* Wall Street had a very good day for a change, and the Dow soared 936 points, the biggest single-day point gain ever. As a percentage, the Dow closed 11.1% higher, the fourth best in market history.

* A second stimulus is likely, eventually.

* "Jobs, baby, jobs."

* Did Obama push Iraqi leaders to delay a security agreement with the administration? Of course not.

* In 2006, Mark Foley's sex scandal cost him his career. It now appears his replacement, Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), will also see his career fall apart in 2008 thanks to his own sex scandal. What is with that district?

* If McCain/Palin wins on Election Day, Tina Fey plans to leave Earth.

* McCain was for ACORN before he was against it.

* On a related note, here's a dose of reality in response to the ACORN hysteria.

* Sarah Palin's claims on the stump aren't just wrong, they're pants-on-fire wrong.

* My friend Adam Serwer has a thought-provoking piece today on conservative attempts to call Obama a "socialist": "Right-wing attempts to paint Barack Obama as a socialist aren't just disingenuous. They're rooted in a history of conservative smears against black leaders."

* Fred Hiatt is still trying to exonerate John McCain. It's still not working.

* Just as important as some racist nut at a McCain rally is what other McCain supporters do in reaction to the racist nut.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

This morning at a McCain rally here, a bearded young man in the crowd responded to a McCain critique of Barack Obama by shouting: "You're a liar, John!" He then hoisted a young woman with an antiwar poster onto his shoulders and began yelling antiwar gibberish as McCain tried to continue his speech. When McCain supporters ripped up the woman's sign, she unfolded another one and the spectacle continued.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. Sullivan notes that there a difference between calling a candidate a "liar" and using words like "terrorist," "treason," and "kill him."

But Christopher Orr raises an even more compelling point: "[W]hat struck me was the way Hayes obliviously suggests that the protester's perseverance after McCain supporters tore up her sign proved how angry she was."

I had the same reaction. If the knock on McCain supporters is that they're too often unhinged, doesn't tearing up a poster held by a young woman offer evidence that the criticism is accurate?

Nevertheless, Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist for the McCain campaign, took a similar line on NPR this morning, insisting, without a hint of jest, that McCain has run "a positive campaign" and that enraged rhetoric is just as common at Obama rallies as McCain rallies. NPR allowed the claim to go unchallenged.

When Salon inquired about any specific examples to bolster Schmidt's claim, the McCain campaign ignored the inquiry.

And for quite a while, that was the totality of the Bush administration policy towards North Korea. Bush once shouted to Bob Woodward, "I loathe Kim Jong Il!" Soon after, the president mocked the N.K. dictator, calling him a "pygmy."

The approach didn't exactly pay dividends, and North Korea's nuclear arsenal grew while Bush and Cheney saber-rattled. Eventually, Bush began negotiations, and while a forged deal was precarious, on Saturday, Bush removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. In return, North Korea "agreed to resume disabling a plutonium plant and to allow some inspections to verify that it had halted its nuclear program as promised months earlier."

John McCain, who liked the president's original policy when it wasn't working, criticized the Bush administration's diplomatic progress.

"I have previously said that I would not support the easing of sanctions North Korea unless the United States is able to fully verify the nuclear declaration Pyongyang submitted on June 26.... I expect the administration to explain exactly how this new verification agreement advances American interests and those of our allies before I will be able to support any decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism."

Soon after, Sarah Palin, who's never shown any interest in the issue, expressed her support for the Bush administration.

[Palin] said North Korea has to live up to their side of the agreement. "Condoleezza Rice, of course, having worked on this strategy for quite some time, I have faith in her that they're making this wise decision and North Korea, of course, better live up to its end of the bargain there, in speaking with the other countries whom they've been working with, in promising the verification."

This is, of course, the second time in two weeks that Palin and McCain have been caught on opposite sides of a major foreign policy issue. Originally, Palin disagreed with McCain's position on a policy of pursuing high-value terrorist targets that flee into Pakistan. At the time, McCain said Palin's position didn't count because she was talking to a voter. (Seriously, that was the argument.)

Presumably, this new area of disagreement won't count either. I'm not sure why, but I'm sure the campaign will think of something.

As it turns out, today's "Rescue Plan for the Middle Class" speech, delivered in Toledo, Ohio, really was a "major" speech.

Video excerpts aren't yet available online, but I'd encourage folks to check out the transcript. It included a healthy dose of both rhetoric and policy specifics.

