrowly). The goal of the House Republicans was not to kill the bill. The plan was to have enough Republicans (mostly retiring Republicans and those in very safe seats) vote for the bill to allow it to pass, but have every other Republican vote against it. Once the bill was safely passed, the RNC and those in the House who voted against the bill could then turn around and stoke public resentment of it.

This strategy--had it worked--may well have helped the GOP in the long term and allowed them to reinvent themselves for 2010 and 2012. It would not, however, have helped John McCain.

But guess who was a big advocate of this plan? Newt Gingrich. Andrea Mitchell reported the following this morning:

I’m told reliably by leading Republicans who are close to him [Gingrich], he was whipping against this up until the last minute when he issued that face-saving statement. Newt Gingrich was telling people in the strongest possible language that this was a terrible deal, not only that it was a terrible deal, that it was a disaster, it was the end of democracy as we know it, it was socialism.

Newt Gingrich isn't just a concerned bystander here. He clearly has presidential aspirations of his own. And the best case scenario for him is that John McCain loses, and he can lead the Republican party back into power in 2012.

Gingrich is clearly a much more influential figure among House Republicans than John McCain is. The movement conservatives in the House have never liked McCain and will not be heartbroken if he loses. They are plotting for the long term right now.

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Fait Accompli?

"Only a fool would say that" - Steely Dan

It's hard to know what ground is safe to stand on these days. The jackalope pretending to run for president with an elephant on his sleeve can't even get out of his own weigh (pi).

At least James Fallows (h/t Josh at TPM) has some solid-ground comments on last Friday's debate:

The least self-aware moment for John McCain in last night's debate came at the half-way point, when he said, "I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy."

In a sense McCain was sticking to his battle plan in saying this -- the plan being on-message hammering-home of the "Obama doesn't understand" theme. In another sense, he lost his way, since he immediately segued not into a discussion of strategic matters in Iraq and Afghanistan but into an anecdote. But that kind of literal parsing of his answer -- tactical analysis, you might call it -- really misses the point.

There has been no greater contrast between the Obama and McCain campaigns than the tactical-vs-strategic difference, with McCain demonstrating the primacy of short-term tactics and Obama sticking to a more coherent long-term strategy. And McCain's dismissive comment suggests that he still does not realize this.

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Everything John McCain did on stage last night was consistent with trying to score tactical points in those 90 minutes. He belittled Obama with the repeated "he doesn't understand"s; he was explicitly insulting to him in saying at the end "I honestly don't believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or experience" for the job (a line Joe Biden dare not use so bluntly on Sarah Palin); and implicitly he was shockingly rude and dismissive in refusing ever to look Obama in the eye. Points scored -- in the short term, to the cheers of those already on his side.

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. (And yes, of course, his being a young black man challenging an older white man complicated everything he did and said, which is why his most wittily aggressive debate performance was against another black man, Alan Keyes, in his 2004 Senate race.) The evidence of the polls suggests that he achieved exactly this strategic goal. He was the more "likeable," the more knowledgeable, the more temperate, etc. (Update: though from here on out he doesn't have to say "John is right..." anywhere near as often as he did last night.) .

For years and years, Democrats have wondered how their candidates could "win" the debates on logical points -- that is, tactics -- but lose the larger struggle because these seemed too aggressive, supercilious, cold-blooded, or whatever. To put it in tactical/strategic terms, Democrats have gotten used to winning battles and losing wars. Last night, the Democratic candidate showed a far keener grasp of this distinction than did the Republican who accused him of not understanding it.

There was Good Stuff back there at that "-clip-." Don't be shy about visiting the link.

Back to McSame shortly. Palin can almost inspire pity after the ridicule she has been rightly subjected to based on her extremely limited and supposedly controlled recent appearances. I'm not going to waste a lot of empathy on her - the incredible vanity and narcissism required to actually accept the inane McShame's desperate invite is her calling-card.

Jane Smiley has some terrific insights based on turning off Sarah's sound-track. What a concept! Dubyah certainly exposes his inner demons sotto voce. And his protege McDespicable? You did watch the debate didn't you? He channels the smirker!

So, I watched pieces of the Palin interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson. I turned off the sound just so that I could read her facial expressions. I recommend it. Her facial expressions and her hand gestures are quite interesting because they are those of someone who knows she is bullshitting and is trying to put it over by being extra emphatic. She is full of resentment and entirely exasperated that she is not being accepted in the way she thinks of herself. Don't you know Alaska is right next to Russia? Don't you know only a small strip of ocean separates the two? Putin might raise his head! (except that Moscow is 6000 miles from Alaska). Her every expression says, "How dumb are you, that you don't know what I know." She is so ignorant that she doesn't even know that others know things that she doesn't know. She is confident in her belief that Henry Kissinger, of all people, is naive. Many in the liberal blogosphere are beginning to feel sorry for Sarah Palin, but I don't think we should go there, even for a moment. Every report out of Alaska indicates that she is ruthless above all, that she uses and exploits others for her own purposes, then betrays them when they are no longer useful. When I see her talking, I can see that -- her face shows impatience with the process -- why bother, she is saying, let me just have what I want.

