TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Wall Street rebounded today: "The Dow Jones industrial average added 485 points, according to early tallies, recovering some of the record 777 points lost the day before. If the gains hold, it would be the third-biggest one-day point advance for the indicator in its history. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 5% and the Nasdaq composite gained about 5.3%."

* The news was not all good, however, as credit markets remain frozen.

* A long-term security agreement is still pending between the Maliki government and the Bush administration. The sticking point? Civil jurisdiction over U.S. troops.

* New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in his second term, and the city has a two-term limit. He is, apparently, going to seek a third term anyway.

* Did Gingrich screw over Boehner on the bailout vote?

* The television audience for the first presidential debate was big, but not nearly as big as expected.

* McCain certainly made it sound like he thinks Venezuela is in the Middle East.

* MoveOn.org vs. Tom Brokaw.

* Gwen Ifill broke her ankle today, but she'll still moderate Thursday's debate.

* And on Oct. 16, in support of the Obama campaign, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel will play their first concert together.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE.... As a rule, there's no point in going after every inane McCain campaign web ad -- there's too many of them, and they're generally not worth the bother -- but as Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld noted, the new one is "so comically misleading that it really is a must-see."

It's too ridiculous to post the video, but the "ad" responds to the heat McCain took for insisting that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong," just as the Wall Street crisis was underway. Here's the script:

Voiceover: Who's Barack Obama? First, Obama attacked McCain.

Then said: "We've got the long term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows."

Voiceover: Strong fundamentals? Is Obama saying McCain's right? Or is Obama saying his own attacks are shameless? Either way, Obama's a hypocrite.

Actually, he's not. The "ad" quotes Obama saying, "We've got the long term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows." But the McCain campaign conveniently shaved off all of the context that changes -- indeed, reverses -- the meaning of the quote. Here's what Obama actually said:

"[We need] a plan that would extend expiring unemployment benefits. For those Americans who have lost their jobs and have been working hard to find a new one, but haven't found one yet. That's part of the change we need. And then after this immediate problem, we've got the long-term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows. Change means tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses that deserve it. As President I am going to eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups."

Obama was talking about the "long-term fundamentals" as part of his economic plan, not of today's economy. Either McCain campaign officials have the listening comprehension skills of a toddler, or they're lying, again, to the public, and cynically counting on voters being too stupid to see through their nonsense.

Let's also not lose sight of the big picture. When candidates on the Republican ticket tell voters something provocative, it doesn't count because it's "gotcha journalism." When candidates on the Democratic ticket say something unremarkable, but it's wrenched from context to change its meaning, it's legitimate public discourse.

I suppose it's possible for the McCain campaign to be more pathetic, but it's hard to see how.

THE POPULARITY OF THE BAILOUT (OR LACK THEREOF).... Most of the players in the political arena seemed to realize, and openly acknowledge, that the bailout package was pretty unpopular with voters. Principals admitted that this was a bill that wouldn't go over well at home, but argued, with varying degrees of persuasion, that it was necessary anyway.

Indeed, after the dust settled yesterday, more than a few lawmakers told reporters that they were swayed, at least in part, by constituent complaints about the legislation. Very few people were calling their representative's office to urge him/her to vote for the bill.

But then I noticed the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, and I'm not sure what to think of public opinion on this.

Most Americans see the current financial situation as a "crisis," and there is overwhelming concern that the failure of the House of Representatives to pass the economic recovery package will deepen the problem, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But the poll also revealed significant public concern with the bill Congress rejected yesterday, as few voters said the package did enough to protect "ordinary Americans," and nearly half said it did not go far enough to shore up the nation's economy.

As is often the case discerning public opinion, reading these results was a little confusing. The public was largely split on whether the bill has merit -- 47% opposed the package, 45% supported it.

But the same poll found that nearly nine in 10 Americans said Congress' failure to pass the measure "could lead to a more severe economic decline."

What's more, Isaac Chotiner noted that voters are inclined to hold Republicans responsible for the bill's failure, but given the other results, it's hard to know which party, if any, benefits from this perception.

So, what are we left with? A fair number of Americans think Congress should have passed a bill they're opposed to? They "blame" Republicans for scuttling the deal, but no one knows whether that helps the GOP or hurts it?

Nate Silver has more on polling and the bailout (or "rescue"). It's fair to say there's deep public skepticism about the plan, but it's far from clear exactly how Americans want policy makers to proceed.

CAN BOEHNER LEAD?.... House Minority Leader John Boehner was part of the recent bailout negotiations, representing the interests and priorities of House Republicans. The word "leader" is, after all, right there in his title. He signed onto an agreement and took it to his caucus for their blessing.

It was, of course, a test of his credibility, not to mention his leadership skills. Obviously, given the result, we know things didn't go well for Boehner, as two-thirds of his caucus ignored his wishes and made him look foolish (so foolish that he had to insist Republicans voted against the bill because Speaker Pelosi hurt their feelings).

So, can Boehner keep his job?

The bruising tally -- coming on the heels of a weeklong revolt -- had some GOP members asking privately whether Boehner can hold on to his leadership post. Boehner said he's confident of his job, but the vote clearly took its toll.

The leader lost the support of some of his closest allies in the House -- including Iowa Rep. Tom Latham and California Rep. Devin Nunes, two drinking buddies who helped lay the foundation for Boehner's political comeback in 2006.

Another Boehner ally, Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter of Michigan, physically turned his back on the leader during a tense closed-door GOP conference meeting Sunday night.

People who were in the room said McCotter left abruptly after Boehner told members not to attack one another. Boehner tried to reach out to McCotter as he left. McCotter kept walking.

"I have some members who would do anything for me, and I talked to them, and it just killed them, absolutely killed them, when they told me they couldn't vote yes," Boehner told a small group of reporters after Monday's stunning floor defeat.

Actually, those Republicans who opposed the package yesterday didn't seem especially troubled at all. "Absolutely killed them"? They looked perfectly content to me.

Stepping back, though, something doesn't add up here. House Republicans chose Boehner to lead and represent them, but on the year's biggest vote, they blew him off. Boehner told the White House and congressional Dems he could deliver, but when push came to shove, he couldn't -- Boehner and his caucus were in two very different places.

Moving forward, then, why even put Boehner at the negotiating table? Either he speaks for his caucus or he doesn't, and as of yesterday, he doesn't. Doesn't that necessarily suggest House Republicans should send someone else to speak on their behalf? And that this person, not Boehner, should be the party leader?

EXPERIENCE VS. NEW IDEAS.... At a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio yesterday, Sarah Palin told a crowd she's looking forward to meeting Joe Biden on Thursday. "I've never met him before," Palin said. "But I've been hearing about his senate speeches since I was in like 2nd grade." The Republican crowd seemed to think this was hilarious.

Immediately after the speech, CBS's Katie Couric met up with Palin and asked about her comments. CBS just sent over the transcript of what we'll see this evening:

Couric: You made a funny comment, you've said you have been listening to Joe Biden's speeches since you were in second grade.

Palin: It's been since like '72, yah.

Couric: You have a 72-year-old running mate, is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden's been around awhile?

Palin: Oh no, it's nothing negative at all. He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.

I see. New energy and new ideas vs. many years in the Senate. Voters, Palin said, are going to have to choose between the two.

She is aware of the dynamic surrounding the two presidential candidates, isn't she?

Update: An emailer reminds me of something important that I neglected to mention -- Palin doesn't have any "new ideas." The last time she unveiled a "new idea," it turned out to be one of Barack Obama's old ideas.

WOULD MCCAIN 'SUSPEND' AGAIN?.... John McCain appeared on "Fox & Friends" this morning, where he appeared open to the idea of "suspending" his presidential campaign (it's tempting to say "again," but we know McCain never actually suspended anything).

Steve Doocy got the ball rolling with some odd commentary, crediting McCain personally for focusing Americans' attention on the Wall Street crisis, and improving the bill for Republicans. He seemed to urge McCain to stop campaigning, so he can "emerge the leader."

"I'll do whatever I can do to make this thing work," McCain responded, adding, "I will put my presidential campaign on the back burner if necessary and do anything."

When confronted with the fact that the crisis has worsened since McCain's initial so-called "suspension," McCain responded, "I'll do whatever is necessary and whatever my Republican colleagues in the administration and others ask me to do to help." He then bashed Barack Obama for a while on issues unrelated to the Wall Street crisis.

McCain also mentioned at least twice that Congress isn't doing anything today because of a religious holiday. This, of course, led me to wonder why McCain wouldn't want to take advantage of this break to help work towards an agreement.

To be sure, I realize there's no genuine reason for McCain to suspend his campaign. If he did, it wouldn't make any substantive difference. That McCain would even entertain the idea of putting his campaign "on the back burner" only helps reinforce the notion that he's pretty far gone.

For that matter, last week's gimmick did nothing to help his campaign, and most voters saw through the transparency of McCain's craven tactics.

That said, it is kind of interesting to see McCain struggle with a basic question: if it was necessary to "suspend" last week, why is it unnecessary this week? The longer it takes for McCain to come up with a compelling answer to that question, the worse his judgment appears.

PALIN AND THE SUPREME COURT.... Howard Kurtz generated some interest yesterday when he reported that as bad as Sarah Palin's interview(s) with Katie Couric were, the "worst may be yet to come for Palin; sources say CBS has two more responses on tape that will likely prove embarrassing."

How much worse could it be? Apparently, one of the problematic responses has to do with the Supreme Court.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

Now, as far as I can tell, this portion of the interview hasn't been aired yet, so it's hard to know whether it's excruciating or not. Responding to a legitimate question with pure silence certainly sounds awkward, but it's hard to say how awful it is until it's aired.

Putting that aside, though, how embarrassing is it for Palin not to be able to identify Supreme Court rulings other than Roe?

Atrios raised a fair point: "I have some sympathy for Palin. Plenty of members of Congress don't actually know a damn thing about Supreme Court history or details about particular decisions, but what they do know (usually) is just enough to satisfy the Tom Brokaws of the world and move on to the next topic. They're trained in the trivia important to the locals, but they don't actually know anything."

Quite right. Palin didn't go to law school, never took an interest in constitutional law, but still probably knows about as much as plenty of lawmakers on the Hill.

But it's a reminder that Palin is struggling on two parallel levels: she's painfully ignorant and she hasn't learned how to hide her painful ignorance. Even if she couldn't remember the names of specific cases, Palin would have likely sounded fine if she spoke in vague terms about court rulings on religious liberty, or terrorism, or civil rights, or the economy, or anything.

Or perhaps even the reverse -- she could throw out the names of a few famous cases, even if she's shaky on the details. Off the top of one's head, anyone in a high-ranking government office could probably mention Brown vs. Board of Education, Bush vs. Gore, Plessy vs. Ferguson, and Dred Scott, whether one could discuss them in any depth or not.

But Palin couldn't name the cases and couldn't talk her way out of it.

Don't feel too sorry for her -- she volunteered for this gig.

SOMETIMES, A DIG IS JUST A DIG.... There was a point a couple of months ago in which campaign reporters, at the McCain campaign's urging, began to see the word "confused" as an ageist attack. So, if someone were to point out that John McCain is confused about whether the U.S. can maintain a long-term troop presence in Iraq, this was necessarily insulting, whether he's confused or not.

The argument was premised on the notion that those of us who aren't senior citizens, apparently, don't get confused. In reality, the McCain campaign was so concerned about the age issue, it pressed reporters into hair-trigger sensitivity on the issue.

We're seeing it again today. Robert Gibbs, the Obama campaign's communications director, appeared on MSNBC this morning, talking about the crisis on Wall Street. Time's Mark Halperin asked about the political implications and recent polling trends, and Gibbs responded, "What I do think in the last two and a half to three weeks -- including that last debate -- that people got a sense of who is steady in a crisis and quite frankly who's erratic in a crisis."

The "Morning Joe" panel pressed Gibbs on the "erratic" claim, and he responded, "Just yesterday, John McCain said we shouldn't fix blame. He took a breath and then fixed blame. He said the fundamentals of our economy are strong, and he flip-flopped. He opposed the bail-out of AIG, and then he supported it. This guy zig-zags. Look, if he's driving a car, get off the sidewalk."

People chuckled, and the show went on.

But in response, some observers are crying "foul." The Politico's Jonathan Martin said Gibbs took an "age swipe" at McCain, and his comments were intended to remind voters of "images of elderly drivers who have plowed into pedestrians in recent years." Similarly, Time's Michael Scherer blasted Gibbs for deliberately, and foolishly, offending older voters.

Gibbs is a very sharp communications director, and I suppose it's possible that his comments had an underlying meaning, but I kind of doubt it. The message he wanted to emphasize was the "erratic" line, not the driving metaphor, which was an obvious afterthought.

Besides, aren't there dangerous young drivers, too? Maybe the political world is being a little overly sensitive on this?

TUESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* The Obama campaign unveiled another two-minute ad this morning, emphasizing Obama's message on the economy. It did not specifically address the crisis on Wall Street.

* The AFL-CIO is hitting McCain on healthcare with a new direct mail piece.

* By a wide margin, voters blame Republican lawmakers for yesterday's developments.

* In North Carolina, Public Policy Polling shows Obama leading McCain by two, 47% to 45%.

* In Florida, Rasmussen shows Obama and McCain tied at 47% each.

* In Colorado, Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain by one, 49% to 48%.

* In Pennsylvania, Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain by eight, 50% to 42%.

* Early voting is underway in Ohio.

THE RNC VS. THE MCCAIN CAMPAIGN.... John McCain not only supported the bailout package rejected by the House, he bragged about his role in getting the bill to the floor yesterday. His running mate suggested the bill was necessary to avert a depression. His campaign credited McCain personally for the bill's very existence.

So it was a little odd to see the Republican National Committee come out with a new ad this morning blasting Barack Obama for the bailout package.

The Republican Party's independent expenditure arm is up with an ad that hints at opposing the bailout, and links Obama's spending plans, in a vague but ominous way, to it.

The ad was expected to air in Indiana and Virginia, along with more traditional battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Let me get this straight. The Republican president supported the bill. The Republican Senate leadership supported the bill. The Republican House leadership supported the bill. The Republican presidential nominee supported the bill. And the Republican National Committee runs an ad insisting that Obama's bailout package "will make the problem worse."

Indeed, the RNC unveiled its breathtaking ad literally within minutes of John McCain telling Fox News that in order to get increased support for the bill, "We're going to have to change enough Republican and Democrats' minds.""

So, simultaneously, the Republican Party is campaigning against the bill, and Republican presidential candidate is campaigning in support of the bill. Brilliant.

The Obama campaign responded, "For John McCain's party to demagogue a rescue plan that he supports in order to score cheap political points is not only dishonest and dishonorable, it is the height of irresponsibility on a day when we urgently need to pass that plan to prevent an economic catastrophe. So much for country first."

Here's a question for reporters to ask McCain today: should the RNC pull its ad and apologize?

WHEN THE GOP LOSES DAVID BROOKS.... Yesterday, in the aftermath of the fiasco on the House floor, my friend Kevin Drum explained, "The Republican Party is now officially hostage to a band of primitive conservative ideologues whose knowledge of economics was already outdated when Christians were being fed to lions. They are simply beyond belief."

It appears that the New York Times' David Brooks, in a pleasant surprise, has come to largely the same conclusion, specifically about the House GOP caucus.

It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party. Not long ago, they led an anti-immigration crusade that drove away Hispanic support. Then, too, they listened to the loudest and angriest voices in their party, oblivious to the complicated anxieties that lurk in most American minds.

Now they have once again confused talk radio with reality. If this economy slides, they will go down in history as the Smoot-Hawleys of the 21st century. With this vote, they've taken responsibility for this economy, and they will be held accountable. The short-term blows will fall on John McCain, the long-term stress on the existence of the G.O.P. as we know it.

I've spoken with several House Republicans over the past few days and most admirably believe in free-market principles. What's sad is that they still think it's 1984. They still think the biggest threat comes from socialism and Walter Mondale liberalism. They seem not to have noticed how global capital flows have transformed our political economy.

It's nice of Brooks to notice. Better late than never.

On a related note, Brad DeLong added yesterday, "This Republican Party needs to be burned, razed to the ground, and the furrows sown with salt..."

Given recent events, it's hardly an unreasonable prescription.

IS THIS THING ON?.... A pattern seems to be emerging -- every day the crisis on Wall Street grows in severity, every day the president makes a public statement calling for congressional action, and every day the president's remarks are largely ignored.

This morning kept the trend alive, with a four-minute Bush speech from the White House.

"Producing legislation is complicated, and it can be contentious. It matters little what a path a bill takes to become law. What matters is that we get a law. We're at a critical moment for our economy, and we need legislation that decisively address [sic] the troubled assets now clogging the financial system, helps lenders resume the flow of credit to consumers and businesses, and allows the American economy to get moving again.

"I recognize this is a difficult vote for members of Congress. Many of them don't like the fact that our economy has reached this point, and I understand that. But the reality is that we are in an urgent situation, and the consequences will grow worse each day if we do not act. The dramatic drop in the stock market that we saw yesterday will have a direct impact on the retirement accounts, pension funds, and personal savings of millions of our citizens. And if our nation continues on this course, the economic damage will be painful and lasting. [...]

