Can We Just Shoot Ourselves Now?

With Barack Obama finally breaking 50 percent in national public-opinion polls and John McCain sinking like a stone, the town hall face-off in Nashville last night was the Democrat's to lose, but the feeling persisted throughout the 90 minutes (which felt more like 900) that both men understand that fixing what ails the economy is bigger than either of them.

With financial markets having a nervous breakdown, the Crew Without a Clue madly rearranging deck checks in Washington and a largely untested upstart (rudely referred to as "That One" by McCain) likely to be the next occupant of the Oval Office, we have entered seriously frightening territory.

Anyhow, Obama gets points for channeling taxpayer outrage. McCain gets points for floating a new/old plan to buy up and renegotiate mortgages, but that doesn't jive with his recommendation that there be a spending freeze to stabilize the economy. Classic McCain: Having diametrically opposite views on the same thing.

Overall, the night has to be considered advantage Obama, but not the Obama blowout that the insta-polls indicated because unlike McCain, Obama understands the roots of the financial crisis even if he's pretty much clueless about how to deal with it.

Oh, and the debate format sucked, although it did effectively prevent McCain from "taking the gloves off," as had been promised, while moderator Tom Brokaw made Gwen Ifill look brilliant.

Other reax:

Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish:

"This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out. It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survives this."

Stephen Green at Pajamas Media:

"Instant analysis? McCain won, but not by nearly enough to matter. He was up against a punk kid, and barely came away on points. Barely."

James Fallows at The Atlantic:

"From a horse-race perspective, John McCain came in behind and losing ground, in the middle of a financial/economic panic that works against him, and therefore needing a big win. This meant either damaging and flummoxing Obama, or so outshining him in audience rapport, mastery of policy, and empathetic connection through the camera, that the debate could be presented as a turning point. None of that happened. (McCain's best performance was at the end, rejecting a 'Yes/No' question on whether Russia is an 'evil empire.') At this stage in the race, a tie goes to the leader, and this was not even a tie."

Will Wilkinson at the Cato Institute:

"Gut read. Obama owned it. This election’s over unless he murders and eats the flesh of a child on live television."

John Hinderacker at Powerline:

"What's the bottom line? McCain performed well, I think, subject to some concern that he may have come across as pretty old. Obama showed, in the first debate and again tonight, that he too can come across well under pressure. He's no longer stammering and indecisive as he once was on the stump. On the whole, he's a plausible rogue and I suspect that he passed muster with most people who aren't knowledgeable about the issues. McCain did fine, but I don't think anything happened that will significantly affect the momentum of the campaign."

Justin Gardner at Donklepant:

"When historians look back on this election, I actually think that this debate will prove to be an important opportunity missed by McCain. Tonight he had to 'take the gloves off' and he didn’t even come close.

" . . . So from here on in it’s relatively smooth sailing for Obama. Sure, there’s another debate to go, but the Ayers story will die because McCain provided no oxygen tonight, and that’s all the Arizona Senator had left.

"It’s over folks."

John Cole at Balloon Juice:

"I guess when it boils down to is that, McCain, for all his tough guy talk, is just a tired old wimp. Given 90 minutes to go after Obama like he and his partner and his surrogates have the past few days, and he said nothing. Given all that time to question Obama’s patriotism, to question his background, to suggest he does not support the troops, and McCain refused to do it. Why didn’t he look him in the eyes and call him Sen. Hussein like his surrogates are doing? Or is that just supposed to be in the background, to make Obama look suspect, to accuse him of being in league with terrorists- but like every punk and every bully he can’t own up to it himself.

"On the other hand, Obama, every time he landed a punch, it was something he has done above board, in public. There is no scummy underbelly launching into questions of character -- all his punches were fair, legitimate, and issue based. All his punches were on things he had mentioned before, publicly, things he is man enough to put in his commercials and repeat right in John McCain’s face."

Mark Hemingway at The Corner:

"Bill Kristol points out that the reason you have a town hall debate is to introduce an element of unconventionality and shake things up. Nearly every question Brokaw selected was political Secconal. He's right. Fred Barnes is in agreement and notes that so far the questions asked at a church by Rick Warren were more illuminating than any of the journalist moderated debates since then."

Finally, Ron Dreher at Crunchy Con:

"Nothing McCain did tonight changed a thing. He's done. This race is now the 2008 version of Clinton vs. Dole. And you know how well that turned out for the Republicans.

"The silver lining: Obama and the Democrats are going to own this godawful mess. And the conservative movement can clear the deadwood out of the way, and start to rebuild itself into a credible force."

How John McCain Lost His Brand

This is how, according to John Heilemann:

"I have sat across from Chris Matthews enough times now, participating in that psychotropic ritual known as Hardball, that I thought I’d heard it all—but then the other night he uncorked a doozy that actually rendered me speechless. (No, that is not a misprint.) 'Let’s start with John McCain,' he said to me on the air shortly after the first presidential debate between McCain and Barack Obama. 'Do you think he was too troll-like tonight? You know, too much of a troll?' I laughed. 'Seriously,' Chris went on. 'Do people really want to put up with four years of that? Of [him] sitting there, angrily, grumpily, like a codger?'