"Right now, we face an immediate economic emergency that requires urgent action. We can't wait to help workers and families and communities who are struggling right now -- who don't know if their job or their retirement will be there tomorrow; who don't know if next week's paycheck will cover this month's bills. We need to pass an economic rescue plan for the middle-class and we need to do it now. Today I'm proposing a number of steps that we should take immediately to stabilize our financial system, provide relief to families and communities, and help struggling homeowners. It's a plan that begins with one word that's on everyone's mind, and it's spelled J-O-B-S."

It was a rather lengthy policy proposal, but the speech emphasized a new jobs tax credit, eliminating all capital gains taxes on investments in small businesses and start-up companies, fast tracked loan guarantees for the auto industry, infrastructure projects, an extension (and expansion) of unemployment benefits, reforming unfair bankruptcy laws, and a three-month moratorium on foreclosures. Obama also endorsed McCain's proposal on waiving rules that force seniors to withdraw from their 401(k)s even when the market is bad, and took it a step further, making it easier for all Americans to withdraw up to 15% from their IRA or 401(k) through the end of next year without penalty.

The notion that Obama doesn't back up his rhetoric with specifics certainly doesn't apply today.

As for the rhetoric, Obama threaded the needle a bit, striking a tone that was optimistic and pragmatic.

"This country and the dream it represents are being tested in a way that we haven't seen in nearly a century. And future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test. Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose? When we allowed our own petty differences and broken politics to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession?

"Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame? When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other's success?

"This is one of those moments. I realize you're cynical and fed up with politics. I understand that you're disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what's been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history. I ask you to believe -- to believe in yourselves, in each other, and in the future we can build together. Together, we cannot fail. Not now."

It sounded like a deal-closer to me.

But, no. Introducing McCain at an event in Virginia this morning, Palin told the crowd, "See, as a senator, John has confronted the corrupt ways of Washington and the wasteful spending and the abuses of power. As president, he's gonna end those once and for all."

Does Palin really want to talk about confronting abuses of power right now?

The report, which Palin loves but apparently hasn't read, specifically reads, "For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act." [emphasis added]

As Greg Sargent noted, "Whoever didn't cut that line from her speech today is either incompetent or very, very brazen."

What's more, McCain delivered a speech in Virginia this morning. It was a fairly routine speech -- indeed, some of it mirrored McCain's convention speech, literally word for word -- which was covered live on all of the cable news networks. Before it was even delivered, some, including Mark Halperin and the Politico, had labeled it McCain's "comeback" speech.

And why, pray tell, was it a "comeback" speech? Apparently because the McCain campaign decided it's a time for a new media narrative, and plenty of reporters agree.

The New York Times' Adam Nagourney wrote today:

Campaigns have rhythms, and inevitably swing back and forth for all kinds of reasons, including mistakes by candidates (think Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and driver's licenses for illegal immigrants) and the news media's desire for a competitive race and tendency to find the "underdog is surging" story line irresistible.

It's one thing to latch onto the "comeback" narrative because the facts warrant it. If reporters could point to a sustained boost in the polls and other tangible, quantifiable metrics, then obviously that's a story worth reporting.

But we seem to be dealing with a media dynamic in which news outlets like the "underdog is surging" story line because it's something different to write about. Obama was solidifying his role as the frontrunner last week, so campaign reporters, some no doubt consciously and deliberately, decided it was time to write the opposite. Just because.

Jamison Foser wrote this morning about an on-air conversation between NBC's Brian Williams and Newsweek's Howard Fineman about seven weeks before the 2000 election. Williams noted that it "seems true" that the media "almost reserve the right to build up and tear down and change their minds and like an underdog."

Fineman responded, "I don't think the media was going to allow just by its nature the next seven weeks and the last seven or eight weeks of the campaign to be all about Al Gore's relentless triumphant march to the presidency. We want a race I suppose. If we have a bias of any kind, it's that we like to see a contest, and we like to see it down the end if we can."

Something to keep in mind while we're bombarded with incessant talk of a "comeback."

John McCain on the Obama campaign:

"My friends, we've got them just where we want them."

That's like the captain of the Titanic saying he had the iceberg just where he wanted it:

Seriously, though: when politicians lie, they normally try to say things that are somewhat plausible. Does John McCain actually expect anyone to believe that this is all part of his clever plan: that he was aiming to be down by 6.8% and 119 electoral votes in RealClearPolitics' poll average three weeks before the election, and amazingly enough, his campaign hit their targets exactly?

Sheesh.

I assumed, at the time, that McCain just came up with that on the spot. A spending freeze was never part of McCain's policy agenda, and it was hard to believe he was serious about this.

But he was. McCain has emphasized the notion of a spending freeze several times over the last couple of weeks, including in his latest "reboot" speech in Virginia this morning.

"I will freeze government spending on all but the most important programs like defense, veterans care, Social Security and health care until we scrub every single government program and get rid of the ones that aren't working for the American people."