"As much as we might wish the situation were different, our country is not facing a choice between government action and the smooth functioning of the free market. We're facing a choice between action and the real prospect of economic hardship for millions of Americans. And for the financial security of every American, Congress must act."

As a practical matter, I'm not sure who Bush's target audience is. Voters don't like him, and lawmakers don't trust him. The president has spent a fair amount of time in recent days trying to lobby Republican members of Congress. Yesterday, we saw just how much sway he still has on the Hill.

After the president's remarks this morning, New York Magazine's John Heilemann told MSNBC, "I don't think that comforts anybody. I don't think that moves a single vote. With due respect and sympathy for the man, that was the picture of a beaten dog. That was the picture of presidential impotence right there."

Ouch.

MULLING OVER COMPETING OPTIONS.... No one seems to have any idea what's going to happen next with regards to congressional action on the Wall Street crisis, but ABC News reported last night on the competing approaches moving forward after yesterday's debacle.

# 1 -- Muscle Bailout Bill Through House: Some leaders suggest those House Republicans on the fence will be swayed by seeing what the markets do tomorrow, which could be more bad news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 700 points today as the administration's bailout bill failed in Congress This option would see House leaders try again to muscle through the votes they need to get the $700 billion bailout bill passed.

#2 -- Pass Bailout in Senate First: Some Senate and House leaders have been talking about letting the Senate go first and pass the bailout package, ABC News has learned. There appears to be broader support in the Senate for the bailout package. This option would see the Senate vote first which would increase the pressure on the House to pass the Bush administration's bailout bill.

#3 -- Make Small Tweaks to the Bill: Congressional leaders wonder if perhaps there are a couple of small tweaks they can make to the package that would bring along the 12 votes they lost the vote by. Option A, sources say, could be adding a line that some economists have said is absolutely necessary for the FDIC to guarantee all deposits in transaction accounts, not just up to $100,000. That would deal with the credit crunch and it would be quite popular, some on Capitol Hill argue. Option B would be eliminating the mark-to-market rule that many Republicans and conservatives complain about, which ensures financial decision-makers must show their losses in real time.

#4 -- Get More Democrats On Board: Finally, one other unlikely option talked about on Capitol Hill is to try to pass the bill almost entirely with the Democratic majority in the House. That would require adding a major stimulus package favored by Democrats, infrastructure spending, unemployment insurance spending, and heating and food stamp assistance for low-income Americans.

Right about now, that fourth option looks awfully appealing. The House Republican caucus has proven itself to be ... what's the phrase I'm looking for ... stark raving mad. So why bother working to make radicals happy? The Democratic leadership could scrap yesterday's bill, put together a truly progressive package, and pass it with or without Republican support. The Senate might be trickier, but if Dems could overcome a filibuster, the president might, under these circumstances, not want to risk a veto. (Robert Kuttner even has a few ideas about what a new-and-improved Democratic package might look like.)

But this is, at this point, unlikely. The Democratic leadership has said, repeatedly, that it's committed to finding a bipartisan solution, even if the GOP caucus has lost its collective mind.

CRY BABIES.... When the Wall Street Journal's editorial page mocks House Republicans, you know the GOP has stepped in it.

"Their immediate response was to say that many of their Members turned against the bill at the last minute because Ms. Pelosi gave her nasty speech," the Journal's explained. "So they are saying that Republicans chose to oppose something they think is in the national interest merely because of a partisan slight. Thank heaven these guys weren't at Valley Forge."

To be sure, the House Republican leadership was in a bind yesterday -- they'd failed miserably, with the eyes of the world upon them, and accepting responsibility apparently wasn't an option. They needed to blame someone, and time was of the essence. "How do we blame Speaker Pelosi for Republicans rejecting a rescue plan?" a GOP member no doubt asked. "I know! We'll say her speech was mean and left us no choice!" another probably added.

And that's exactly what they did. The top three leaders of the House Republican caucus -- all of whom supported the legislation -- held a press conference to say, earnestly and sincerely, that a "partisan" speech led at least a dozen House Republican lawmakers to vote against a package they would have otherwise supported. Seriously.

It never seemed to occur to them that a) they were implicitly accepting responsibility for the debacle; and b) they were effectively admitting that they were screwing over the country because Nancy Pelosi hurt their feelings.

Barney Frank was in rare form: "Frankly, that's an accusation against my Republican colleagues I would have never thought of making. Here's the story: there's a terrible crisis affecting the American economy. We have come together on a bill to alleviate the crisis. And because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country. I mean, I would not have imputed that degree of pettiness and hypersensitivity.... [T]hink about this. 'Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country.' That's hardly plausible. And there are 12 Republican members who were ready to stand up for the economic interest of America, but not if anybody insulted them. I'll make an offer. Give me those 12 people's names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are and maybe they'll now think about the country."

If there were any justice, the House Republican caucus would never live this one down.

ALL QUESTIONS ARE 'GOTCHA' QUESTIONS.... Campaigning in Philadelphia on Saturday night, Sarah Palin fielded a few questions from local voters. A grad student asked Palin if she believed U.S. forces should be prepared to cross the Afghan border into Pakistan, and Palin responded, "If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should."

That, of course, is Barack Obama's position, which John McCain has repeatedly denounced. It even garnered a stern lecture at Friday's debate.

On Sunday, McCain said Palin's answer didn't count because it wasn't "a definitive policy statement." Last night, McCain and Palin sat down together with CBS's Katie Couric -- yes, again -- and came up with a new excuse.

"[L]ook, I understand this day and age 'gotcha' journalism," McCain said. "Is that a pizza place? In a conversation with someone who you didn't hear -- the question very well, you don't know the context of the conversation. Grab a phrase. Governor Palin and agree that you don't announce that you're going to attack another country."

When Couric asked if Palin was sorry she had made the statement, McCain again jumped in before Palin could answer. "Wait a minute," he said. "Before you say, 'is she sorry she said it,' this was a 'gotcha' sound bite that, look, no, she was in a conversation with a group of people and talking back and forth. And, I'll let Governor Palin speak for herself."

Palin added, "In the context, this was a voter, a constituent, hollering out a question from across an area asking, 'What are you gonna do about Pakistan? You better have an answer to Pakistan.' I said we're gonna do what we have to do to protect the United States of America." She added, "That this is all about 'gotcha' journalism."

All of this is completely absurd. First, Palin did more than just recommit to protecting the country -- she specifically said we should "absolutely" cross the border to stop terrorists from moving into Pakistan.

Second, what are these bizarre rules McCain is coming up with? When a voter asks a topical, pertinent question, it's "gotcha journalism." When a candidate gives an answer while talking "back and forth" with a "group of people," it doesn't count.

This is insane. Palin isn't a victim here -- a voter asked a question, and she answered it. Palin, in other words, said something in public and the media reported it. Indeed, she said something important about a pressing national security issue, so the media is supposed to report it.

The Republican ticket is actually getting worse. I didn't think that was possible.

MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* The Dow fell nearly 778 points today, or almost 7%. It was the worst single-day point loss in American history. The S&P 500 dropped 8.7% and the Nasdaq fell 9.1%.

* As of today, the Dow Jones is lower now than it was the day Bush took office in 2001.

* This afternoon, responding to the economic crisis, the Obama campaign issued a statement calling for calm, encouraging lawmakers to keep working, and urging investors not to panic. The McCain campaign attacked Obama. It's a reminder that one can tell a lot about a person's character by how they respond to adversity.

* No one has any idea what's going to happen next.

* The climate crisis continues to grow increasingly scary.

* The New York Sun is closing up tomorrow.

* This attack on a mosque in Dayton, Ohio, is the height of insanity.

* Maureen Dowd is apparently no longer welcome aboard the McCain campaign plane.

* Have I mentioned lately how fantastic it is to see that Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show is off to such an amazing start? Her ratings last week showed her biggest audiences to date.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

ISN'T ANOTHER 'SUSPENSION' NECESSARY?.... This will probably come across as a little snarky because, well, it is. But I have to ask: isn't it incumbent on John McCain to at least pretend to "suspend" his campaign again?

I was just looking back at what McCain said on Thursday, when he insisted that the crisis on Wall Street was so serious, he had no choice but to drop everything, return to Washington, and help play a role in striking a deal.

"I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not.... With so much on the line, for America and the world, the debate that matters most right now is taking place in the United States Capitol -- and I intend to join it.

"It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration's proposal to meet the crisis. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time. So I am returning to Washington...."

As we now know, McCain really didn't "suspend" anything, and he didn't play a constructive role in the process. But putting that aside, if McCain keeps campaigning now, as he seems poised to do, wouldn't he necessarily be carrying on "as though this dangerous situation had not occurred"?

In other words, McCain set a standard for himself -- in the midst of a crisis, with little hope of a solution, and with time running out, heading to the campaign trail is not only a mistake, it's selfish. Indeed, it's failing to put "country first." That's the standard he created, and publicly articulated just a few days ago. Now, not so much.

As Noam Scheiber explained:

So the bailout deal collapses and McCain is headed to ... Iowa?

I'm confused. I assumed the "country-first" move would be to suspend his campaign all over again and hunker down in Washington till we worked things out.

It wouldn't even be that hard. McCain can find more than half the votes we need among his home-state colleagues in the House, all of whom voted against the deal.

The bottom line is straightforward enough: McCain "left" the campaign trail on Thursday because of the crisis. As of this afternoon, the crisis is much, much worse.

So, what does McCain plan to do now? Phone it in?

WHEN THE GAMBLER ROLLS SNAKE EYES.... Just yesterday, Lindsey Graham told Fox News, "Thank God John [McCain] came back" to work on the bailout package. Around the same time, McCain's chief campaign strategist was on NBC, bragging that it was John McCain who brought House Republicans to the negotiating table, making a deal likely.

And it was McCain himself, just this morning, who was taking credit for "building a winning bailout coalition -- hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked." McCain assumed victory was at hand, and he was rushing to position himself as the hero who saved the day.

As of this afternoon, John McCain looks pretty foolish.

After bragging today about his role in shaping the economic bailout package, Sen. John McCain made no statement to the press after the defeat of the bill, in part at the hands of House Republicans.

Instead, McCain boarded his Straight Talk Air charter plane, where he sat in front, separated from reporters by a brown curtain, without making a comment on the bill's defeat.

The McCain campaign's senior policy adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, issued a statement blaming Democrats and Barack Obama for the Republican failure, but it was so laughably pathetic, no one took it seriously. Holtz-Eakin, demonstrating a degree of hackery that should effectively ruin his reputation forever, insisted, "This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country."

Um, Doug? Most Democrats backed the bill that McCain supported, while House Republicans -- you know, the ones McCain brought to the table as part of his triumph -- rejected it, on a nearly 2-to-1 margin. Who put politics ahead of country?

A lot of people lost quite a bit today, but in a purely political context, few look as ridiculous right now as John McCain. MSNBC's Chris Matthews offered some on-air analysis this afternoon, and highlighted the fact that McCain positioned himself as the head of the Republican Party, but couldn't get his party to follow him. "He's like a cavalry commander who said 'Charge!' and the Republicans went into retreat," Matthews said.

Now, it's worth noting that there's a possible flip-side to all of this. The deal looked pretty solid last week, and then McCain showed up and scuttled the whole thing. This morning, McCain was already dancing in the end zone, so confident in what would happen. But if you're one of the many Americans who hated this bill, might not this help McCain? If he's responsible for the debacle, and you hoped for a debacle, maybe McCain's abject failure looks pretty good?

I don't think so. McCain, his campaign, and his surrogates have invested too much over the last several days in trying to give McCain credit for the bill they just knew would pass. It's simply too late for McCain to turn around now and say, "Guess what? I hated that bill all along!"

McCain "suspended" his campaign to get this bill to the floor -- and then it failed because his friends didn't like it. It's a fiasco that's going to be hard to live down.

THE WRONG FRAME AT THE WRONG TIME.... I can appreciate how ridiculous House Minority Leader John Boehner looks right now. I can even appreciate the fact that the Republican Party is looking desperately for someone to blame. But the GOP really hasn't thought this one through.

Several Republican aides said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had torpedoed any spirit of bipartisanship that surrounded the bill with her scathing speech near the close of the debate that blamed Bush's policies for the economic turmoil.

Without mentioning her by name, Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., No. 3 Republican, said: "The partisan tone at the end of the debate today I think did impact the votes on our side."

Putnam said lawmakers were working "to garner the necessary votes to avoid a financial collapse."

But the defeat was already causing a brutal round of finger-pointing. "We could have gotten there today had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House," House Minority Leader John Boehner said. Pelosi's words, the Ohio Republican said, "poisoned our conference, caused a number of members that we thought we could get, to go south."

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the whip, estimated that Pelosi's speech changed the minds of a dozen Republicans who might otherwise have supported the plan.

On its face, this is comically stupid. House Republicans wanted to vote to prevent a financial collapse, the pitch goes, but the Big Bad House Speaker made them mad with a speech. You can read Pelosi's remarks yourself -- if it strikes you as the kind of speech that's worth risking the economy over, let me know.

But more important than that is the truly ridiculous frame Republicans are establishing for themselves by using Pelosi's speech as an excuse for their own failure. The House GOP, for reasons that defy comprehension, has decided to characterize itself as a caucus of cry babies. Worse, they're irresponsible cry babies who, according to their own argument, are more concerned with their precious hurt feelings than the nation's economic stability.

It's a great slogan for the election season, isn't it? "Vote Republican -- We're More Concerned With Our Feelings Than Your Future."

Make no mistake -- this is a failure of the Republican Party of historic proportions. When push came to shove, the Democratic leadership delivered the votes on the rescue plan, while Republicans voted, 2-to-1, against it.

If they're going to rationalize their failure, they're going to have to do better than rejecting the proposal because of Pelosi's harmless speech.

HOUSE REJECTS BAILOUT BILL, MARKETS TUMBLE.... Everyone knew the vote on the bailout package would be close, and it was. Everyone did not know it would come up short.

In a moment of historic drama in the Capitol and on Wall Street, the House of Representatives voted on Monday to reject a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry.

The vote against the measure was 228 to 205. Supporters vowed to try to bring the rescue package up for consideration against as soon as possible.

Stock markets plunged sharply at midday as it appeared that the measure was go down.

House leaders pushing for the package kept the voting period open for some 40 minutes past the allotted time, trying to convert "no" votes by pointing to damage being done to the markets, but to no avail.

Here's the final roll call on the vote. A total of 140 Democrats voted for it, 95 against it, while 65 Republicans voted for it, 133 against it.

It was, of course, Republican opposition that scuttled the deal. Rumor has it that Boehner & Co. had promised to deliver between 80 and 90 Republican votes, and that clearly didn't happen. With so many GOP lawmakers balking, fewer Dems had a reason to stick out their necks in support of the package.

Apparently, the new line from the right -- repeated by Boehner, Gingrich, and some conservative bloggers -- is that House Republicans ended up rejecting the bill because they didn't like Nancy Pelosi's speech on the subject. Seriously, that's the excuse for the Republican leadership's humiliating failure.

No word on whether John McCain will "suspend" his campaign again to get into "the arena."

A VERY LONG 15 MINUTES.... I'm watching developments on the House floor, where voting was supposed to have ended on the bailout package quite a while ago. As of this minute, House leaders are keeping the vote open, waiting to see how many, if any, votes can be moved before banging the gavel.

As I type, there are 207 votes for the package, and 226 against it. The surprise is the extent of the Republican opposition. More on that soon.

Also, as the floor vote continued, the markets tanked, with the Dow down as many as 700 points a short while ago. Again, as I type, the Dow is down 561.

More soon.

Update: OK, the bill failed, 228 to 205. The House has decided, oddly enough, to try a do-over. Yes, the House is taking up the same bill, again, right now fairly soon, seeing if the same lawmakers vote differently this time. The Dow's down about 500.

HE WAS FOR PHONING IT IN BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT.... John McCain sure does pick the strangest talking points.

Campaigning in Columbus, Ohio, today, McCain boasted, "I put my campaign on hold for a couple of days last week to fight for a rescue plan that puts you and your economic security and working families first. I fought for a plan that protected taxpayers I went to Washington last week to make sure the taxpayers of Ohio and across this great country were not left footing the bill."

He added, "You know, remarkably some people have criticized my decision to put my country first, but I'll never be a president who sits on the sidelines when this country faces a crisis. I'll never do that. I know many of you noticed, it's not my style to simply phone it in.... [Fighters belong] in the arena."

What's odd is how easy it is to expose McCain's claims as ridiculous. He didn't put his campaign "on hold for a couple of days"; McCain never actually suspended his campaign at all. He didn't "fight for a rescue plan"; McCain never actually fought for any plan at all.

McCain may not think he likes to "simply phone in it," but when the bailout negotiations were ongoing, McCain literally phoned in it. Fighters may belong "in the arena," but when policy makers were hammering out the details of the proposal, McCain was hanging out a fancy restaurant with Joe Lieberman.

On Thursday afternoon -- ostensibly the time McCain was working on this issue for the first time -- McCain "rarely came close to the Capitol suites and committee rooms where the talks were taking place." He went to a meeting at the White House, where he proceeded to sit silently while others worked on the legislation. On late Thursday afternoon, after smiling for the cameras, McCain was back in one of his several homes by 6 p.m.

And yet, today, McCain wants Ohio voters to think he's some kind of hero, working tirelessly to craft bailout legislation. He really does think voters are fools.

