"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

Palin supporters in Virginia

I feel sick.

With a link title of "John McCain's strategy", I half expected this page to be blank...

A good piece by Christopher Buckley on why, having been a supporter of John McCain, he's endorsing Obama

My mother remembers his father as an enfant terrible at Yale (what she recalls of the president's father is perhaps best to gloss over...) The junior Mr Buckley seems to have msot of his father's wit and writing style, and perhaps a little less dedication to being a troublemaker sheerly for the joy of it.

Aaron Sorkin's Jed Bartlett gives Barack Obama a pep-talk, New Hampshire-style.

Read all of it, it's good, but this exchange is at teh core of it:

OBAMA: The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET: Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.

OBAMA: What would you do?

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Thanks to my friend Andy for the link.

"In a rare move for a political unknown, Palin made it personal between the man running for president, Obama, and herself. They are of the same generation: she is 44 to his 47, and represent bipolar extremes."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7624074.stm

As a general reader, I'm accustomed to seeing to very different things referred to as 'polar opposites'.

As a political scientist, I'm familiar with references to a bipolar world.

And of course one is acquainted with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

But I think referring to two candidates, or two positions, as being bipolar extremes is rather over-egging the rhetorical pudding.

Jan Spoor

Rove: McCain Has Gone 'One Step Too Far'

No shame or excuse from the McCain campaign, of course, but when the Prince of Darkness says you're evil...

E-V tally shows FL going Republican.

The Obama campaign is in serious trouble. He's gone (on this site, which I find to be a pretty good barometer) from a commanding lead to a narrow loss in just a week or so.

He needs to get back on top of the news cycle, he needs to regain momentum, and (IMO) he needs to do a better job of debunking Gov Palin.

Most of all, Obama had better wipe the floor with McCain in the debates.

Or we are going to have another four years of mismanagement and conservatism. :-(

Andrew Sullivan on McCain's resignations of integrity.

I really couldn't say it better myself; Mr Sullivan says all the things I have been thinking these last four years.