It really would be helpful if McCain fleshed this out a bit. Are defense, veterans care, Social Security, and health care the only parts of the budget that will be isolated from this "freeze"? As Mark Schmitt recently asked, "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."

Quite right. A spending freeze would have dramatic real-life consequences. As Yglesias recently noted, a 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."

This proposed spending "freeze" seems to be getting no real attention at all, perhaps because reporters assumed, as I did, that McCain didn't mean it and was just throwing out nonsense to get through a debate. But he seems to be serious about this and it deserves a lot more scrutiny.

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol said John McCain's campaign has really become "a pathetic campaign." In his New York Times op-ed this morning, Kristol went further, suggesting that McCain should "fire his campaign" and "start over." Asked to respond to Kristol's criticisms, McCain campaign spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer said on Fox News:

"Well, you know Bill is entitled to his perspective. And I used to work for Bill. And I can tell you personally sometimes he's brilliant and sometimes he's not. And this is one where it's the latter category. You know, I think unfortunately he has bought into the Obama campaign's party line."

ThinkProgress has the video of Pfotenhauer's comments.

Let me get this straight. A McCain campaign spokesperson appeared on Fox News to blast Bill Kristol for being overly sympathetic to arguments from the Obama campaign. She wasn't kidding.

Just when I thought this year couldn't get any stranger....

* Describing the state of the campaign, McCain will tell a Virginia audience this morning, "[W]e've got them just where we want them."

* Yesterday, hoping to cheer up his staff, McCain vowed to "whip [Obama's] you-know-what" in Wednesday's debate.

* Relying on reports from CNN and Time, I indicated that Sarah Palin would campaign in West Virginia yesterday. It turns out, she skipped the state.

* For the first time in months, Obama did some door-to-door campaigning, this time in the Toledo, Ohio, area.

* Bill Clinton campaigned in Richmond, Va., yesterday, urging supporters to help Obama, but not to forget the importance of down-ballot Democrats, too.

* Over the last five weeks, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Joe Biden have appeared at a total of 95 separate events. Over the same period of time, John McCain, Cindy McCain, and Sarah Palin have appeared at 56 events.

* In Ohio, a University of Cincinnati poll shows McCain leading Obama by two, 48% to 46%. A new Marist poll, however, shows Obama leading McCain in Ohio by four, 49% to 45%.

* In Pennsylvania, a new Marist poll shows Obama leading McCain by 12, 53% to 41%.

* In Colorado, Public Policy Polling shows Obama leading McCain by 10, 52% to 42%.

* In Nevada, a Mason-Dixon poll shows Obama leading McCain by two, 47% to 45%.

* In Iowa, SurveyUSA shows Obama leading McCain by 13, 54% to 41%.

* In North Dakota, a poll from the Public Affairs Institute at Minnesota State University Moorhead shows Obama leading McCain by two, 45% to 43%.

* In California, Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain by 16, 56% to 40.

* Obama picked up 16 endorsements from newspaper editorial boards over the weekend, "including six in swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri." McCain gained two.

What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads -- they're doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.

And let McCain go back to what he's been good at in the past -- running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate.

Kristol added that McCain should "drop" the "attacks on Obama," and become a "serious but cheerful candidate."

This is, of course, the same Bill Kristol who devoted his column just seven days ago to urging McCain to do the opposite, attacking Obama with guilt-by-association smears. Kristol said he was looking forward to McCain taking off the "gloves."

McCain's strategy coincided nicely with Kristol's previous advice, and most evidence suggests the tactics failed. So, Kristol is now arguing that McCain should disregard all that advice from last week, and take his new suggestions to heart.

Why Republicans take Kristol seriously remains a mystery to me.

Oddly enough, while trailing by 10 has to be discouraging for the Republican ticket, it's the details of the poll that look even worse.

Nearly two-thirds of voters, 64 percent, now view Obama favorably, up six percentage points from early September. About a third of voters have a better opinion of the senator from Illinois because of his debate performances, while 8 percent have a lower opinion of him. By contrast, more than a quarter said they think worse of McCain as a result of the debates, more than double the proportion saying their opinion had improved. McCain's overall rating has also dipped seven points, to 52 percent, over the past month.

Looking through the internals, good news for McCain is hard to find. Voters prefer Obama on the economy, healthcare, and tax policy. A clear majority believe Obama is "about right" ideologically, while a plurality see McCain as "too conservative." Poll respondents perceive Obama as the "safer" choice between the two candidates.

In a result that will surely sting at McCain campaign headquarters, Obama has a 30-point lead -- 58% to 28% -- on which candidate better understands the economic problems facing Americans.