PROSECUTOR NAMED FOR U.S. ATTORNEY SCANDAL.... Throughout the U.S. Attorney purge scandal, Republicans insisted this was just a routine personnel matter, of no real consequence. They couldn't have been more wrong.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a prosecutor Monday to pursue possible criminal charges against Republicans who were involved in the controversial firings of U.S. attorneys.

His move follows the leading recommendation of a Justice Department investigation that harshly criticized Bush administration officials, members of Congress and their aides for the ousters, which were seen by many as politically motivated.

Results of the investigation were made public Monday. The report singled out the removal of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico -- among 9 prosecutors who were fired -- as the most troubling.

Republican political figures in New Mexico, including Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, had complained about Iglesias' handling of voter fraud and public corruption cases, and that led to his firing, the report said.

Nora Dannehy, a career federal prosecutor, is needed, according to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility director Marshall Jarrett, because "serious allegations involving potential criminal conduct have not been fully investigated or resolved." The criminal conduct, the AP noted, may include lying to investigators, obstruction of justice and wire fraud.

Note to Domenici and Wilson: now would be a good time to put together a very good legal defense team.

Might disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales also be in trouble? Apparently not -- the IG report explained that Gonzales was largely clueless about the events going on around him, and had no real involvement with decisions regarding U.S. Attorneys. The report concluded that Gonzales, as the head of the Justice Department at the time, bears "primary responsibility" for what transpired, but he was nevertheless "remarkably unengaged."

It also appears that the prosecutor may not have been necessary had it not been for the stonewalling the Justice Department ran into. Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, William Kelley, Monica Goodling, and Pete Domenici all refused to cooperate with requests for interviews, leading to the conclusion that a special prosecutor is needed to fill in the gaps.

What's more, given the calendar, the decision to appoint a prosecutor guarantees "that the politically charged issue will extend into the next administration."

The folks at TPM Muckraker, who've been all of this story from the very beginning, have more on today's report and reactions to it on the Hill.

MONDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll taken after the debate shows Obama with a modest lead over McCain nationwide, 49% to 44%, compared with last week's three-point lead.

* In case there are lingering doubts about how the public perceived Friday night's debate, Gallup found that voters saw Obama as having done a better job, 46% to 34%.

* The Obama campaign is trying to build up expectations for Sarah Palin's debate performance. "She's very skilled and she'll be well-prepared," David Axelrod told reporters last night.

* Obama told guests at a Detroit fundraiser last night, "You couldn't have written a novel with all the crazy stuff that has happened in this election." I know the feeling.

* Interesting report: "In a development that could have a significant impact on the presidential race, the rise in registered Democrats has far outpaced Republican registration in many key swing states, giving Dems a clear registration advantage in a lot of them, while wiping away one-time GOP registration advantages in a couple others."

* Republicans are starting to worry a bit about Indiana, which hasn't backed a Democratic candidate in more than four decades.

* Mason-Dixon released two polls over the weekend, but neither are likely to be competitive in November. McCain leads by 16 in Tennessee (55% to 39%) and by 12 in Kentucky (53% to 41%).

* And the daily newspaper in Modesto Stockton Record hadn't endorsed a presidential candidate in any election in the last 72 years. Yesterday, it endorsed Obama.

CLEARING THE CREDIBILITY HURDLE.... Most of the polls since Friday night have shown Barack Obama as the "winner" of the first presidential candidate debate. But for the Obama campaign, this perception was a secondary goal -- the principal objective was for Obama to prove himself as a credible leader prepared for the presidency. In this sense, Friday was as much about improving perceptions as it was the specific task at hand.

With that in mind, a new Gallup poll will no doubt be welcome at Obama campaign headquarters.

Although the debate was supposed to deal with foreign policy, the first portion of the questions ... focused on the economy and the financial bailout plan being negotiated by Congress. This economic focus appears to have been positive for Obama; debate watchers ended up with more confidence in Obama's ability to deal with the economic problems facing the country, rather than less confidence as a result of the debate. By contrast, 37% of debate watchers said that the debate gave them less confidence in John McCain on economic matters rather than more.

Debate watchers saw little difference between the two candidates on national defense and foreign policy as a result of the debate; both Obama and McCain appeared to have come away with slightly improved images on foreign policy.

In all, 35% (a plurality) said they now have more confidence in Obama's ability to handle national defense and foreign policy, just slightly higher than the 34% who said the same about McCain. The problem, of course, was that McCain intended to use this debate to make Americans less confident in Obama on these issues, and encourage voters to see a huge difference between the two.

As Greg Sargent noted, "McCain was under enormous pressure to jar the electorate into seeing Obama as not merely unprepared, but risky and dangerous -- hence McCain's repeated use of that last word." The evidence now suggests this didn't happen. Indeed, while Obama was gaining ground on foreign policy credibility, McCain was losing ground on the economy.

It's an analogy I've been referencing for a while, but James Fallows noted the 1960, 1980, and 1992 races after the debate, arguing, "In each of those cases, a fresh, new candidate (although chronologically older in Reagan's case) had been gathering momentum at a time of general dissatisfaction with the 'four more years' option of sticking with the incumbent party. The question was whether the challenger could stand as an equal with the more experienced, tested, and familiar figure. In each of those cases, the challenger passed the test -- not necessarily by 'winning' the debate, either on logical points or in immediate audience or polling reactions, but by subtly reassuring doubters on the basic issue of whether he was a plausible occupant of the White House and commander in chief."

If the polls are accurate, it's a hurdle Obama cleared rather easily on Friday night.

KRISTOL HAS A PLAN.... Bill Kristol believes his long-time friend, John McCain, is having some trouble, but he devotes his New York Times column today to explaining that McCain still "has a chance" to "surge to victory." In fact, Kristol has a two-pronged approach to helping the Republican ticket get on track.

Step One involves Sarah Palin.

...McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her -- aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House. McCain picked Sarah Palin in part because she's a talented politician and communicator. He needs to free her to use her political talents and to communicate in her own voice.

I'm told McCain recently expressed unhappiness with his staff's handling of Palin. On Sunday he dispatched his top aides Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis to join Palin in Philadelphia. They're supposed to liberate Palin to go on the offensive as a combative conservative in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday.

Yes, right, of course -- Palin has struggled badly as a candidate, but the blame should be directed at "former Bush aides" who've been stuck in a "defensive crouch." Silly me, I thought Palin's problems had more to do with her breathtaking dishonesty, her ongoing ethics scandal, and her inability to answer unscripted questions.

And with her favorability ratings already falling fast, the notion of "liberating" Palin to begin a series of relentless attacks seems misguided. As Joe Klein noted, "I'd wonder about the shelf-life of Palin's efficacy as an attack dog, especially now that the American people have come to see her as the incredible -- as in not credible -- vice presidential choice that she is."

Step Two involves Jeremiah Wright.

[T]he fact is the only Democrats to win the presidency in the past 40 years -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- distanced themselves from liberal orthodoxy. Obama is, by contrast, a garden-variety liberal. He also has radical associates in his past.

The most famous of these is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright....

Brilliant. In the midst of a Wall Street crisis, and with McCain getting hammered for ignoring the middle class, Kristol wants McCain to talk about the former pastor at Obama's former church. Yeah, that will win voters over.

If Democrats are very lucky, McCain will take Kristol's advice.

SELF-CENSORSHIP.... As Sarah Palin continues to struggle badly as a national candidate, she's received a fair amount of criticism from media figures. But Howard Kurtz reports today that the coverage would be far worse if reporters weren't deliberately cutting her some slack.

Sarah Palin has been struggling in her own debates -- with network anchors. While the Alaska governor hardly drew rave reviews for her interview with Charlie Gibson, her sit-down with Katie Couric last week opened the floodgates of criticism, even from conservatives. [...]

It may have been a turning point for Couric, who was persistent without being overbearing, in shedding early doubts about her ability to be a commanding presence in the CBS anchor chair. And the worst may be yet to come for Palin; sources say CBS has two more responses on tape that will likely prove embarrassing.

While some journalists say privately they are censoring their comments about Palin to avoid looking like they're piling on, pundits on the right are jumping ship. [emphasis added]

Talk about burying the lede -- Kurtz knows reporters who are willing to admit that they're self-censoring their coverage, deliberately going easy on Palin? If I'm Kurtz, I might find that worth exploring in more detail.

Amanda noted that McCain campaign aides have "attacked the media for being sexist, lacking 'deference,' and trying to 'smear' Palin." If Kurtz is right, and I suspect he is, the campaign should be sending thank-you notes to news rooms for going easy on Palin.

ABOUT THAT BRACELET.... In one of the less illuminating moments of Friday night's debate, John McCain and Barack Obama traded stories about bracelets. McCain talked about a mother in New Hampshire who gave him a bracelet with the name of her son, who was killed in combat outside of Baghdad. The point, apparently, was to keep the war going indefinitely, or his death would be "in vain."

Moments later, Obama noted that he, too, received a bracelet from a mother in Wisconsin that honored her fallen son. She asked Obama to "please make sure" other mothers would not have to go through what she's gone through.

By yesterday afternoon, there was a problem -- far-right blogs were apoplectic because, they insisted, the mother in Wisconsin did not want her son's name to be used in the campaign. Obama's remarks, conservatives argued, was an insult to the family of a fallen hero. Jonah Goldberg demanded, "Take Off the Bracelet, Senator."

The right's outrage, as is often the case, was misguided.

The mother of a Wisconsin soldier who died in Iraq says she was "ecstatic" when Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama mentioned during Friday's debate the bracelet she gave him in honor of her son.

Tracy Jopek of Merrill told The Associated Press on Sunday she was honored that Obama remembered Sgt. Ryan David Jopek, who was killed in 2006 by a roadside bomb.

Jopek criticized Internet reports suggesting Obama, D-Ill., exploited her son for political purposes.

"I don't understand how people can take that and turn it into some garbage on the Internet," she said.

As it turns out, Tracy Jopek had emailed the campaign through its website, asking that her son's name not be used to make an anti-war argument. The campaign receives a lot of emails, of course, and it seems top aides were not aware of her message.

However, when Obama cited Sgt. Jopek to argue that all wars need to be fought for good reasons, and that no soldier ever dies in vain, Tracy Jopek felt proud.

"His response in the debate was exactly that, a response, after John McCain put it out there first," she said. "I think it was an appropriate response -- he was just saying there's another side to the story, there's two different viewpoints."

The far-right freak-out, in other words, was mistaken. The far-right's freak-outs usually are.

FAR-RIGHT GROUP EXECUTES 'PULPIT FREEDOM SUNDAY'.... Following up on an item from a few weeks ago, federal tax law, as it relates to tax-exempt religious ministries, is pretty clear -- houses of worship may not legally intervene in political campaigns, either in support of or opposition to a candidate or a party. Those who violate the law run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a prominent far-right legal-advocacy group, came up with a plan -- convince conservative Christian pastors to break the law, on purpose, invite IRS punishment, and then take the whole issue to court in order to challenge the law itself.

They called the plan "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," which was held yesterday in 33 churches across the country.

Defying a federal law that prohibits U.S. clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation Sunday that voting for Sen. Barack Obama would be evidence of "severe moral schizophrenia."

The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist "in direct opposition to God's truth as He has revealed it in the Scriptures." Johnson showed slides contrasting the candidates' views but stopped short of endorsing Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.

Johnson and 32 other pastors across the country set out Sunday to break the rules, hoping to generate a legal battle that will prompt federal courts to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

The ministers contend they have a constitutional right to advise their worshipers how to vote. As Johnson put it during a break between sermons, "The point that the IRS says you can't do it, I'm saying you're wrong."

At first blush, this may sound compelling. If a church wants to endorse a candidate, it's the church's business, right? If congregations don't like it, they can go to another church. If a pastor passes the collection plate for John McCain during Sunday services, church members can contribute or not contribute. This isn't, the argument goes, any of the government's business.

But this falls apart pretty quickly. Tax law doesn't stifle free speech; it applies conditions to tax exemptions.

Non-profit organizations receive a tax exemption because their work is charitable, educational or religious. But the benefit comes with conditions, most notably a requirement that tax-exempt organizations refrain from involvement in partisan politics. Since tax-exempt groups are supposed to work for the public good, not spend their time and money trying to elect or defeat candidates, it's hardly unreasonable.

If the rule were eliminated, there'd be a new loophole in campaign finance law -- people could donate to a church's partisan political efforts and the contribution would be tax deductible.

But what if some ministries believe partisan political work is absolutely necessary? They're in luck -- they have every legal right to give up their tax exemption and create an explicitly partisan organization, such as a PAC. Current law simply limits groups from being both tax-exempt ministries and engaging in partisan politics.

ADF, meanwhile, not only wants to let ministries have it both ways, it also wants these ministries to take a huge risk with no reward -- break the law, help partisan candidates, and risk IRS penalty. Why? Because the Alliance Defense Fund, a multimillion-dollar right-wing legal consortium, has a culture-war experiment it's anxious to try out.

These 33 churches -- chosen, the ADF said, in part for "strategic criteria related to litigation" -- are religious right guinea pigs. The next step will be formal complaints filed against the ministries, which I suspect will happen sometime this morning, followed by IRS investigations.

Often, the IRS backs off if church leaders apologize and promise not to do it again. Given the goal of this project, that's not going to happen. Stay tuned.

IS IT GOING TO PASS?.... Weighing the relative merits of the bailout package headed to the House floor today is pretty tricky. As Hilzoy explained very well overnight, even respected, like-minded economists -- who many might turn to for guidance on whether the bill should pass or not -- disagree with one another.

So, let's ask a different question: what are the bill's chances in Congress?

It took quite a bit of work for lawmakers and administration officials to hammer out a compromise, but it's likely to take at least as much work to secure majorities in both chambers. The 110-page bill is expected to get a floor vote in the House today, with a Senate vote on Wednesday. If lawmakers are looking to the parties' presidential candidates, both McCain and Obama have offered grudging support for the package, though it's unclear just how many votes that'll move.

At this point, no one seems to have any idea what to expect. The AP reports, "Officials in both parties expected the vote to be a nail-biter." The Wall Street Journal seems more confident, reporting, "Both parties have already started the process of pressuring and cajoling members to vote for the bill. Passage is seen as likely, despite the measure's unpopularity." The LA Times, meanwhile, is far less sure, explaining that the bailout "faces strong opposition, and it remained unclear Sunday whether it would have enough votes to pass."

Perhaps one of the only reliable predictions to make is that the vote will not fall along party lines -- both caucuses appear divided.

"Nobody wants to have to support this bill," said Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, the House minority leader. But he said he was urging "every member whose conscience will allow them to support this" to do so. Officials in both parties expected the vote to be a nail-biter. [...]

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, an opponent, estimated that half of the House's 199 Republicans are "truly undecided."

Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he was inclined to oppose the bill. But he added: "A lot of people are going to hold their nose and vote for it, because they've been put in a bad position and they don't have any other option."

For his part, the president seemed to think he could move some of the undecided votes by publicly endorsing the bill this morning, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that few lawmakers actually care about Bush's arm-twisting right now.

So, any predictions?

PALIN DOESN'T SPEAK FOR CAMPAIGN.... Over the summer, there were a series of instances in which John McCain would say something, and McCain aides would walk it back by saying the candidate doesn't actually speak for the candidate's campaign. At one point, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, one of McCain's top advisors, said that just because McCain says something publicly about a policy, "that doesn't mean it's official."

This morning, McCain took a similar tack with Sarah Palin.

Sen. John McCain retracted Sarah Palin's stance on Pakistan Sunday morning, after the Alaska governor appeared to back Sen. Barack Obama's support for unilateral strikes inside Pakistan against terrorists

"She would not...she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos of Palin. "In all due respect, people going around and... sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's -- that's a person's position... This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitive policy statement made by Governor Palin."

I see. So, just because Sarah Palin says something in public doesn't mean Palin actually believes what she's saying. And for goodness sakes, no one should think that Palin's comments are a reflection of the campaign's position on an issue.

This is getting pretty silly. First, what Palin said was actually fairly sensible, and consistent with the policy favored by both the Bush administration and the Obama campaign.

Second, how are voters to know the difference between the things Palin says that are "definitive policy statements," and the things she says that should be ignored? How is the public to know when Republican candidates mean what they're saying and when they don't?

THE LAST HAIL MARY PASS?.... We talked the other day about what kind of wacky stunt the McCain campaign will come up with next. John Dickerson argued that it's only a matter of time before McCain's reckless, erratic behavior produces the need for "another adrenaline injection," and Slate explored some possibilities, including the notion that McCain might challenge Obama to suspend both campaigns "so they both can go and personally drill for oil offshore."

In considering the Hail Mary options, we may have overlooked an obvious one.

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one -- the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain's campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. "It would be fantastic," said a McCain insider. "You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week."

In general, it's wise to be very skeptical about how the British press reports on U.S. political strategies, especially within a presidential campaign. And if you're thinking this falls somewhere in the "too good to check" category, we're on the same page.

But as Josh Marshall concluded, "[Given] what we've seen so far, I can't say I'd be surprised if the moral jalopy that is the McCain-Palin Straight Talk Express sunk us even further into farce with something like this."

PHONING IT IN.... Lindsey Graham has no idea what he's talking about.