"As both a media figure and a human being, Matthews is sui generis—and yet what made his comments so remarkable was how unremarkable they were. In the past several weeks, the shift of press-corps sentiment against McCain has been stark and undeniable, even among heavies such as Matthews long accused by the left of being residents of the Arizonan's amen corner. Jonathan Alter, Joe Klein, Richard Cohen, David Ignatius, Jacob Weisberg: all former McCain admirers now turned brutal critics. Equally if not more damaging, the shift has been just as pronounced, if less operatic, among straight-news reporters. Suddenly, McCain is no longer being portrayed as a straight-talking, truth-telling maverick but as a liar, a fraud, and an opportunist with acute anger-management issues."

More here.

Illustration by Andre Carrilho

'Why Don't You Come To Your Senses?'

DESPERADO
By The Eagles

Desperado, why dont you come to your senses?
You been out ridin fences for so long now
Oh, youre a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin you
Can hurt you somehow

Don you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
Shell beat you if shes able
You know the queen of heats is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you cant get

Desperado, oh, you aint gettin no youger
Your pain and your hunger, theyre drivin you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, thats just some people talkin
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Dont your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky wont snow and the sun wont shine
Its hard to tell the night time from the day
Youre loosin all your highs and lows
Aint it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why dont you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin, but theres a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before its too late

Cartoon du Jour

Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate

Uighurs: So Much For Land Of The Free

Uighurs seen through torn Chinese propaganda poster

In yet another major setback for the Bush torture regime, a federal judge has ordered the immediate release of 17 Chinese Muslims because they cannot be considered enemy combatants. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled that the men be allowed to stay in the U.S., but that may be easier said than done.

The prisoners, ethnic Uighurs who fled a restive region in western China because of political oppression, were living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign began a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

They fled into Pakistan in the belief they would be safe there, but Pakistani villagers turned them over for generous bounties offered by the U.S. They were shipped to Guantánamo Bay where some were tortured and interrogators from China, which considers Uighurs to be terrorists, were allowed to question them.

Urbina's ruling followed a concession by the U.S. that none of the men were enemy combatants. All had been cleared for release, some five years ago, but because of fear of offending China, neither the U.S. nor any other country had agreed to take in the men, so the U.S. planned to keep them at Guantánamo indefinitely.

So much for land of the free, eh?

Photograph by Eugene Hoshiko/The Associated Press

Grownups Can Play This Game, Too

The term "kicking the can down the road" has taken on new life in the waning months of the Age of Bush as decisions on major stuff like a couple of wars are put off so that they can be dumped in the lap of the next president.

The term derives from a children's game called Kick the Can in which one kid kicks a can and the person who is "it" has to retrieve it before he or she can chase other players, giving those players time to hide or scatter or whatever the rules are. I myself passed many a pleasant evening playing Kick the Can and a variation, Capture the Flag, in a woods behind the dining hall at a summer camp I attended.

Meanwhile, the White House surely is pleased that a federal appeals court has kicked a can known as the Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary Committee in connection with the U.S. Attorney Scandal so far down the road that one of the judges is perplexed that the 110th Congress will be history before this important case can be heard on its merits.

Ah-fricking-hem.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

ROM CRYSTAL (Toronto)
By Sam Javanrough

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Call 'em cock jocks, sluggos, nylon nasties, budgie smugglers, the banana hammock or the True Test Of Manhood but it breaks my heart to see the way the great Aussie cossie is being scorned by a new generation of beach goers.

When I was a kid, the right style of a bloke could get away with wearing scungies to the shops (with thongs) to buy a hamburger ... "and give us a Chocolate Moove with that as well, will ya?"

If it was a hot enough day, a young man could even catch the bus home from the beach in his Speedos - ankles crumbed with sand like cutlets - and not turn a head.

Sadly, if you tried this nowadays you'd be written off as either an oddball foreigner, retarded or a kiddie fiddler with a metal detector hidden in your backpack.

The thing that saddens me most about the attitude towards sluggos is that we've largely bought into a conservative American fashion aesthetic and don't realise it.

Americans, prudes they are, have always opted for shorts on the beach and when they started to dominate the Aussie surf wear industry in the 80s, they brought their uptight attitudes with them.

-- SAM de BRITO

The machinery that's pumped so much meat into our lives over the last half century was never built to last, and now it's breaking down big-time. Feed is more expensive. Gasoline is more expensive. Milk, rice, butter, corn -- it's all going through the roof. And for the foreseeable future, it's not coming back down.