In a result that will sting even more, Obama also enjoys a 14-point lead on which candidate is the "stronger leader," a question on which McCain used to enjoy a double-digit lead.

As for the results of the McCain campaign's recent tactics, 59% of voters said McCain is "mainly on the attack." Just 35% believe McCain is addressing the issues -- about half the number (68%) who believe Obama is doing so.

And just to top things off, the enthusiasm gap is evident once more -- 61% of Obama supporters described themselves as "very enthusiastic" about their candidate, while 38% of McCain supporters said the same. McCain's number is down eight points since early September.

Confessore noted at the time, however, that the New York Times columnist was "a likely future Nobel laureate."

Today, the economist/columnist did, in fact, win the well-deserved honor.

Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday.

"It's been an extremely weird day, but weird in a positive way," Mr. Krugman said in an interview on his way to a Washington meeting for the Group of Thirty, an international body from the public and private sectors that discusses international economics. He said he was mostly "preoccupied with the hassles" of trying to make all his scheduled meetings today and answer a constantly-ringing cell phone.

Mr. Krugman received the award for his work on international trade and economic geography. In particular, the prize committee lauded his work for "having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity." He has developed models that explain observed patterns of trade between countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why. Traditional trade theory assumes that countries are different and will exchange different kinds of goods with each other; Mr. Krugman's theories have explained why worldwide trade is dominated by a few countries that are similar to each other, and why some countries might import the same kinds of goods that it exports.

"There was something very beautiful about the old existing trade theory, and its ability to capture the world in a surprisingly simple conceptual framework," Mr. Krugman said. "And then I realized that some of the new insights coming through in industrial organization could be applied to international trade."

Congratulations to Krugman.

Yesterday morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain's closest allies and most enthusiastic campaign surrogates, confirmed the Politico's report while appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation." McCain's tax-cut proposal, Graham said, "will be a very comprehensive approach to jump-start the economy, by allowing capital to be formed easier in America by lowering taxes."

A few hours later, the McCain campaign reversed course, said there is no new plan, and concluded it didn't know what Graham was talking about.

Despite signals that Senator John McCain would have new prescriptions for the economic crisis after a weekend of meetings, his campaign said Sunday that Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, would not have any more proposals this week unless developments call for some. [...]

McCain advisers later said they did not know why Mr. Graham said that. One noted that Mr. McCain's economic plan already would cut capital gains and dividend tax rates, by extending President Bush's 2003 tax cuts. At the phone bank, Mr. McCain declined to answer a question from a reporter about what he was considering.

"We do not have any immediate plans to announce any policy proposals outside of the proposals that John McCain has announced, and the certain proposals that would result as economic news continues to come our way," said a campaign spokesman, Tucker Bounds. Mr. McCain's policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said, "I have no comment on anything, to anybody."

Developments like these really should be humiliating to the McCain campaign. It's almost as if the McCain campaign is deliberately trying to reinforce the "erratic" meme the Obama campaign is so fond of.

In response, Palin, who is now apparently bordering on delusional, has decided to play make-believe.

Sarah Palin told Alaska reporters Saturday that she had been "cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of unethical activity" in the investigative report released the day before that explored her actions in dismissing a state official who refused to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police.

"Well, I'm very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity there," Palin said on a Saturday conference call with reporters from the Anchorage Daily News, KTVA-Channel 11 and KTUU-Channel 2. "Very pleased to be cleared of any of that."

I know, I know, after the last eight years, I really should be used to this kind of thing. But I can't help but find this breathtaking. Either Sarah Palin is lying brazenly or she's functionally illiterate.

The very first finding in the report is that Palin "abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.... Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional." Over and again, the report highlights instances in which Palin's conduct was at odds with Alaska's Ethics Act. Palin read this and concluded she's been "cleared" of "any hint of any kind of unethical activity."

So, before the report comes out, Palin issued her own report announcing that she'd cleared herself of any wrongdoing. After the report came out, and concludes that she'd violated the public trust, Palin once again cleared herself of any wrongdoing.

ABC News' Jake Tapper added that Palin made multiple claims about the Troopergate scandal over the weekend, all of which were patently false.

John Cole summarized the problem nicely: "I don't know how to react to this. I really just don't. When someone is that willing to look at you and just flat out make shit up and reject facts, there really is nothing you can do without driving yourself insane."

I'd just add one other observation. On Friday, Palin was found to have violated the public trust in an abuse of power scandal. On Saturday, it was on the front page of the major dailies. And on Sunday morning, NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," and CNN's "Late Edition" ignored the story altogether, despite lengthy discussions about recent political events, as if a major scandal involving a candidate for national office isn't particularly interesting. I'll simply never understand this.