This morning on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) praised Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for returning to Washington to help the bailout negotiations, saying his presence was vital to the negotiations:

"John didn't phone this one in.... You can't phone something like this in. Thank God John came back."

I can appreciate Graham's sycophantic support for McCain. I can even appreciate Graham's willingness to try to make it seem as if McCain has been some kind of "savior" in this bailout process.

But his remarks are completely detached from reality. "You can't phone something like this in"? McCain spent yesterday in his campaign office, literally phoning it in.

For that matter, when McCain did show up on Thursday, it was a debacle, and any progress that had been made as part of the ongoing negotiations quickly evaporated after McCain got involved. It's worth noting, of course, that McCain didn't even have anything productive to add to the discussions anyway, remained silent at the White House discussion, and was largely unfamiliar with the competing proposals while attempting to "help."

And last night, while policy makers were trying to work out the final details, the McCains and the Liebermans had a pleasant night out at a swanky D.C. restaurant.

"Thank God John came back"? There's partisan hackery and then there's this kind of partisan hackery.

DOES THE GOP ENDORSE THE BOGUS CRA ARGUMENT?.... By mid-week, a wide variety of far-right voices -- the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Krauthammer, the National Review, Fox News, and others -- simultaneously argued that the Wall Street crisis could be blamed on the Community Reinvestment Act. For the right-wing, the argument was a two-fer -- it blamed liberals and lower-income minorities for the mess.

As a factual matter, Robert Gordon explained very well this week that the conservative argument on the CRA is completely baseless. But as a political matter, the issue took on a new dimension when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), one of the loonier members of the House, used an Investor's Business Daily article during a congressional hearing to blame the crisis on Bill Clinton, "blacks," and "other minorities."

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus asked a reasonable question this week: does the House Republican caucus agree with Bachmann's analysis? In a letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner, CBC members asked:

It is clear from Rep. Bachmann's comments that she believes that the bipartisan laws enacted over the past decade ensuring that minority communities have equal access to banking and other financial services are the cause of this financial situation. [...]

There is no evidence to support Rep. Bachmann's assertion that "minorities" caused the current financial crisis. Laws designed to open opportunities for equal access to credit do not require banks or thrifts to make loans that are unsafe or unprofitable. In fact, laws like the CRA mandate exactly the opposite. [...] Additionally, research clearly shows that the majority of the predatory loans that have led us to this financial mess were originated by non-bank financial institutions and other entities that did NOT have a CRA obligation and lacked strong federal regulatory oversight. Shifting the blame for the current economic crisis to laws that allow equal access and opportunities to communities of color is ridiculous.

As members of the CBC, we simply ask if Rep. Bachmann's position that it was lending to minority communities that caused the current financial crisis, represent the position of Republican Caucus?

I suspect Boehner will ignore the letter, but under the circumstances, there's every reason to believe the question deserves an answer.

THE MCCAIN CAMPAIGN'S PAKISTAN PROBLEM.... In Friday night's debate, John McCain identified the new president of Pakistan as "Qadari." His name is actually Asif Ali Zardari. McCain also insisted that Barack Obama doesn't "understand" that "there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power." It was McCain who didn't understand that Pakistan wasn't a "failed state" in 1999.

But the campaign's Pakistan problem seemed to get even worse last night, when McCain's running mate fielded a couple of questions in south Philadelphia last night. A local student asked about foreign policy.

"How about the Pakistan situation?," asked Rovito, who said he was not a Palin supporter. "What's your thoughts about that?"

"In Pakistan?," she asked, looking surprised.

"What's going on over there, like Waziristan?"

"It's working with [Pakistani president] Zardari to make sure that we're all working together to stop the guys from coming in over the border," she told him. "And we'll go from there."

Rovito wasn't finished. "Waziristan is blowing up!," he said.

"Yeah it is," Palin said, "and the economy there is blowing up too."

"So we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan you think?," Rovito asked.

"If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should," Palin responded, before moving on to greet other voters.

Didn't McCain just say Obama was wrong for endorsing this policy? Didn't he spend part of the debate lecturing Obama, saying, "You don't say that out loud"?

NO PARODY REQUIRED.... If you missed it, Tina Fey returned to "Saturday Night Live" last night to reprise her Sarah Palin role. It was more than a little devastating.

Here's the truly hysterical part: the bit used actual quotes from Palin's interview this week with Sarah Palin. As the Huffington Post noted, "no parody was required."

When a comedy show can make you look ridiculous by actually quoting you, verbatim, that's a problem.

THE GAMBLER.... We talked the other day about John McCain's affinity for gambling -- literally with games of chance, and figuratively with taking enormous risks -- to the point that even some Republicans concede that McCain is "on the borderline of what is acceptable."

But in a striking and well-researched piece, the New York Times' Jo Becker and Don Van Natta report today on the extent of McCain's gambling interests and gambling ties.

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party's evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.

The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain's campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world's second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain's current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain's affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress.

That appears to be an understatement. McCain has more than 40 top advisers and fundraisers who have lobbied or worked for gambling interests. Several of McCain's closest personal friends are casino executives. He receives more money from the gambling industry than almost any member of Congress, especially those outside Nevada and New Jersey. And he loves heading to casinos, traveling to Las Vegas regularly for "weekend betting marathons," overruling aides who've asked him to consider the appearances -- not only of a man who gambles too much, but also of a senator who has enormous oversight responsibilities of the gaming industry.

For that matter, McCain was willing to help lead an investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist who represented Indian gambling interests, but the details of McCain's involvement sound far from noble.

[I]nterviews and records show that lobbyists and political operatives in Mr. McCain's inner circle played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing Mr. Abramoff's misdeeds to Mr. McCain's attention -- and then cashed in on the resulting investigation. The senator's longtime chief political strategist, for example, was paid $100,000 over four months as a consultant to one tribe caught up in the inquiry, records show. [...]

For McCain-connected lobbyists who were rivals of Mr. Abramoff, the scandal presented a chance to crush a competitor. For senior McCain advisers, the inquiry allowed them to collect fees from the very Indians that Mr. Abramoff had ripped off. And the investigation enabled Mr. McCain to confront political enemies who helped defeat him in his 2000 presidential run while polishing his maverick image.

It's quite a story. Read the whole thing.

WORKING THE PHONES.... Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail this afternoon, and held what appeared to be a pretty big rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. And how did John McCain spend his afternoon?

Even though his campaign is no longer suspended, John McCain is staying in Washington this weekend to keep working on the bailout legislation. He will not be visiting Capitol Hill, however, preferring to work out of his campaign office.

"He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone," said senior adviser Mark Salter.

Is that so. According to the McCain campaign, the senator doesn't really have to get directly involved in discussions about a possible Wall Street bailout; he can "do what he needs to do by phone." If that's the case, why "suspend" the presidential campaign at all?

For that matter, what is it, exactly, that McCain "needs to do"? There's ample evidence he doesn't understand the substantive details; there's even evidence he doesn't understand the nature of the crisis. So what kind of role does McCain hope to play in the negotiations he's monitoring from one of his several homes?

For what it's worth, Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton told reporters today that Obama spoke to more than 20,000 voters in North Carolina and found time to coordinate with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Sen. Harry Reid, and Rep. Barney Frank about the ongoing negotiations. Walking and chewing gum at the same time isn't that hard after all....

BETTER TO REMAIN SILENT AND BE THOUGHT A FOOL.... Amanda catches this interesting tidbit from a Washington Post report on Thursday's meeting at the White House between the president and top members of Congress. We talked yesterday about John McCain's reluctance to step up and take the lead at the meeting -- indeed, he was reportedly reluctant to contribute anything of substance at all -- but this piece adds some remarkable details.

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.

It seems to me there are two possible explanations for McCain's silence. One possibility is that this was an extension of what we saw last night -- he believes his rivals are beneath him, and he has nothing but contempt for those who question him, so he refused to engage in a policy discussion.

The other is that McCain had no idea what the grown-ups were talking about, didn't understand what the insurance alternative was, and knew he'd humiliate himself he tried to engage in a substantive dialog with a room full of people who knew vastly more than he did. As recently as Tuesday, he hadn't even read Paulson's three-page proposal, and within hours of the White House meeting, McCain was in Boehner's office, unfamiliar with the details of the House Republican proposal, so this could be part of a pattern.

So, McCain refused to talk at the White House meeting because he has contempt for his colleagues or because he's spectacularly ignorant.

I suppose it could be both.

FUNDING THE TROOPS.... The McCain campaign probably has a pretty good reason to feel a little panicky this afternoon. The debate didn't deliver the big win McCain needed, and the campaign is running out of time.

So, McCain, unconcerned about decency or honesty, is doubling down on accusing Barack Obama of not supporting U.S. troops. In a new ad, unveiled this afternoon, the McCain campaign insists, "In the midst of war, Senator Obama voted to cut off funding for our troops." It concludes that Obama supports "risking lives."

McCain desperately has to hope voters are fools. Indeed, this came up last night, and Obama explained reality fairly well:

"Senator McCain opposed funding for troops in legislation that had a timetable, because he didn't believe in a timetable. I opposed funding a mission that had no timetable, and was open-ended, giving a blank check to George Bush. We had a difference on the timetable. We didn't have a difference on whether or not we were going to be funding troops. We had a legitimate difference."

What's really idiotic about McCain's attack is that, by his own logic, McCain voted to cut off funding for our troops in the midst of a war. That's an inescapable conclusion -- McCain supported troop funding when he liked the conditions of the spending bill, and opposed troop funding when he didn't. As it happens, Obama did the exact same thing, only in support of different conditions.

If Obama voted to undermine the troops and "risked lives," then McCain voted to undermine the troops and "risked lives." It's as simple as that.

But McCain is counting on voters not knowing the difference between misleading smears and the facts. It's been the basis for most of the McCain campaign rhetoric all year -- treat voters like idiots, and pray they see the ad without seeing the fact-check of the ad.

Maybe this is why McCain wouldn't look at Obama last night -- McCain is ashamed of the hack he's become.

MR. FREEZE.... I'd like to think this might draw some additional attention in the aftermath of last night's debate, but there was an exchange that deserves a closer look.

Jim Lehrer noted that the cost of the response to the financial crisis is still undetermined, but it's likely to be enormous. He pressed McCain on how it would affect his presidency. McCain responded, "How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs." Asked if he was really proposing a spending freeze, McCain added, "I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring of veterans national defense and several other vital issues."

Now, as far as I can tell, a spending freeze has never been part of McCain's policy agenda. In all likelihood, he came up with it on the spot and will never repeat this again.

But he nevertheless made this pronouncement in front of the whole country. And a spending freeze of this magnitude goes well beyond getting rid of a few earmarks. Mark Schmitt explained:

A spending freeze ... is a very specific thing -- some programs will be in the freeze, some out. In a recession, programs that would normally cost more automatically -- like Food Stamps or Unemployment Insurance -- will be unable to respond.

Over the next few weeks, Obama (as well as the press, if it's not too much to ask) should pound relentlessly on the spending freeze: What's frozen, and what's "several other vital issues"? In a recession, are Food Stamps frozen? Student loans? Unemployment benefits? Pell Grants? S-CHIP? Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP)? The list is long, and different states and constituencies naturally have their own programs that they would like to know whether McCain would freeze them or not.

And wherever McCain's answer is yes, that program would be part of the freeze, numbers can usually be put to it quickly. For example, freezing LIHEAP would leave X million seniors without heat this winter. Freezing Pell Grants would mean X million students couldn't go to college.

At the end, McCain will be in one of two boxes: Either he's a guy who is willing to slash every domestic program, leave seniors in the dark and kids blocked from college, while dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into Wall Street and Baghdad, plus his tax cuts. Or his "spending freeze" is just another vacuous gimmick.

It's probably considered passe for the media to care about a policy pronouncement made during a debate, but this is a fairly big deal -- which, in theory, could be devastating to McCain. As Yglesias noted, his proposed spending freeze would, in real terms, mean "less money for your local police department. Less money for the FBI. Less money for Head Start. Less money for Pell Grants. Less money for infrastructure. Less money for everything except failed banks and endless wars."

If McCain really believes this is a wise approach to the budget, voters ought to know about it.

A TALE OF TWO ADS.... Given that the McCain and Obama campaigns release new ads -- the line between video press releases and actual advertising has been blurred -- on a nearly daily basis, it stood to reason that both camps would seize on the debate to hammer home some kind of argument.

What the campaigns chose, however, tells us something about what the two sides thought about last night's event.

The McCain campaign unveiled an insta-ad last night, highlighting instances from the debate in which Obama said he agreed with McCain.

It's a very odd message. As Ezra noted, "Obama comes off as gracious, not as a mimic." I'd just add that for a lot of viewers at home, the fact that Obama was willing to be gracious, and not pick unnecessary fights, reinforced the notion that Obama is beyond partisan sniping. In this sense, the McCain campaign's message with this is shallow and largely meaningless. What's the underlying point McCain is trying to drive home with this? That Obama and McCain agree on some areas of foreign policy? So what?

On the other hand, the Obama campaign released its new ad this morning. It's called, "Zero" -- referring to the number of times John McCain used the words "middle class" last night.

"Number of minutes in debate: 90," the voice-over says. "Number of times John McCain mentioned the middle class: Zero. McCain doesn't get it. Barack Obama does." From there, we see Obama during the debate, explain, "The fundamentals of the economy have to be measured by whether or not the middle class is getting a fair shake... And when you look at your tax policies...you are neglecting people who are really struggling right now. I think that is a continuation of the last eight years, and we can't afford another four."

One of these ads actually works. I'll give you a hint: it's not McCain's.

CONTEMPT.... After the initial dust settles on a presidential candidate debate, Phase II begins -- the media moves beyond who said what, and starts looking for some overlooked trend to obsess over.

The quintessential example was, of course, Al Gore "sighing" during the first of the three debates in 2000. A few people noticed Gore's breathing the night of the debate, but a day or two later, it became the story. To a lesser extent, Bush's bizarre facial features, and the apparent bump under his suit jacket, became fodder for discussion four years ago.

So, what's the stylistic story from last night? It may be John McCain's willingness to be ... what's the word I'm looking for ... something of a jerk.

As Josh Marshall noted, "McCain's unwillingness to make eye contact with Obama through the debate seems to be getting picked up by a lot of observers." It does, indeed. The specific and unusual rules of last night's debate were intended to generate more interaction between the two candidates. Jim Lehrer seemed intent, at least early on, to get the two to engage each other directly. Obama mostly spoke to the camera last night, but he didn't hesitate to speak directly to McCain.

McCain, on the other hand, went out of his way, it seemed, to not even look in Obama's direction. Chris Matthews described this as a sign of "contempt," which struck me as the right description.

Others noticed the same trend. The Washington Post's Tom Shales noted, for example, that McCain "seemed determined to avoid even looking at Obama as the debate went on."

I seriously doubt this takes on the significance of the media's insane fascination with Gore's "sighs," but as the second phase begins, don't be surprised if we hear more about this.

RUNNING MATES AS SURROGATES.... After a debate, campaigns generally want high-profile figures telling the media how great their candidate did. And as a rule, it's hard to top the running mates as high-profile figures.

It was pretty interesting, then, that the Obama campaign was anxious to get Joe Biden in front of the cameras -- while Sarah Palin was nowhere to be found.

Indeed, as this CNN clip shows, Biden was not only out there, he was excellent, offering a forceful and on-message denunciation of McCain, and explaining how right Obama was. (Biden delivered the same critique on CBS and NBC.)

Some viewers at home seemed to think it was unfair that CNN interviewed Biden as part of the post-debate coverage, but didn't have Palin on. Eventually, Wolf Blitzer had to explain to the audience that the network wasn't slighting anyone.

"We've been getting some emails from views out there wondering why we spent some time interviewing Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee and not Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee," Blitzer said. "We would have loved to interview -- we'd still love to interview Sarah Palin. Unfortunately we asked, we didn't get that interview.... We're hoping that Sarah Palin will join us at some point down the road."

As Michael Crowley concluded, "It's pretty strange when a candidate can't trust his own running mate to be out there spinning on his behalf. And it's funny that a lot of McCain supporters seem to think that's about media bias and not the fact that Palin is in lockdown somewhere."

WHY AN OBAMA WINS MATTERS.... Depending on your perspective and scorecard, most observers seem to think either Obama won a narrow victory in the debate, or McCain won a narrow victory. It's worth remembering, though, that the larger political context suggests neither result gave McCain what he needed.

Remember, McCain went into the debate moving in the wrong direction. Recent polls show him falling behind, the "suspend the campaign" gimmick was largely a flop, and as voters' attention moved to the economy, the race quickly shifted to McCain's weakest area.

Given this, last night was a genuine opportunity for McCain. The debate was focused largely on foreign policy and national security, issues perceived as McCain's strength by voters, the media, and McCain himself. It was, in this sense, an event that McCain could use to turn the whole campaign around.

Except, that clearly didn't happen. Whether it was a tie or a slight win for either candidate isn't especially important -- McCain needed a clear, dominating victory. He didn't get one. Not even close.

For Obama, the dynamic is reversed. He's benefitted as the race has shifted to the economy, but he needed to demonstrate last night that he's a credible, knowledgeable figure on foreign policy, ready to go toe to toe with a candidate with a more extensive background in international affairs. And, he did.