Let's talk about blinking. Lots of us who jumped on Palin's case when she first got tapped as VP candidate were taken to task for not giving her a chance. Aside from the fact that it's all important when dealing with Republicans to jump right on them and start the fight on your own terms, we also had an intuition, a la Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, that she just wasn't right -- that her manner and her life choices didn't add up to a full deck, and, speaking for lots of women, that the white Right men had gone for the pin up girl without asking her to pass the exam. Le voila, as they say in France. No amount of cramming has prepared her to pass the exam, and the way she thinks gets more and more edgy, disorganized, mixed up, and aggressive.

So. It's working. As I said last week, attack attack, attack, expose expose expose. Only two things are possible if McCain wins--Americans will knowingly go for the two least defensible candidates in living memory, or we will have those candidates thrust upon us by fraud. I hope it goes to Obama. But we have nothing to lose from taking the fight to them. Kathleen Parker over at the National Review Online says that Palin should drop out. I say keep her. Sarah Palin IS the evidence that John McCain doesn't know what he's doing, and that the Republican party is a bankrupt, empty, greedy, power-mad cabal. I want that on display.

Weisman at the Post has an intriguing account of the McSlime blitzkrieg. I gather he has not been able to drag his sorry ass in for a vote on any-damn-thing for months, but he made a major production out of pretending to "suspend his campaign" when he sensed a photo-op. Of course he blew the op not once but twice. I think we should check again on the details of his HS and Annapolis records. This guy's loser act would make the cartoon cowboy proud. There is more at that clip.

When Sen. John McCain made his way to the Capitol office of House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) just past noon on Thursday, he intended to "just touch gloves" with House Republican leaders, according to one congressional aide, and get ready for the afternoon bailout summit at the White House.

Instead, Rep. Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, was waiting to give him an earful. The $700 billion Wall Street rescue, as laid out by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., was never going to fly with House Republicans, Ryan said. The plan had to be fundamentally reworked, relying instead on a new program of mortgage insurance paid not by the taxpayers but by the banking industry.

McCain listened, then, with Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), he burst into the Senate Republican policy luncheon. Over a Tex-Mex buffet, Sens. Robert F. Bennett (Utah) and Judd Gregg (N.H.) had been explaining the contours of a deal just reached. House Republicans were not buying it. Then McCain spoke.

"I appreciate what you've done here, but I'm not going to sign on to a deal just to sign the deal," McCain told the gathering, according to Graham and confirmed by multiple Senate GOP aides. "Just like Iraq, I'm not afraid to go it alone if I need to."

For a moment, as Graham described it, "you could hear a pin drop. It was just unbelievable." Then pandemonium. By the time the meeting broke up, the agreement touted just hours before -- one that Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), the No. 3 GOP leader, estimated would be supported by more than 40 Senate Republicans -- was in shambles.

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The breakdown was serious enough that word reached Paulson. Just 25 minutes before the scheduled meeting at the White House, Paulson phoned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to alert her to trouble, according to a Senate Democratic leadership aide. When congressional leaders converged on the White House, the Democrats peeled off into the Roosevelt Room to discuss the revolt over the insurance plan. President Bush was kept waiting, something he has always hated.

After the cameras left the Cabinet room, Bush thanked everybody for their spirit of cooperation and said he knew it was not an easy vote. He knew elements still needed to be worked out and said he wanted to go around the table to hear people's views.

Pelosi said Obama would speak for the Democrats. Though later he would pepper Paulson with questions, according to a Republican in the room, his initial point was brief: "We've got to get something done."

Bush turned to McCain, who joked, "The longer I am around here, the more I respect seniority." McCain then turned to Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to speak first.

Boehner was blunt. The plan Paulson laid out would not win the support of the vast majority of House Republicans. It had been improved on the edges, with an oversight board and caps on the compensation of participating executives. But it had to be changed at the core. He did not mention the insurance alternative, but Democrats did. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pressed Boehner hard, asking him if he really intended to scrap the deal and start again.

No, Boehner replied, he just wanted his members to have a voice. Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: "What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?" he asked repeatedly. McCain did not answer.

One Republican in the room said it was clear that the Democrats came into the meeting with a "game plan" aimed at forcing McCain to choose between the administration and House Republicans. "They had taken McCain's request for a meeting and trumped it," said this source.

Congressional aides from both parties were standing in the lobby of the West Wing, unaware of the discord inside the Cabinet room, when McCain emerged alone, shook the hands of the Marines at the door and left. The aides were baffled. The plan had been for a bipartisan appearance before the media, featuring McCain, Obama and at least a firm statement in favor of intervention. Now, one of the leading men was gone.

The rest of the actors poured out of the room still highly agitated. Democrats clustered in the hall between the lobby and the Oval Office, pressing Bachus to explain what had happened to the deal. The Democrats discussed whether to go before the cameras waiting in front of the White House, but Obama refused. Without McCain next to him, he said, he would be skewered for using the White House as a backdrop. As the talk grew louder, Obama asked if they could duck into a room, and back they went to the ornate, windowless Roosevelt Room.