McCain on the Late Show.

Colin Powell endorses Obama

Ignorant and proud of it.

Mark stein.  Ignorant and proud of it.

Warts and all.

Judging by what I have read, the Abraham Lincoln quote that he wished to be painted "warts and all" was probably wrongly attributed to him.  Likewise it is assumed that when Walpole wrote that Cromwell insisted that Sir Peter Lely represent reality when painting him ("I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it''), that was probably a not an entirely accurate quote either.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting contrast that Fox seem to have gotten their panties in a twist over an un-retouched photograph of Sarah Palin on the cover of Newsweek.   How dare they reproduce the portrait of the Alaskan governor just as she is, without the interpretive aid of a Photoshop-wielding artist.

Since it is Fox that are outraged we can put aside any reservations about the Lincoln and Cromwell quotes being fabrications and just pretend them to be historically accurate.  I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to come up with a witticism on how Palin is being un-vice-presidential for having Fox obsess over her imperfect looks on her behalf.

Rolling Stone on McCain.

Rolling Stone magazine has an article about John McCain.  One would expect Rolling Stone to have a democrat bias so keep that in mind when reading or watching the video.  Some of the things said seem to have been confirmed -- others sound plausible, but I your guess is as good as mine.

Undignified McCain

Take a close look at McCain now, after the VP debate.  Does this petty individual seem presidential to you?  He knows Palin might have fooled Joe-Drunk-The-Sixpack and possibly appealed to the odd stereotypical hockey-mom -- but even he knows that she failed to live up to even the lowest benchmark of VPdom:  Dan Quayle.

So McCain does what his nature dictates.   He starts acting like a childish bully. Afraid that his status will drop through the floor if he doesn't punch the "uppity" smart kid on the nose.   

Over the next days or weeks he will try to sling as much mud has he possibly can -- in the hope that some of it will stick.  I hope Obama won't take the bait.  I hope he will not feed the juvenile bullying of McCain by spending any significant time on talking back to him.  And I sure as hell don't hope Obama will stoop to McCain's level and respond with the same sort of unworthy ads and non-rethoric.

Political debate, Fox style.

This is the level at which political debate takes place in the US.  This is the sort of raw sewage the public is fed without any warnings along the lines of  "Warning: may cause political blindness".

VP Debate

Managed to see just the start of the Debate on YouTube.com.  First impression of the first part: as predicted: all form and very little substance from Palin.  She plays the hockey-mom card and tries to turn her inexperience and lack of knowledge into a positive.   Very obvious that she was mostly regurgitating talking points given to her.

But to her credit:  there was a fluidity to her delivery.  Most voters have no real idea about the issues so they judge by the delivery.  They look at the packaging, not the contents.

Biden seemed more pleasant and toned down than on the campaign trail.

Who broke the economy?

factcheck.org has an article that attempts to shed some light on who broke the economy.  The last comment is a good summary:

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

The rest of the article can be found here.

The VP Debate

This is probably going to be a fairly weird debate.  On one hand you have Biden, with considerable political experience.  On the other hand you have Palin, with close to no grasp even on what the campaign she represents stands for.  It is going to be a substance versus form debate and the ground rules have already been set:  this is going to be a strictly no-contact fight.  (A deal that was struck for McCain to agree on turning up for his debate at all).

Right now, Palin is in hiding from the press, cramming for the debate.  Nose deep in the McCain Big Book Of One-Liners.  They must be pretty desperate at this point trying to make sure that at the very least she knows what positions she is supposed to take on various issues. 

I'm not sure what Biden will be doing to prepare.  In this debate, facts and figures won't matter as much as demeanor and folksiness.   It will be hard for Biden to figure out how to approach this. If he comes off as condescending or too aggressive, he will lose the debate in popular opinion.  And it will be exceedingly hard to not come off as condescending when debating The Master of the Non-Answer from Alaska.

Palin has given some terrible interviews of late where one of her answers was even repeated almost verbatim in a SNL skit with Tina Fey playing Palin.  No need to even bother writing gibberish lines when Palin is so capable of producing lines that can just be recycled for comic effect.  But it would be dangerous for Biden to under-estimate Palin's ability to charm her way out of a tight spot.

In the end, I think the voters are the big losers.  Presidential candidates and VP candidates in an american election are more afraid of actual face to face debate than a murder suspect is of taking the stand on his or her own trial.  Their marketing dollar can't help them there -- and the marketing dollar is what decides a presidential campaign.  Selling the voters a president or a VP is no different from selling consumers corbonated sugary water.  Same basic principles.  It is first and foremost a branding exercise.