Usually, describing someone as having "held his own" sounds like underwhelming, or possibly even a mild insult. But in this case, saying Obama "held his own" against McCain on foreign policy and national security isn't such a bad thing at all. For a lot of people, at home and in the media, McCain was the only candidate in the race who could speak with any authority on these issues. Obama proved them wrong.

(For the record, I thought Obama more than "held his own" on foreign policy. Like Fred Kaplan, I actually saw Obama as being far stronger on the issue. I mention the "held his own" meme, because it seems to have quickly become part of the conventional wisdom.)

McCain needed a big night to turn things around, and he didn't get it. In this context, no matter how close viewers perceived the debate, it was a missed opportunity for a candidate who won't get too many more chances to change the race.

THE POLLS AND FOCUS GROUPS.... The insta-reactions in the polls are not always the most reliable measurements. The sample sizes are modest, and the public is often swayed after the fact by media analysis. That said, the initial data after last night's debate certainly looks favorable for Obama.

Isaac Chotiner noted the focus group results, for example: "For what it's worth: The Frank Luntz and Stanley Greenberg focus groups went overwhelmingly for Obama."

The CBS poll, which focused exclusively on undecided voters, found that a plurality, 39% to 25%, believed Obama "won" the debate, though over a third, 36%, saw it as a "draw."

CNN appears to have released the longest and most detailed of the debate-related polls. TPM reported:

Regardless of which candidate you happen to support, who do you think did the best job in the debate -- Barack Obama or John McCain? Obama 51% McCain 38%

Did _______ do a better or worse job than you expected?
Obama: Better 57%, Worse 20%, Same 23%
McCain: Better 60%, Worse 20%, Same 18%

Next, regardless of which presidential candidate you support, please tell me if you think Barack Obama or John McCain would better handle each of the following issues:
* The war in Iraq: Obama 52%, McCain 47%
* Terrorism: McCain 49%, Obama 45%
* The economy: Obama 58%, McCain 37%
* The current financial crisis: Obama 54%, McCain 36%

The respondents to the CNN poll also found Obama to be "more intelligent," more eloquent, more sincere, more likable, more in touch with the needs of regular people, and someone who seems like a "strong leader." McCain had a huge edge when it came to which candidate "spent more time attacking his opponent."

Asked about the candidates' readiness to handle the job of president, 69% expressed confidence in Obama, and 68% said the same about McCain.

Nate Silver has some solid analysis of the data, which is worth checking out.

I'd just add that these polls matter, not just in offering a glimpse at the public's response, but also because the results help shape the conventional wisdom.

INITIAL REACTION: OBAMA WINS ON POINTS.... I'll have a more thought out reaction to the debate in the morning, but my insta-reaction was that Obama had the edge, on points.

I think a lot of observers go into a debate like this waiting for a knock-out blow, along the lines of a "You're no Jack Kennedy" moment. That almost never happens, and tonight certainly didn't have any lasting, humiliating moments.

I was a little surprised at the contempt McCain showed for Obama, refusing to even look at Obama during the debate. It was the height of arrogance -- McCain's not-so-subtle message was that he didn't even want to be on the same stage with his rival. I lost count of how many times he said Obama "doesn't understand" an issue, even when it was obvious that it was McCain who was confused.

As for Obama, I continue to think about the 1980 analogy -- Obama playing the role of Reagan, taking advantage of an electorate desperate for change, and clearing the credibility hurdle. Obama's principal goal, I suspect, was to demonstrate his readiness, reassure skeptics, and prove that he belongs there. Reagan did it in '80, and Obama did it tonight. As I watched, I kept thinking, "This guy is ready to lead."

I never have any idea how "typical voters" will react to these events, but from where I sat, Obama looked very strong, demonstrating considerable foreign policy knowledge, an even temperament, and a striking intellect. McCain seemed defensive, angry, and even by his standards, he rambled quite a bit.

We'll have more numbers soon enough, but Ambinder has this data from CBS News:

40% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. 22% thought John McCain won. 38% saw it as a draw.

68% of these voters think Obama would make the right decision about the economy. 41% think McCain would.

49% of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 55% think McCain would.

Like I said, I'll have more in the morning, but if I were giving letter grades, I'd say Obama deserves an A-, while McCain might get a generous B. How about you?

FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Biggest bank failure ever: "As the debate over a $700 billion bank bailout rages on in Washington, one of the nation's largest banks -- Washington Mutual Inc. -- has collapsed under the weight of its enormous bad bets on the mortgage market."

* Despite what you may have heard, WaMu's collapse cannot be blamed on black people.

* This seems like a pretty important development: "Pakistani and American ground troops exchanged fire along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday after the Pakistanis shot at two American helicopters, ratcheting up tensions as the United States increases its attacks against Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltering in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas."

* The McCain campaign has already declared McCain the winner of tonight's debate. (If Obama had pulled the same stunt, how many times do you think we would have heard the word "presumptuous"?)

* Any progress on the bailout package? Maybe a little.

* On the air yesterday, Paul Begala told CNN's audience that lawmakers from both parties consider the president "a high-functioning moron."

* Did Bush dispatch Alberto Gonzales to John Ashcroft's hospital bed? It certainly looks like it.

* On a related note, the latest DOJ IG report on the U.S. Attorney purge scandal is due on Monday. It should be fascinating.

* "House Republicans are a different breed."

* If I were to rank the most ridiculous members of the U.S. House, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) would have to be in the top five. Easy.

* I'm beginning to think McCain doesn't know what an "earmark" is.

* The chairman of the Republican Party in New Mexico's most populous county resigned this week, after telling a reporter, "Hispanics consider themselves above blacks."

* On a scheduling note, we'll be offering some debate-night coverage here at Political Animal, though I'm not entirely sure what that's going to include. See you in a few hours.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

RACE VS. PARTY AFFILIATION.... Roll Call's Stuart Rothenberg has a column this week that's drawn some attention, and for good reason. He makes one of the less persuasive arguments I've seen in a while.

I recently met a terrific African-American Congressional candidate from Louisiana, state Sen. Don Cravins Jr. (D), who is one of my favorite candidates this cycle. He's personable, understands politics and, I expect, is going to lose.

You see, Cravins is black. He is a Democrat. He attended an Obama event during the Democratic primary. So, even though Cravins says he's pro-life and pro-gun and describes himself as a conservative Democrat, I believe that most white voters in Louisiana's 7th district, who are currently quite content to be represented by Republican Rep. Charles Boustany, will see him as just another black Democrat, and they'll read a lot into that.

Because Cravins isn't likely to be able to introduce himself well enough during the campaign to overcome stereotypes, many conservative white voters will look at him and think of Obama or embattled Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson (D) -- or even the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Unfair, you say? Voters shouldn't judge a candidate by his skin color. Maybe, but is it any more unfair than, for example, saying that because McCain and President Bush are both Republicans that a McCain administration would produce a third Bush term? No, it isn't.

I have a hunch Rothenberg didn't quite think this one though before submitting it for publication.

Cravins, he says, isn't getting a fair shot because of racism is southwest Louisiana. This is comparable to labeling a John McCain presidency as Bush's third term because, well, Rothenberg just thinks so.

First, part of the problem with Rothenberg's argument is that he's debating a strawman. No one is saying McCain would be a third Bush term because of their shared party affiliation -- people are saying McCain would be a third Bush term because McCain agrees with Bush on every substantive policy issue on the national (and international) landscape. Indeed, that's why we've seen and heard all the ads about McCain voting with Bush 95% of the time -- it's about record, not partisanship.

Second, Rothenberg's comparison is largely backwards. If voters were to give Cravins more of a chance, and look at the substantive policy details, they might like what they see. On the other hand, if voters were to give McCain a closer look, and look at the substantive policy details, they'd see his agenda is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from Bush's. In other words, upon closer scrutiny, Cravins would dispel preconceived ideas about him being the same as other African-American Democrats. Meanwhile, upon closer scrutiny, McCain would reinforce preconceived ideas about his similarities to conservative Republicans. These are disparate, not comparable, observations.

And third, the analogy really struggles when we consider an unavoidable truth: people choose their party affiliation, but not their skin color. When voters judge a candidate based on race, they're weighing a personal characteristic that tells them nothing about what the candidate would do if election. When voters judge a candidate based on party affiliation, they're weighing a freely-made association about that candidate's values and policy perspective.

THE EXPECTATIONS GAME.... On route to Mississippi, a reporter asked McCain campaign advisor Mark Salter what John McCain hopes to accomplish in tonight's debate. Salter said, "To do well against a guy who's a pretty good debater, show presidential leadership, and be able to speak directly to the American people about what he believes."

Wait, Salter described Obama as merely a "pretty good debater"? No, no, no. That's not how the Expectations Game is played at all. Four years ago, the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign said John Kerry is "probably the best debater ever to run for president." He added, "I'm not joking. I think he's better than Cicero," the ancient Roman orator.

That's how you play the Expectations Game.

To that end, the Obama campaign understands the rules so well, it released a memo this afternoon blasting Obama for being a lousy debater.

"According to the pundits, McCain's debating skills are unparalleled," the memo says, "and the expectations for him tonight are sky-high."

Now, I promise, there are not many Obama staffers who think that McCain's skills are unparalleled. But what they just did is make you think that McCain is Cicero. And if for some reason, he is merely good, not but not historic, it would somehow be disappointing.

This is normal from campaigns; set the bar high for your opponent. What I never remember seeing is a campaign going out of its way to slam its own candidate. In this same Obama campaign memo are a number of clips quite critical of Obama, including this humdinger from an Associated Press article: "For a man known as a powerful speaker, Obama has rarely wowed people in political debates. He can come across as lifeless, aloof and windy."

It's the one time all year when the campaign is going to go out of its way to trash the skills of its own candidate.

The Obama campaign memo added:

Already declaring victory before the debate has even started, in ads running on the Wall Street Journal website, John McCain meets Barack Obama tonight to debate foreign policy -- McCain's professed area of expertise.

The centerpiece of John McCain's campaign has been his more than a quarter century of experience in Washington learning about and debating foreign policy. If he slips up, makes a mistake, or fails to deliver a game-changing performance, it will be a serious blow to his campaign. Given his unsteady performance this week, he desperately needs to win this debate in a big way in order to change the topic and get back to his home turf.

I have no idea if Obama aides actually believe any of this, but at least they're playing the game correctly.

ABOUT THOSE TAX RETURNS.... Remember, she's on the ticket because she's a "reformer."

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has made a crackdown on gift-giving to state officials a centerpiece of her ethics reform agenda, has accepted gifts valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state, a review of state records shows.

The 41 gifts Palin accepted during her 20 months as governor include honorific tributes, expensive artwork and free travel for a family member. They also include more than $2,500 in personal items from Calista, a large Alaska native corporation with a variety of pending state regulatory and budgetary issues, and a gold-nugget pin valued at $1,200 from the city of Nome, which lobbies on municipal, local and capital budget matters, documents show.

It prompted Mark Kleiman to ask a good question: "When are we going to see Sarah Palin's tax returns?"

Obama and Biden have released their tax returns, and McCain kinda sorta did the same. So, when will Palin -- who recently emphasized the importance of transparency and accountability in government -- follow suit?

WHAT'S NEXT?.... John Dickerson argued this week that John McCain's reckless, erratic behavior will almost certainly continue. "The beneficial effects of the Palin Hail Mary lasted only a few weeks, and another adrenaline injection was needed," Dickerson said. "If this one doesn't work, that's OK -- in due time they can try another razzle-dazzle play. And if it does work, that's great -- in due time they can still try another razzle-dazzle play."

OK, but what might the next Hail Mary pass look like? Today, Slate considers a few options.

1. Returns to Vietnam and jails himself.

2. Offers the post of "vice vice president" to Warren Buffett.

3. Challenges Obama to suspend campaign so they both can go and personally drill for oil offshore.

4. Learns to use computer.

5. Does bombing run over Taliban-controlled tribal areas of Pakistan.

6. Offers to forgo salary, sell one house.

7. Sex-change operation.

8. Suspends campaign until Nov. 4, offers to start being president right now.

9. Sells Alaska to Russia for $700 billion.

10. Pledges to serve only one term. OK, half a term.

How about you? Any guesses on what stunt Senator Hothead might pull next?

NO METHOD, JUST MADNESS.... According to a pool report, John McCain boarded his plane earlier this afternoon with his wife, top aides, and Rudy and Judith Giuliani, all headed for Mississippi. What was the atmosphere like on McCain's plane? According to the report: "utter confusion."

Republican consultant Craig Shirley, who advised McCain's presidential campaign earlier in the cycle, noted the bizarre developments. "It just proves his campaign is governed by tactics and not ideology," Shirley said. "In the end, he blinked and Obama did not. The 'steady hand in a storm' argument looks now to more favor Obama, not McCain."

Shirley added, "My guess is that plasma units are rushing to the McCain campaign as we speak to replace the blood flowing there from the fights among the staff."

Utter confusion among squabbling aides. I can't wait for this finely-tuned machine to start running the executive branch of government. It's going to be awesome.

Jonathan Chait, who's been arguing that McCain must have some kind of clever plan guiding a seemingly erratic strategy, finally gave up today.

McCain seems to have made no effort whatsoever to bring the bailout legislation to closure. Indeed, he may possibly have sunk the whole thing. On the radio this morning, I heard David Corn of Mother Jones speculate that McCain may be setting himself up to rail against the bailout on populist grounds. But McCain and his running mate have already stated publicly that a bailout is needed to avoid a depression!

And now, after insisting it would be unpatriotic to campaign and debate before bailout legislation had been completed, is debating anyway, even though a deal is further away than it was when he suspended his campaign.

So I'm abandoning my assumption that McCain had some grand method behind his campaign suspension gambit. I don't see any method at all.

In my heart of hearts, I suspect every decision made by McCain and his campaign staff is driven by short-term thinking and immediate gratification. It guided their thinking on picking a running mate (despite the fact that Sarah Palin is a bad joke), on attacking Obama on Fannie Mae (despite Rick Davis and the rest of the lobbyists on staff), on "suspending" the campaign, skipping the debate, etc.

A friend of mine emailed me the other day, summarizing the entire McCain campaign in three words: "Ready, Fire, Aim." Just the kind of approach we need in the White House, right?

MCCAIN'S 'SURREAL' CONFUSION.... Yesterday, John McCain swung by Capitol Hill, not to advance the negotiations on the bailout proposal, but to coordinate strategy with House Republicans. Faiz highlights this gem from the Washington Post's coverage:

Boehner and McCain discussed the bailout plan, but Republican leadership aides described the conversation as somewhat surreal. Neither man was familiar with the details of the proposal being pressed by House conservatives, and up to the moment they departed for the White House yesterday afternoon, neither had seen any description beyond news reports.

At 1:25 p.m., McCain left Boehner's office through a back door, walking across the Capitol's rotunda to the applause of tourists. Graham conceded the group knew little about the plan the nominee had come to Washington to try to shape.

So, this week, McCain talked about a bailout proposal he hadn't read, and a few days later, had a meeting with lawmakers about a competing proposal he knew nothing about.

No wonder McCain sat silently while the grown-ups talked about fiscal policy at the White House yesterday; he couldn't think of anything substantive to contribute.

I sometimes get the sense that McCain is a con man, perpetrating an enormous fraud, hoping desperately that he can get through the next 38 days without anyone noticing he doesn't know what he's doing.

MCCAIN'S DEBATE DEBACLE.... For reasons that defy logic, John McCain had put himself in quite a box. He "suspended" (but not really) his presidential campaign, and vowed to skip the first presidential debate unless Congress and the Bush administration reached a deal on a Wall Street bailout. Indeed, McCain gave his word -- no deal, no debate.

By late yesterday, that put McCain in a very awkward position. Obama said he was headed to Mississippi, whether McCain was prepared to show up or not. The likelihood of a deal all but vanished, because McCain had torpedoed negotiations. McCain could break his word, and look like a fool, or keep his word, and look like a coward.

In a statement released this morning, McCain chose the prior.

Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners.

In other words, the campaign "suspension" -- which had never actually started -- has now ended, and the debate is on. In perhaps the single most unintentionally hilarious line of the entire campaign, McCain's statement added, "The difference between Barack Obama and John McCain was apparent during the White House meeting yesterday where Barack Obama's priority was political posturing." Seriously. The campaign actually said that.

But more importantly, this entire scheme has turned into quite a debacle. McCain's statement justifies his decision to break his word by insisting that there's been "significant progress." In our reality, there was "significant progress" on Wednesday and Thursday morning -- progress that vanished after McCain started screwing things up.

McCain needed a principled reason to go back on his promise, but he apparently couldn't come up with one. Things got tough, McCain panicked (again), and when push came to shove, he blinked.

It'd be amusing if it weren't so absurd.

FRIDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Tonight's debate is on. More on that very soon.

* Mike Huckabee argued that John McCain made a "huge mistake" by even raising the possibility of skipping tonight's presidential candidate debate.

* McCain campaign ads are still on the air today. That's not a suspension we can believe in.

* A new national poll from CBS News/New York Times shows Obama leading McCain by five, 47% to 42%. (Among likely voters, the margin is the same, 48% to 43%.)

* In Florida, Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama by one, 48% to 47%.

* In Ohio, Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama by one, 47% to 46%.

* In New Hampshire, Research 2000 shows Obama leading McCain by four, 48% to 44%.

* In Missouri, Research 2000 shows McCain leading Obama by one, 47% to 46%, while SurveyUSA shows McCain leading by two, 48% to 46%.

* In Arkansas, Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama by nine, 51% to 42%.

* In New York, Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain by 19, 57% to 38%.

* In Massachusetts, Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain by 20, 58% to 38%.

PUSHING FOR A GRACEFUL EXIT.... Kathleen Parker, a columnist syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, is not exactly a moderate. In May, she wrote one of the more offensive columns of the entire presidential campaign, defending the notion of judging candidates' patriotism based on whether they have "blood equity" and "heritage." Obama's "bloodlines" were deemed unworthy, because they are not traced "back through generations of sacrifice." It was like reading a Know-Nothing Party tract 160 years later.

I mention this background to provide some context about Parker's ideology, before noting her latest column on Sarah Palin.

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.... If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself. [...]

McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

This, of course, seems like a highly unlikely scenario. But the fact that a fairly high-profile conservative columnist is even broaching the subject -- in print -- strikes me as fairly remarkable.

MCCAIN'S WALL STREET CONCESSION.... Before he secured the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain was surprisingly candid about his own shortcomings. In November 2005, McCain acknowledged, "I'm going to be honest; I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." In December 2007, in the heat of the Republican primary race, McCain conceded, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."

And as it turns out, he also made a surprising concession about his understanding of Wall Street, or in this case, the lack thereof.

This video, also from December 2007, shows McCain telling a group of voters, "Now, I am not an expert on Wall Street. I am not an expert on some of this stuff. I have studied carefully this latest proposal by the Secretary of the Treasury, and all I can tell you is, one, I am glad he's there. Everybody thinks that Hank Paulson, the Secretary of Treasury is respected in world markets...."

This strikes me as interesting for a couple of reasons. First, McCain really isn't an expert on Wall Street "stuff," which makes it all the more curious he's pretending to know what he's talking about now.

And second, if McCain is such an enthusiastic fan of Henry Paulson, it's curious that McCain felt compelled to undermine not only Paulson's original bailout plan, but also the compromise Paulson reached with policy makers on the Hill.

Regardless, be expected to hear this quote again. As voters' attention focuses even more on economic matters, the Republican nominee has publicly acknowledged that he doesn't understand economics as well as he should, and doesn't understand some of this Wall Street "stuff."

THE 'REAL' MCCAIN.... It's been unnerving for quite a while to see apologists for John McCain rationalize his descent into a shameless partisan hack. To hear them tell it, there's a real John McCain, and the one we're watching isn't really him.

For these observers, there are effectively two options: they were fooled into thinking McCain is a man of integrity and character, or the pathetic candidate has somehow been led astray by way of bad advice. Since the prior makes the observers look foolish, they tend to prefer the latter.

David Brooks has been leading the way for the "this isn't really McCain" camp. He floated the argument in mid-August, and he returns to the issue today, insisting McCain is really a great guy with his head on straight, despite the way he's conducted himself on the campaign trail. Indeed, to Brooks, it's not even McCain's fault -- the "media-circus environment" pushed McCain into the realm of nonsense; he did not go willingly.

"[W]hen people try to tell me that the McCain on the campaign trail is the real McCain and the one who came before was fake, I just say, baloney," Brooks insists. If only we'd elect him, and overlook the campaign, Brooks argues, McCain will be great. Really. Honest. Trust him.

In response, TNR's John Judis, who tends to write with an unrivaled sobriety, concedes that he used to perceive McCain largely the way Brooks does. Indeed, Judis explains that he's questioned McCain's judgment, but never his motives.

That is, until recently, when Judis noticed that McCain "has shown a willingness to put the success of his campaign ahead of the country's welfare."

[I]t is simply unpatriotic -- it's an insult to flag, country, and all the things that McCain claims to hold dear -- for McCain to hold this financial crisis hostage to his political ambitions. McCain doesn't know a thing about finance and is no position to help work out an agreement. If we do suffer a serious bank run, or a run on the dollar, it can be laid directly at his feet. As I said to friends last night, if McCain had been president at this point, I would have wanted to impeach him.

That brings me back to David Brooks' column. David thinks that beneath the surface of McCain the craven campaigner, that the man who nominated an ill-prepared Sarah Palin as his possible successor and has lent his energies to blocking a financial bailout, there still sits a "real McCain" who could govern fairly and effectively as president. I doubt it. I really doubt it. Whether because of age or overreaching ambition, McCain has become the kind of man he earlier railed against. He has become the Bush of 2000 against whom he campaigned or the Senate and House Republicans whom he despised. His defeat is now imperative.

Those who put country last, as McCain clearly does, have no business even trying to lead. The sooner his apologists realize this, the better off we'll all be.

LIFE IMITATES ART.... Sometimes, you just have to laugh.

Just 10 days ago, John McCain argued he'd like to see a commission created to explain the crisis on Wall Street. I wrote at the time:

There was a great episode of "The Simpsons" a few years ago, in which the city of Springfield was looking to local officials to address a crisis. Mayor Joe Quimby, anxious to give the appearance of action without actually doing anything, announced the creation of a "blue-ribbon commission." Lenny responds earnestly, "Did he say a blue-ribbon commission?" -- prompting Carl to say, "Well, you can't do any better than that!"

This morning, Quiddity reminded me of one of the proposals being floated by House Republicans in response to the crisis:

Create a blue ribbon panel with representatives of Treasury, SEC, and the Fed to make recommendations to Congress for reforms of the financial sector by January 1, 2009.

Did House Republicans say a blue-ribbon panel?

MCCAIN HASN'T 'SUSPENDED' ANYTHING.... In case you missed it, yesterday was a very good example of why Jeffrey Toobin makes CNN watchable.

On "The Situation Room," Wolf Blitzer directed the discussion to analysis of John McCain's decision to "suspend" his presidential campaign. Toobin, far more in touch with reality than most of his CNN colleagues, bravely set the record straight: "[C]an I just quarrel with the premise of this? Who says he suspended his campaign? He didn't suspend his campaign. He's been campaigning all day. He gave a speech in New York. He's giving interviews all night. He's raising money. His surrogates are attacking Barack Obama. I think this is posturing of being apolitical. And, frankly, I think we're being kind of gullible in falling for it. He didn't stop his campaign. He's campaigning."

Stephen Hayes from The Weekly Standard, leapt to McCain's defense, noting that the campaign had "pulled his ads down." So, Toobin interjected again: "No, he didn't pull his ads down. His ads have been on. And he's done exactly what Obama has done all day. And Obama admits that he's campaigning. It's the middle of the campaign. I don't see why we should treat what he's doing as anything different from what Obama is doing."

Thank you, Jeffrey Toobin.

On a related note, the McCain campaign has reportedly instructed television stations to begin re-airing its ads starting tomorrow, regardless of whether a bailout plan has been completed or not.

In this sense, the difference between an active campaign and a "suspended" campaign is ... well, there is no difference.

AN OPEN SECRET.... Watching the second part of Sarah Palin's interview on CBS last night, I kept trying to imagine the perspective of an earnest Republican observer, who cares about the country, and who takes policy issues seriously.

This may sound like some kind of rude joke, but I'm genuinely curious. Go ahead, watch the full interview. Hear Palin ramble incoherently about the bailout. Listen to Palin struggle to rehash talking points about the Middle East. Watch her explain why Alaska's proximity to Russia really does offer her foreign policy experience. Consider the way she rejects diplomacy with Iran as "beyond naive" and "beyond bad judgment," despite the opposite conclusion from Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, Warren Christopher, James Baker, and Henry Kissinger. Listen to her stumble trying to explain why the U.S. must never "second guess" Israel's "security efforts."

Reasonable people can disagree about the nature of Palin's difficulties. Some will argue that Palin just hasn't had time to learn about government and policy issues. Others will argue she isn't very bright. Others still may make the case that she's just cracking under the pressure. But the cause isn't especially important -- reasonable people should agree that the Republican vice presidential nominee is way out of her depth, and has no business seeking national office.

At the risk of sounding impolite, Sarah Palin is embarrassing herself, her party, her ticket, and her supporters. The notion that she could be the leader of the free world sometime fairly soon isn't just ridiculous, it's terrifying.

Really, what is it the earnest Republican is thinking watching an interview like this? Does it give him or her pause? Does he or she cringe, but suppress the fear for the good of the party? Does he or she simply buckle in, get into a crash position, and hope the Republican ticket doesn't screw the nation too badly?

I'm obviously not an entirely objective observer here, but I like to think that if the Democratic Party nominated individuals who were demonstrably unsuited and unprepared for national office, I could acknowledge this and say so. Are there such people in the Republican Party now? And if so, what more will it take for them to come forward and say, "Enough"?

Kevin's take is spot on: "Look, this is just getting scary.... I don't even feel right making snarky jokes about this stuff anymore. This campaign has gone seriously off the rails. I've never seen anything like it, but everyone is still nattering on as if this is business as usual. If it is, though, we've already entered the world of Idiocracy and we might as well all just give up and enjoy our super-size Slurpees while we can."

WHAT ON EARTH IS JOHN MCCAIN DOING?.... Let me get this straight -- John McCain left the campaign trail to "help" wrap up a bailout deal in response to the crisis on Wall Street. When a compromise was reached that included everything McCain said he wanted, he decided not to take "yes" for an answer, and sided with far-right House Republicans, who have their own ridiculous plan, and who've never liked McCain anyway.

A few phrases come to mind to describe this madness, but "country first" isn't one of them.

There's no shortage of angles to this, of course, but the one thing I've been trying to wrap my head around is what McCain is doing in D.C. in the first place. Before he arrived, negotiators were making progress. After he arrived, talks broke down. Before he arrived, McCain and his campaign indicated that the bailout was a necessary evil. After he arrived, no one seems clear on exactly what McCain wants.

There was one participant at the White House who took on the role of "the old hand at consensus building, and as the real face of bipartisan politics," but his name was Barack Obama.

For his part, McCain "rarely came close to the Capitol suites and committee rooms where the talks were taking place." He showed up for a meeting at the White House -- which, according to the Bush gang, was McCain's idea -- but while Obama pressed Henry Paulson on policy details, McCain sat silently. At one point, McCain briefly touted the House GOP "plan," which Bush immediately rejected. After the meeting, McCain did some interviews, and was back in one of his homes by 6 p.m.

His day of destructive grandstanding and substance-free work was complete. For McCain, who obviously couldn't care less about the economy or the nation, it was "mission accomplished" -- nothing got done, it was at least partially his fault, and there's now a chance he can pick up the pieces of a process he helped break and pat himself on the back.

E. J. Dionne Jr. concluded, "McCain's boisterous intervention -- and particularly his grandstanding on the debate -- was less a presidential act than the tactical ploy of a man worried that his chances of becoming president might be slipping away."

You don't say.

THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Is there a bailout deal? That depends on which faction you're listening to.

* Job numbers, home sales, and factory orders are all quickly going in the wrong direction.

* John McCain may not have time for a debate tomorrow night, but he has time to talk to ABC, NBC, and CBS tonight.

* Sarah Palin appeared to be campaigning at Ground Zero in New York today, but afterwards, was willing to field a couple of questions from reporters. That's a first.

* In general, the pundits were thoroughly unimpressed with the McCain campaign's "suspension" gimmick.

* Alaskans seem to believe Joe Biden is better qualified for the vice presidency than Sarah Palin. That's obviously the case, but I kind of thought Palin's home-state supporters would come to a different conclusion.

* Bernie Sanders 1, Larry Kudlow 0.

* How did the administration settle on $700 billion for the bailout? A Treasury spokesperson said, "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

* Looking at history, presidential candidates have campaigned during plenty of crises.

* Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, commenting on the Wall Street crisis, said he doesn't think the president "understands or knows much about any of this and it shows." O'Neill did, however, express his confidence in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

IS THE DEBATE ON OR OFF?.... For reasons that were never entirely clear, John McCain announced yesterday that he couldn't spare 90 minutes to attend the agreed-upon presidential debate in Mississippi, scheduled for Friday night. He had to be in D.C. working for the first time in months, doing ... whatever it is McCain does.

But that was 24 hours ago, and a breakthrough in Hill negotiations now seems likely. So, McCain can head down to Oxford, Miss., for the debate, right? At this point, that's still not clear.

John McCain's campaign expressed cautious optimism Thursday as congressional Republicans and Democrats agreed in principle on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry hours before the two presidential candidates were to meet with President Bush on the crisis.

Even so, the action didn't appear to be strong enough to convince McCain to attend Friday's scheduled presidential debate. His campaign has said he wouldn't participate unless there was consensus between Congress and the administration, and a spokesman said the afternoon developments had not changed his plans.

"There's no deal until there's a deal. We're optimistic but we want to get this thing done," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.

I'm not sure who "we" refers to, since McCain has had no meaningful role in the negotiations.

Nevertheless, if McCain doesn't show up, the Obama team apparently plans to host a public event anyway, either fielding questions from PBS's Jim Lehrer, turning the debate into a town-hall meeting with those in attendance, or some combination of the two.

And that's precisely why I'm fairly certain McCain will show up for the debate, whether a bailout deal is finalized by tomorrow night or not. Would McCain risk giving Obama this kind of opportunity? I seriously doubt it.

WHAT DOES A 'SUSPENDED' CAMPAIGN LOOK LIKE?.... Just this morning, in New York, John McCain was pretty straightforward about his perspective on the campaign: "I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not. As of this morning I suspended my political campaign."

Got it. So, what does a "suspended" campaign look like? As it turns out, it's eerily similar to a regular ol' campaign.

What have we learned since McCain suspended his presidential campaign?

* McCain campaign offices in battleground states are open and operating, just like yesterday.

* McCain's television ads are on the air, just like yesterday.

* McCain media flacks are all over the news networks, just like yesterday.

* McCain's campaign staffers are working, just like yesterday.

* McCain's campaign website is up, soliciting contributions and promoting McCain's message, just like yesterday.

* For the big White House meeting today, Barack Obama was told not to bring any campaign aides, so he's bringing a legislative assistant from his Senate staff. John McCain is bringing a campaign advisor.

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I get the sinking feeling that maybe, just maybe, the "suspension" announcement was some kind of (gasp!) gimmick, and that nothing has actually changed at McCain Campaign HQ.

PALIN KNOWS RUSSIA.... Earlier, I suggested Sarah Palin's response to Kate Couric's question on the bailout was a low point in Palin's brief career as a candidate for national office. I spoke too soon.

As regular readers know, almost immediately after Palin was added to the Republican ticket, a number of conservatives, including McCain himself, argued Alaska's proximity to Russia necessarily amounts to foreign policy experience. I've been having some fun with this, because, well, it's the dumbest argument I've ever heard.

In the second part of the CBS interview with Palin, which will air tonight on the "CBS Evening News," Couric, to her enormous credit, asks Palin to explain what this talking point means.

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land -- boundary that we have with -- Canada. [...]

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our -- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia --

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We -- we do -- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where -- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is -- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to -- to our state.

Usually, candidates for national office get better as time goes on. Palin is clearly getting worse.

I mean, really, think about Palin's argument here. She has foreign policy experience because Putin flies over Alaskan air space. Seriously, that's what Palin told a national television audience.

First, it's probably not true. Moscow is in Western Russia, and if a Russian leader were flying to the U.S., he or she would probably fly over the Atlantic. But geography aside, what does this have to do with foreign policy experience? If a head of state flies over you, you necessarily gain a background in international affairs?

I'm afraid Sarah Palin is not only embarrassing herself, she's quickly become a national joke. That John McCain continues to allow her to serve on the Republican ticket suggests his judgment is comically lacking.

PALIN'S UNIQUE SPIN ON THE BAILOUT.... When Sarah Palin sat down with ABC's Charlie Gibson a couple of weeks ago, it was a fairly dominant story. Palin's interview yesterday with CBS's Katie Couric is drawing significantly less attention, obviously because it's facing tougher competition from other news developments.

And the McCain campaign has to be thrilled, because the truth is, Palin is getting worse at answering questions, not better. This one has to be seen to be believed.

The question was provocative, but hardly unexpected given recent events. Couric asked Palin, "Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?"

Palin, in a rambling and largely incoherent response, responded, "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation."

I'm sorry, what? Did she even hear the question?

Worse, if you watch the clip, you might notice that Palin was intermittently referring to notes. In other words, this is the kind of response she offers on a question about the Wall Street bailout with help.

I just want to reiterate a point from last week. First-time candidates for national office often struggle to get over the learning curve. Governors and senators will visit a coffee shop in Iowa City eight months before the caucuses, get confused about a policy detail, but improve as the campaign rolls on. They take their time, go through extensive briefings, and learn to get good. By the time the conventions are done, these candidates are supposed to be on the top of their game.

Palin, however, is in a situation where failure is almost impossible to avoid. She's never expressed any knowledge of national or international issues, she's never expressed any interest in national or international issues, and she's making humiliating mistakes under the glare of the national spotlight, with just six weeks until Election Day.

With some time in government, Palin might become a less embarrassing candidate. But at this point, it's almost unfair for McCain to set her up for this kind of fiasco.

LEGISLATIVE PASSIVITY.... Borrowing a page from Hilzoy's playbook, The Hill's Bob Cusack had an interesting idea -- check to see how many housing- and banking-related bills John McCain and Barack Obama have introduced over the last couple of years.

Apparently, it's a shutout.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has not introduced any banking or housing bills in the 110th Congress, while Democratic rival Barack Obama has proposed five. [...]

McCain is the lead sponsor of 38 pieces of legislation during the 110th Congress, none of which have been referred to the Banking panel, according to a review of Thomas, a congressional website.

Obama has introduced 130 measures during this Congress. Five of Obama's standalone bills fall within the Banking Committee's jurisdiction.

Obama's legislation calls for bolstering housing assistance for veterans, amending the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on executive compensation, halting mortgage transactions that promote fraud, authorizing local and state governments to crack down on companies that invest in Iran's energy sector and authorizing a pilot program to prevent at-risk veterans from becoming homeless.

McCain has said repeatedly of late that he's been warning about a looming crisis. If so, why hasn't he offered any legislative remedies on housing or banking?

WHAT KIND OF GAME IS MCCAIN PLAYING?.... Last night, Barack Obama and John McCain issued a joint statement that didn't say much. The two agreed that this is a time to "rise above politics for the good of the country," adding that we "cannot risk an economic catastrophe," but the statement avoided any policy details.

Well, at least the joint statement did. While the McCain campaign distributed the statement as it was written, the Obama campaign included an appendage, explaining that it reflected only Obama's thinking, and outlining a series of principles that he'd hoped both sides could endorse. It included a now-predictable list: oversight, a path for taxpayers to recover their money, a mechanism to prevent Wall Street executives from profiting from taxpayer funds, foreclosure protections, and a ban on earmarks in the bill.

Here's the odd part: John McCain had said, as recently as Tuesday, that these are the exact same principles he wants to see included in any bailout package. On these points, McCain and Obama are on the same page. So why not say so in the joint statement?

Marc Ambinder reports that the McCain campaign "did not want to include them."

That does seem odd, doesn't it? On Tuesday, McCain publicly articulates five principles he wants to see in the package. On Wednesday, the Obama campaign asks McCain to endorse those exact same principles in a public statement, but the McCain campaign balks. Taegan Goddard considered the context:

Interestingly, when President Bush addressed the nation just minutes later, he essentially agreed to the exact same set of principles in his own speech. So the question is: Why wouldn't McCain agree to a fairly innocuous, Mom and apple pie set of conditions for a bill?

Democrats fear this morning that McCain is setting up a scenario in which he will vote against the bill, rally conservatives to his side and, most importantly, distance himself from both President Bush and Congress before the election.

Kevin added, "[W]hy would Democrats be so suspicious that they're about to be double crossed? John McCain is too honorable a man to do that, isn't he?"

MCCAIN BEHIND ON HIS READING.... On Sunday, Sept. 14, the news was downright frightening -- Lehman Bros. would file for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch would be bought on deep discount, and AIG was in very deep trouble. On Monday, Sept. 15, the markets tanked and the crisis gripped Wall Street. On Friday, Sept. 19, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveiled a $700 billion bailout proposal.

And on Tuesday, Sept. 22, John McCain couldn't commit to the proposal, because he hadn't read it. Seriously.

I'd heard something about this yesterday, but watching the video helps drive the point home. Asked by the NBC affiliate in Cleveland about whether he was prepared to support Paulson's plan, McCain said, "I have not had a chance to see it in writing. I have to examine it."

We are, just to clarify, talking about a three-page document. It would have taken McCain a few minutes to read. But despite the seriousness of the situation, McCain hadn't bothered.

Taking this one step further, on Tuesday, Sept. 22, McCain hadn't read the Paulson plan, but on Thursday, Sept. 24, McCain announced that he's dropping everything to work on a bailout plan on the Hill.

I initially thought McCain's comment may have been in reference to the Dodd plan -- which was released Tuesday, and which McCain might have reasonably missed -- but the campaign told the Politico that McCain was actually talking about the text of the Paulson plan.

It's almost as if McCain doesn't want to be taken seriously.

THURSDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* McCain blew off David Letterman last night, but made time for Katie Couric. Letterman wasn't happy about this, and questioned the McCain campaign's new tactics. "This just doesn't smell right. This is not the way a tested hero behaves," Letterman told his audience. "Somebody's putting something in his Metamucil."

* Republican candidates in Washington State are trying to avoid listing their party affiliation on the November ballot as "Republican." Yesterday, the state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit on the matter.

* In two new national polls, NBC/WSJ shows Obama up by two, 48% to 46%, while Bloomberg/LAT shows Obama up by four, 49% to 45%.

* In Michigan, Time/CNN shows Obama leading McCain by five, 51% to 46%, while NBC News shows the two tied at 46% each.

* In Colorado, Time/CNN shows Obama leading McCain by four, 51% to 47%, and Rasmussen shows Obama up by three, 50% to 47%.

* In Pennsylvania, Time/CNN shows Obama leading McCain by nine, 53% to 44%.

* In North Carolina, Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain by two, 49% to 47%.

* In New Hampshire, Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama by two, 49% to 47%.

* In Wisconsin, Research 2000 shows Obama leading McCain by six, 49% to 43%.

* In West Virginia, Time/CNN shows McCain leading Obama by four, 50% to 46%.

* In Montana, Time/CNN shows McCain leading Obama by 11, 54% to 43%.

* In Alabama, Rasmussen shows McCain leading Obama by 21, 60% to 39%.

PALIN'S PENTECOSTAL WITCH HUNTER.... A few weeks ago, the McCain campaign told CNN that Sarah Palin "doesn't consider herself Pentecostal." That seems a little hard to believe right now.

This rather striking video resurfaced yesterday of Palin at her former church, where her witch-obsessed pastor laid hands on her. "In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, every form of witchcraft is what we rebuke in the name of Jesus," the pastor says in the video from 2005.

Just to clarify, the pastor's interest in witches and witch hunts is not metaphorical -- he means it literally.

Last night, reporting on the video, Keith Olbermann posed this question: "If you had a story, with videotape, of a pastor from Kenya, who got his start in witch-hunting, laying his hands on a candidate, and the candidate's last name was, just to pick one at random, 'Obama,' what would be happening right now?"

Andrew Sullivan, who tends to be more comfortable with religion in politics than I am, added, "Even I am a little shocked by this video from Palin's church. Asking God to protect her from witchcraft?"

Stepping back, people will, of course, draw their own conclusions about a national candidate who is (or was) a practicing Pentecostal, attending a church where people speak in tongues, where the pastor seems preoccupied with witches. Voters' comfort levels will vary, and I'm still inclined to think politicians' spiritual beliefs, whether part of the mainstream or not, are a personal matter.

I do, however, have two unresolved questions. First, does she believe in the separation of church and state, and is she comfortable with a government that remains entirely neutral on matters of faith? And second, does she believe public officials should use religious beliefs to shape public policy? Palin recently said those fighting the war in Iraq are "out on a task that is from God," and added, in the same remarks, that "God's will" was responsible for a national gas pipeline project in Alaska.

Might she be willing to elaborate on what this means?

Update: Sullivan also notes that Palin's pastor had some interesting things to say about "the Israelites."

ALL OF THIS SOUNDS KIND OF FAMILIAR.... If the scuttlebutt is right, policy makers are about this close to striking some kind of bailout deal, making John McCain's latest round of inexplicable tactics entirely unnecessary. But McCain apparently wants to come riding onto Capitol Hill -- probably on a white horse, if he can find one -- where he can take credit for a package he had nothing to do with.

And if all of this sounds kind of familiar, it's because we saw a very similar situation about a year ago.

During a meeting [in May 2007] on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.

At a bipartisan gathering in an ornate meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain complained that Cornyn was raising petty objections to a compromise plan being worked out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House. He used a curse word associated with chickens and accused Cornyn of raising the issue just to torpedo a deal.

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors.... "[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," shouted McCain at Cornyn.

So, lawmakers and administration officials negotiated behind closed doors for quite a while, trying to hammer out a deal. McCain, on the campaign trail, was detached and uninvolved. In the 11th hour, McCain swoops in, hoping to take credit for work he didn't do, and when challenged, Senator Hothead erupted, demanding deference.

Soon after, a deal was announced, McCain smiled for the cameras as if he'd been integral to the process, and then left to go back to the campaign trail, not sticking around long enough to help the compromise package become law.

He may be lacking in temperament, character, and honesty, but at least McCain has a consistent m.o.

GRACIOUS TO A FAULT.... It did seem a little jarring to see John McCain deliver such a high-profile speech at the Clinton Global Initiative this morning. One might think the former president would be more cognizant of the larger political dynamic.

But as Matt Yglesias noted, Bill Clinton seems to be driven by other considerations.

It sure was nice of Bill Clinton to put important national concerns above petty partisanship by agreeing to host a John McCain campaign speech and help the GOP nominee burnish his bipartisan credentials. You might think a former President would be so committed to an axe-grinding agenda that he couldn't see the big picture. But not Bill -- he puts country first, not some personal agenda.

Oh what's that you say? His wife ran for the Democratic nomination and lost? Think that might be relevant?

I'd just add that McCain voted -- twice -- to remove Clinton from office during the impeachment fiasco; McCain has publicly mocked Clinton's daughter for cheap laughs; and McCain repeatedly trashed Clinton's wife when he thought she would be the Democratic nominee.

But never mind all of that. This morning, McCain wanted to score a few points, grab a few headlines, and bolster his bipartisan bona fides, and Bill Clinton was anxious to give the Republican nominee a hand.

The former president is gracious to a fault, isn't he?

MCCAIN VISITS THE CGI.... I'm afraid I must be a little fuzzy on what it means to "suspend" one's presidential campaign. As John McCain sees it, the crisis on Wall Street is so serious, he couldn't possibly recommend a proposal and seek the presidency at the same time, and the idea of taking 90 minutes to debate Barack Obama is just wrong.

McCain can, however, stop by New York to address the Clinton Global Initiative, in part to talk about why he can't make any political appearances during the economic crisis.

"I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not. As of this morning I suspended my political campaign. With so much on the line, for America and the world, the debate that matters most right now is taking place in the United States Capitol -- and I intend to join it. Senator Obama is doing the same. America should be proud of the bipartisanship we are seeing.

"It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration's proposal to meet the crisis. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time. So I am returning to Washington...."

As for the part about Obama, the Democratic nominee said yesterday he would return to D.C. if needed. Soon after, the president called him directly, and asked him to join him, McCain, and congressional leaders at the White House. Obama, of course, agreed.

As for McCain's CGI pitch, I'm having trouble seeing the point. The dangerous situation began in earnest 11 days ago, and McCain has continued to campaign, just as other candidates for national office have done during previous election-year crises. There's a debate underway on the Hill, but McCain doesn't have anything constructive to offer. He insists we're "running out of time," but he can't say why.

And the crisis is so overwhelming, McCain has time to stop by New York to give yet another political speech.

I'm also very interested to know how McCain defines "suspended." His website is still up, collecting money, and promoting tomorrow night's debate. His surrogates are still on television this morning. As far as I can tell, none of his aides has been sent home, told to come back after the campaign "suspension" is over.

Strange days.

A CANDIDATE WITH AN IMPULSE PROBLEM.... Watching the McCain campaign's latest lunacy unfold yesterday afternoon, I thought about a piece Michael Scherer and Michael Weisskopf wrote in Time back in July about the two candidates' gambling styles.

They relayed an anecdote about John McCain, in the heat of the primary fight last year, wanting to head to a casino floor while campaigning in Las Vegas. His staff stopped him. McCain, undeterred, wanted the casino to bring a craps table to his private hotel room, but his staff, again, refused to allow it.

A Republican who has watched McCain gamble told Time, "He clearly knows that this is on the borderline of what is acceptable for him to be doing. And he just sort of revels in it."

As has become clear, McCain seeks the presidency and gambles in largely the same way -- taking ridiculous risks without regard for consequence. Yesterday's bizarre announcement about "suspending" the campaign obviously didn't make any sense -- McCain isn't on the Banking Committee, doesn't have any constructive role to play, and has no reason to leave the campaign trail -- but irresponsible risk-takers don't much care about good judgment. They just want to go all in and let it ride.

We saw this dangerous impulse problem last month when McCain made the ridiculous decision to add Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket, and we clearly saw it again yesterday.

And as Slate's John Dickerson explained, we'll probably continue to see similar behavior from McCain for quite a while.

Whether McCain's crazy gambit is seen as desperate or brilliant, it doesn't matter. Either way, it's probably not the last. The beneficial effects of the Palin Hail Mary lasted only a few weeks, and another adrenaline injection was needed. If this one doesn't work, that's OK -- in due time they can try another razzle-dazzle play. And if it does work, that's great -- in due time they can still try another razzle-dazzle play. It all makes the prospect of a McCain White House very exciting. So exciting, he might want to schedule periodic suspensions of his presidency to get anything done.

With extraordinary challenges at home and abroad, McCain has apparently decided that the very last thing the nation needs is a steady, unflappable leader with a cool head and reliable temperament. What we really need is someone who acts, then thinks. Or, in McCain's case, acts, then blasts those who do think as some kind of elitists.

I suppose there are worse qualities in a president. I'm just not sure what those qualities might be.

STILL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME.... At first blush, the notion that the McCain campaign would go to extraordinary lengths just to draw attention away from Sarah Palin's interview with Katic Couric sounds pretty farfetched. But actually watching the five-and-a-half minute clip from CBS, it's actually fairly reasonable to think campaign aides saw the interview, panicked, and thought, "We need to do something drastic."

Hilzoy tackled the highlights (or the lowlights, depending on one's perspective) last night, but I just wanted to reiterate just how great a train wreck Palin's interview really was. The governor seemed hopelessly lost, offering answers that varied between odd and nonsensical.

After noting just how disastrous some of Palin's answers were -- most notably about the bailout package preventing another Great Depression -- Anonymous Liberal presents a very compelling case that the McCain campaign felt compelled to do something drastic.

"I think the McCain campaign knew the Couric interview would be a disaster as soon as it was done taping and spent much of the day frantically trying to think of a way to push it out of the headlines," A.L. explained. "The clincher for me is the fact that McCain cancelled his Letterman appearance at the last second and instead sat down for an impromptu interview with, of all people, Katie Couric. The hope was to bump the Palin interview even on the CBS Evening News, which otherwise would have hyped and teased the Palin interview all afternoon and used it to lead the broadcast. Instead, CBS devoted most of its coverage to McCain and played segments of the Palin interview almost as an afterthought. Mission accomplished."

I'd just add that the McCain campaign has just about run out of time in rationalizing Palin's inability to ... what's the phrase I'm looking for ... be a candidate for national office. The political world seemed willing to allow for a certain learning curve, giving Palin a moment to get acquainted with the rigors of her chosen task. But she's been a national candidate now for nearly a month, and she doesn't appear to have the foggiest idea what she's doing. Worse, Palin is yet to demonstrate any working knowledge of any subject.

The Couric interview reinforced what many already feared -- the notion that Palin is ready for primetime is ridiculous, and the idea that she's prepared to be one heartbeat from the presidency in four months is literally laughable.

There's a very good reason the McCain campaign wants to delay the Palin-Biden debate, and it has nothing to do with Wall Street.

WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Obama, speaking to reporters in Florida, turned down McCain's offer to delay the debate. "Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time," he said. "It's not necessary for us to think that we can do only one thing, and suspend everything else."

* As far as the University of Mississippi and the Commission on Presidential Debates are concerned, Friday's event is still on.

* The original Treasury plan for a $700 billion Wall Street bailout is just about dead, but congressional alternatives are looking more promising.

* Like TPM, I've heard rumors that a deal is very nearly in place. It would be a shorter-term deal, totaling around $150 billion.

* A criminal investigation has begun at the Justice Department, looking into whether fraud contributed to the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and AIG.

* Just two hours before Georgia was set to kill Troy Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay, and will decide Monday whether to grant Davis's appeal for a new trial.

* Brandon Friedman has the latest on just how deadly Afghanistan has become.

* What a surprise, healthcare premiums are still on the rise.

* It's good to see Congress take a stand to require insurance companies to treat mental ailments the same way as physical ailments.

* What did KBR know and when did they know it?

* That's quite a ghost-writing operation the McCain campaign has put together.

* Quote of the Day, in response to McCain's stunt this afternoon: "If you were wondering how bad McCain's pollster was telling him things are, there's your confirmation."

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

WALKING AND CHEWING GUM AT THE SAME TIME.... We're starting to get a better sense of what the McCain campaign's "suspension" means in a practical sense. CNN, citing senior campaign adviser Mark Salter, reports that the Republican nominee "will suspend airing all ads and all campaign events pending an agreement with Obama, though Salter did not know whether John McCain will suspend fundraising activities. He added that McCain would take part in the debate as scheduled if Congress reached agreement on the measure by Friday morning."

McCain is still prepared to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative tomorrow -- it's not the crisis should completely cause McCain to scrap his schedule -- but then he'll be ready to do some policy work on the Hill.

And if I understand the rationale, McCain believes the crisis is so important, it's worth focusing all of his attention on it -- at least between Friday and Tuesday -- and nothing else.

This is ridiculous for any number of reasons. First, the crisis isn't new, and McCain didn't reach this conclusion until his poll numbers started falling. Would McCain have made this absurd decision if the polls showed him with momentum? Of course not.

Second, lawmakers and administration officials have been on the case for a while; it's not like McCain has anything specific to contribute to the discussion. Indeed, if two candidates, their respective teams, the Secret Service, and a media circus went to the Hill on Friday, the chances of progress on a legislative package go down, not up.

But even more importantly, McCain is subtly telling voters that he's not especially good at multitasking. As Yglesias put it, "I think walking and chewing gum at the same time is part of the president's job."

It's certainly supposed to be. We've had campaigns, debates, ads, speeches, and fundraisers during wars and natural disasters, but we've never had a candidate who didn't think he could handle campaigning during a crisis before.

McCain, in other words, apparently wants to call a time-out. I don't blame him, necessarily, but here's the thing: presidents don't get to call time-outs. They don't get to put some responsibilities on hold while they tend to other responsibilities. They need to be resilient, and put their duties ahead of the distractions and fatigue.

McCain, for lack of a better word, appears terrified this afternoon -- terrified of losing, terrified of the race slipping away, terrified of a debate, terrified of events unfolding beyond his control.

And so, scared, he panicked, and made yet another rash and cynical decision.

John McCain is fundamentally unsuited for the presidency. Why he seems so anxious to remind us of this fact is a mystery.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED.... When the crisis on Wall Street began, and the markets began tanking nine days ago, the very first message from John McCain was, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." That didn't work, and McCain dropped the line.

His second message was that he wanted to see a commission investigate how and why the crisis happened. That made McCain appear confused, so he dropped that line, too.

His third message was in opposition to the AIG bailout. That didn't last, and McCain took the opposite position 24 hours later.

His fourth message was to fire Christopher Cox from the Securities and Exchange Commission. That turned out to be ridiculous, and McCain dropped the line, too.

His fifth message was to blame lobbyists, influence peddlers, and the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That became problematic given the lobbyists and former Fannie/Freddie officials on McCain's payroll.

McCain has simply gone from one ridiculous notion to another, flailing around, looking desperately for something coherent to say. Now McCain has come up with yet another stunt: suspend the campaign, delay the debate, and head back to his day job for the first time since April.

It's hard to imagine anyone being so gullible as to find McCain's gimmick credible. Candidates who take the political process seriously don't behave this way. Leaders don't behave this way.

Josh Marshall had this gem: "Isn't this the campaign equivalent of faking an injury when you're down late in the 4th quarter?"

Why, yes. Yes it is.

As for what happens next, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said there's already a process in place to continue negotiations, and it "would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation's economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op."

And ABC News is reporting that as far as the Obama campaign is concerned, the debate is still on.

DESPERATE CANDIDATES DO DESPERATE THINGS.... As the political world continues to try to wrap its head around John McCain's decision to "suspend" his campaign, the Obama campaign issued an interesting statement.

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

As we talked about earlier, McCain said yesterday he's looking for a variety of things in the bailout package before he makes up his mind, including "greater accountability," a "path for taxpayers to recover the money," "complete transparency," and a mechanism to prevent Wall Street executives from profiting from taxpayer money. Obama had expressed his own ideas on measures that the bailout package should include, 48 hours earlier, and the lists were nearly identical.

So, this morning, Obama called McCain with a straightforward idea: if both candidates supported similar provisions, the two sides could endorse a joint set of principles. McCain, this afternoon, agreed. Obama did this quietly, away from the media spotlight, and without leaking anything to the media. Just one candidate looking for a bipartisan solution with a rival candidate. Everyone was happy.

And almost immediately after an agreement was reached, McCain, in the middle of debate prep, decides it's time for a stunt. How very sad that McCain's desperation has become this transparent.

Details are a little sketchy at this point, but as I understand it, Obama still wants a debate on Friday, as planned, and does not plan to suspend his campaign, but we're supposed to get another statement on these developments from Obama very soon.

Stay tuned.

MCCAIN 'SUSPENDS' CAMPAIGNING?.... It's not at all unreasonable to wonder if there's just something wrong with John McCain.

McCain suspends his campaign, and asks to postpone Friday's debate, to address the financial crisis.

Both candidates have been marginal players; McCain, though, seems to have the potential to make himself a major one, and his move is a mark, most of all, that he doesn't like the way this campaign is going.

But in terms of the timing of this move: The only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling.

Apparently, as McCain sees it, 10 days after the Wall Street crisis began, now he wants to head back to Capitol Hill to do some work. Of course, lawmakers and administration officials have been working quite a bit, but McCain, who has played no direct role in the negotiations thus far, wants to swoop in and tell everyone what they need to do. This from a man who hasn't shown up for work at all in literally months.

What's more, after whining incessantly for months about the need for one-on-one debates, McCain has decided, just 48 hours before the first official debate, that everything should be postponed. And Barack Obama should go along with all of this, because McCain says so.

I've never even heard of a presidential candidate acting in such a reckless, compulsive, and ultimately haphazard fashion. McCain just decided to "suspend" campaign activities? This rivals picking Sarah Palin for the ticket on the list of desperation moves.

McCain spoke at some length yesterday about the nature of the economic crisis, and what he'd like to see happen. But at the time, it apparently never occurred to him to get actually get involved in the process. That is, until today.

The Republican nomination has apparently gone to some kind of man-child who believes stunts and gimmicks are the way to the White House. It is nothing short of breathtaking to see someone so manifestly unserious seek the highest office in the land.

The moment the winds shifted and Obama had a growing lead in the polls, it's time to suspend the campaign. Good lord, McCain really does think voters are idiots.

LOUISIANA REPUBLICAN BACKS POOR STERILIZATION.... I can appreciate when elected officials try to think outside the box with creative ideas. But I'm pretty comfortable concluding that this is not only truly insane, it's painful to think anyone would articulate such an idea out loud in the 21st century. (via memorandum)

Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.

"We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out," LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends. "And nobody wants to talk about it."

LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering statistics now.

"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare," he said.

LaBruzzo serves in the same legislative district that sent David Duke to the legislature in 1989. Try to contain your surprise.

"It's easy to say, 'Oh, he's a racist, ' " LaBruzzo said. "The hard part is to sit down and think of some solutions."

Hmm, can one say he's a racist and talk about solutions?

LaBruzzo acknowledges that some prefer tackling poverty through education reforms and family planning programs, but he says he's looked into this, and found these traditional approaches to be ineffective. It's led him to think the whole pay-for-poor-women's-sterilization tack might be a good idea.

The mind reels.

ASK A SILLY QUESTION.... John McCain and Sarah Palin met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and in a break from preferred campaign policy, reporters were briefly allowed into the room for the photo-op. Big mistake.

McCain then looked around the room and gestured as if to welcome questions. The AP reporter shouted a question at Gov. Palin ("Governor, what have you learned from your meetings?") but McCain aide Brooke Buchanan intervened and shepherded everybody out of the room.

Palin looked surprised, leaned over to McCain and asked him a question, to which your pooler thinks he shook his head as if to say "No."

Look, "What have you learned from your meetings?" is an easy one. It's not a trick question, or a "gotcha" question, or even a question intended to do test Palin's limited understanding of international affairs. She could have easily said something like, "I've been encouraged by how much support the United States continues to enjoy around the world." No muss, no fuss. It's not rocket science.

But, no. The McCain campaign apparently believes the Republican vice presidential nominee is some kind of child, under strict instructions not to speak. Palin has no doubt been receiving extensive briefings on a variety of subjects, and could probably handle a random question or two, but the McCain gang is so convinced of her incompetence, they're just not willing to take the risk -- even after a genuine media backlash has begun in earnest in response to the campaign's heavy-handed approach.

Greg Sargent asked, "Has anyone pointed out that McCain has placed Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency?"

It is a rather comical prospect, isn't it?

USING THE BULLY PULPIT.... The White House really wants Congress to pass the $700 billion Paulson bailout plan -- you know, without a bunch of pesky questions and or strings attached -- and negotiations apparently haven't produced any meaningful breakthroughs.

So, the president is going to share some words of wisdom with the nation in prime time.

President Bush will address the nation from the White House at 9:01 pm ET Wednesday night in an attempt to unstick bailout talks.

Is that so. Bush will give a speech, which in turn will give lawmakers and the Treasury Department a little executive nudge. That's the plan.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I don't think the president realizes the situation he's in. His approval rating is still ridiculously low. The public holds him and his administration largely responsible for the current crisis. He's a lame-duck president who no one pays attention to anymore. He's pushing for a $700 billion bailout package that no serious person anywhere actually likes.

And he's going to use this power as leverage? What does Bush think this is, 2003?

Atrios responded to the news, saying, "I do hope that the Democrats have finally internalized the idea that he's been 30% and under the polls for 3 years now." Quite right.

I'd just add one tangential thought: I wonder how the McCain campaign feels about Bush stepping out to deliver a prime-time speech on economics?

BIDEN SLAMS MCCAIN AS 'DANGEROUSLY WRONG'.... Joe Biden was swimming up-stream a bit this morning, delivering a real stemwinder in Cincinnati on national security. Much of the nation's attention is on the crisis on Wall Street, and much of the political world's attention is on yet another McCain campaign controversy, but there is a presidential debate on Friday focusing principally on foreign policy, and Biden was laying the groundwork for some very effective criticism.

On McCain's judgment:

"This week, John talked about the judgment required to be Commander in Chief. He's right: nothing is more important than judgment. But time and again, on the most critical national security issues of our time, John McCain's judgment was wrong. Right after the terrorists attacked us on 9-11, John responded by urging that we consider attacking countries other than Afghanistan, including Iraq, Iran and Syria. In the run up to the war in Iraq, John insisted that we would be greeted as liberators... that we didn't need a lot of troops... that victory was imminent. Then, he said he wasn't worried about Afghanistan... that we would 'muddle through'... and he declared Afghanistan to be 'a remarkable success.' In John's judgment, there is nothing to talk about with Tehran. And he has one idea for dealing with Russia: kick it out of the Group of Eight nations."

On Iraq and counter-terrorism:

"It is John's judgment that six years into the war in Iraq, we should keep spending $10 billion a month... indefinitely... at a time Iraq is running an $80 billion surplus. And John McCain continues to insist, against all the evidence and all the facts, that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism... and not the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan where the people who actually attacked us on 9-11 reside and are regrouping. John is more than wrong -- he is dangerously wrong. On a question so basic, so fundamental, so critical to our nation's security, we can't afford a Commander-in Chief so divorced from reality and from America's most basic national interests."

On Spain:

"Last week, John McCain said he would not meet with the leader of Spain. Now folks, he would not meet with the leader of a NATO ally. A NATO ally who has Spanish forces in Afghanistan, who has forces fighting side by side with the U.S. Ladies and gentlemen, what kind of judgment is that? What kind of bluster is that? Ladies and gentleman, John McCain's notion about how to deal with our allies as well as adversaries is something I just don't understand. How in God's name will we deal with Russia, without a united NATO. Ladies and gentleman, John McCain has gotten it wrong on so many fundamental issues."

On Obama:

"Time and again, Barack Obama has demonstrated the judgment we need in our next president... and the vision to see over the horizon. Seven years ago, Barack Obama opposed one of the most disastrous decisions in the history of American foreign policy: the diversion of our military might, our resources and focus from Afghanistan to Iraq. He was profoundly right. Now, he is right again: Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq responsibly. He will be as careful getting out as George Bush and John McCain were careless getting in.... Barack Obama understands what John McCain does not: the next President must be more than the Commander-in-Chief for Iraq. He must be Commander-in-Chief for America's security around the world."

I can appreciate the fact that Obama picked Biden for the ticket with governing in mind, but a speech like this morning's is a reminder that Biden can be a real asset to the ticket on the campaign trail.

More of this, please.

MCCAIN CAMPAIGN STRUGGLES WITH NEW DAVIS CONTROVERSY.... New revelations that Freddie Mac was paying McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' lobbying firm $15,000 a month up until last month has put the McCain gang back on its heels. The available evidence suggests pretty strongly that the information McCain gave voters about his campaign's ties to Freddie Mac was false.

Today, McCain campaign spokesperson/blogger Michael Goldfarb published a 700-word response to the news, and by any reasonable measure, the statement is a complete mess. In the very first sentence, Goldfarb says the reports charge that Davis "was paid by Freddie Mac until last month," which Goldfarb insists is false. Actually, the reports charge that Davis' lobbying firm was the one paid until last month, which is true.

Indeed, it's almost as if Goldfarb didn't read the article he was attacking. Davis lobbied against federal regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through the Homeownership Alliance, and once that was done, Davis asked Freddie Mac to put his firm on retainer, for $15,000 a month, for very little work. Not only does the McCain campaign's official response not dispute this point, it doesn't even acknowledge this central revelation.

Goldfarb does make a point of emphasizing that Davis "has never -- never -- been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac." That's true. But as Jason Zengerle explained, that doesn't make the situation any better.

[T]he NYT story doesn't allege that Davis was a lobbyist for Freddie Mac. Rather, the NYT reports that he was a "consultant." And that's actually a crucial -- and, in this instance, damning -- distinction, since, by serving as a consultant rather than as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, Davis's firm didn't have to disclose its payments from Freddie Mac in federal lobbying reports (which is why we didn't know about them until some ticked-off Fannie and Freddie folks revealed them to the Times). In other words, it looks as if Davis was almost trying to hide the fact that he was getting paid by Freddie Mac.

What's more, Goldfarb bashes the New York Times repeatedly, neglecting to acknowledge that the Times was one of three major news outlets -- Newsweek and Roll Call were the other two -- to report within a few hours of each other about the latest Rick Davis revelations.

The McCain campaign went to quite a bit of trouble this morning to offer a detailed denial that doesn't actually deny the charges at hand, and doesn't even try to answer any of the unresolved questions, including the fact that McCain's public statements now appear to contradict the public record on Davis' activities.

Obama communications director Dan Pfeiffer also issued a statement: "It is now clear that both John McCain and Rick Davis did not tell the truth about Davis's continuing financial relationship with Freddie Mac, one of the actors at the center of this financial crisis. It's troubling not only that Davis's firm -- with which he is still associated and which the McCain campaign paid directly last year -- continued to be compensated by Freddie Mac until as recently as last month, but that the firm did little work and apparently was being paid simply to provide access to the McCain campaign. The question that now needs to be answered is this: did Freddie Mac or any other special interests buy access to John McCain by compensating top officials, including Rick Davis?"

Remember, the McCain campaign walked right into this one, insisting that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were largely responsible for the Wall Street crisis, and any associations between a candidate and officials at the lending companies are necessarily scandalous.

Talk about leading with one's chin....

WEDNESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* John McCain was pressed a bit on Carly Fiorina's $42 million golden parachute, which is exactly the kind of deal McCain has been railing against. McCain responded, "Carly Fiorina is a role model to millions of American women.... I'm proud of her record."

* Just as most recent polling shows Obama with an edge over McCain, NPR released a new poll showing McCain with a narrow, two-point edge over Obama in "14 battleground states."

* In Virginia, a Mason-Dixon poll shows McCain leading Obama by three, 47% to 44%.

* In Iowa, a Marist Poll shows Obama leading McCain by 10, 51% to 41%.

* In New Hampshire, a Marist Poll shows Obama leading McCain by six, 51% to 45%.

* In Michigan, a Marist Poll shows Obama leading McCain by nine, 52% to 43%.

* In Ohio, a Marist Poll shows Obama leading McCain by two, 47% to 45%.

* In Pennsylvania, a Marist Poll shows Obama leading McCain by five, 49% to 44%.

* In California, Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain by 17, 56% to 39%.

* In Kansas, SurveyUSA shows McCain leading Obama by 12, 53% to 41%.

* In Washington state, SurveyUSA shows Obama leading McCain by 11, 54% to 43%.

* In Kentucky, SurveyUSA shows McCain leading Obama by 19, 57% to 38%.

* Ron Paul has snubbed Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party, throwing his support to the hyper-right-wing Constitution Party.

MCCAIN'S BAILOUT GAMES.... When it comes to the response to the crisis on Wall Street, the McCain campaign decided a few days ago on a political strategy. McCain aides blasted Barack Obama as "indecisive," and crafted an ad describing Obama as "mum on the market crisis."

So, we can obviously expect bold leadership from John McCain then, right? Well, not so much.

If Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn't vote for the Bush administration's $700 billion economic bailout plan, some Republican and Democratic congressional leaders tell ABC News the plan won't pass.

"If McCain doesn't come out for this, it's over," a Top House Republican tells ABC News. [...]

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds told ABC News' Jake Tapper that McCain has not made a decision one way or another.

Democrats see the writing on the wall here -- if they work with the Bush administration on the bailout plan, but McCain and congressional Republicans oppose the measure, it becomes a cudgel for the GOP for the rest of the campaign. Everyone is looking to see what McCain is going to do, because if he goes along, it'll open the door to bipartisan support. If he balks, Dems aren't going to go out on a limb with Bush and Paulson on their own.

And so McCain, after ironically accusing Obama of remaining "mum" and being "indecisive," has concluded he just doesn't know what he wants to do next, and doesn't want to talk about the bailout proposal for a while.

McCain did say yesterday that he's looking for a variety of things in the bailout package before he makes up his mind, including "greater accountability," a "path for taxpayers to recover the money," "complete transparency," and a mechanism to prevent Wall Street executives from profiting from taxpayer money.

That's not a bad list, but it would have sounded far more impressive if Obama hadn't already presented a nearly identical list 48 hours earlier.