-- DAVID CHANG

Neuroscientists consider it settled that the mind arises from the cooperation of billions of interconnected cells that, individually, are no smarter than amoebae. But it's a shocking idea to some that the human mind could arise out of such an array of mindlessness. Many express amazement that emotions, pain, sexual feelings or religious belief could be a product of brain function. They are put off by the notion that such rich experiences could be reduced to mechanical or chemical bits. Or they worry that scientific explanations may seduce people into a kind of moral laziness that provides a ready excuse for any human failing: "My brain made me do it." Our brains indeed do make us do it, but that is nonetheless consistent with meaningful lives and moral choices.

-- MICHAEL CRAIG MILLER

In arid lands where the sightlines are long, you often see a band of rain falling and evaporating before it reaches the ground. That is a virga. It looks like a dark, slanting smudge between the clouds and the horizon. On Mars, an arid planet, NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander has spotted a snow virga. Shining a green laser straight up toward a layer of clouds, the lander detected crystals of ice swirling above the planet’s surface.

This is a scientific scene ready for recasting in the form of a snow globe.

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES

When eBay started, it liked being a bit scruffy. It let any old Joe make money out of the crap in his garage. It was happy to be the internet's car boot sale - and that image did pretty well for the company. But in recent years, eBay has been hinting that it's more like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady -- a bit of posh in the guise of a backstreet scrubber; something classier than we ever imagined. How? By buying other companies in an attempt trying to prove that it's got more than just secondhand auctions up its sleeve.

Proving that to the public is not coming easy, though, and eBay has been locked in a downward spiral for some time. So when the news emerged today that the company was laying off 1,000 members of staff, it was a disappointment but not a surprise. What used to be an auction house for the rest of us has now become a treasure trove of weird investments and bad decisions.

-- BOBBIE JOHNSON

What is required is a brake on hubris, an abiding love for the natural world, and a willingness to resist what Tolkien calls the "bewilderment" of treasure. The solution to our technological dilemma is nothing so simple (or so dangerous) as throwing a ring into the fire in which it was forged. But a little Hobbit pluck and Hobbit restraint might serve us well as we feel our way into an uncertain future, embracing the beneficent artifacts of knowledge, but holding fast to all things that live and breathe and grow.

-- CHET RAYMO

Election '08: When All Is Said & Done . . .

Hat tip to HoneyBear Kelly via The Impolitic

McCain's Mudslinging & The Season Of The Conservative Pundit's Discontent

Times could not be tougher for the John McCain-Sarah Palin punditocracy.

It's bad enough that the approval rating of George Bush, their hero of the last eight years, has reached an historic low. And inconveniently for these Bubba Bashers, Bill Clinton ended his second term with a robust 70 percent rating despite lying about sex.

Or that the revolution fostered by Ronald Reagan, their hero of the last century, has been sacrificed at the altar of greed through a deregulation movement nurtured by now panicked conservatives who have become what they long railed against -- big-government socialists.

While all of that is bad enough, there is the sorry spectacle of McCain, who while not of the hero class because he used to get all mavericky, is bottom feeding his way to an ignominious climax in the most important presidential election since another big-government socialist defeated Herbert Hoover.

Truth be known, McCain may not have done much better by conducting an honorable campaign. Or by choosing a running mate who is not a cipher.

Still, McCain could have tried. He could have tried by playing to his long suit -- experience. He could have held onto his shaky base while dialing back the partisan cant and embracing voters desperate for change through an issues-oriented campaign as a pragmatic Washington insider who is willing to break with the pack and shake things up. In other words, truly embrace the notion of change and not merely steal that meme from Barack Obama.

But just as we'll never know if the War on Terror would have turned out differently if sufficient resources had been put into Afghanistan and not diverted to Iraq, we'll never know how McCain would have fared if he had taken the high road.

* * * * *

Speaking of dirt, I took a survey of pro-McCain blogs, including the big aggregators like Townhall and Pajamas Media, to see if anyone was taking McCain and Palin to task for their final descent into slime.

What I found was that while there was a little panic, plenty of amnesia and busy deck chair rearranging, not one of these pundits were troubled. Or suggested that McCain throw another Hail Mary pass by again "suspending" campaigning and blowing off tonight's debate so he could personally shore up the hemorrhaging Dow Jones Industrial Average.

A sampling:

Jules Crittenden, always ready with a military analogy at Forward Movement, channels Horatio Nelson and "Commodore Rove" and beseeches McCain and Palin to "attack, attack, attack."

Alas, the tendentious Jonah Goldberg has nothing better to write about at The Corner at this most crucial juncture than old left-wing magazine interviews with the flaming Bill Ayers.

At least fellow The Corner traveler Mark Levin provides some substance (cough, cough) in arguing that the Keating Five scandal is small beer compared to Obama's "belief system," which has made him the darling of "domestic terrorists, Palestinian radicals, Marxists, and black liberation ideologues."

Stuck with lemons, Michelle Malkin makes lemonade: People are again picking on Baby Trig, Obama's wife was perennially dissatisfied in her old job, and the usual whinging from a woman who has so endeared herself to right wingnuts.

Rick Moran, who seems to be recovering from his boy crush on Palin as he realizes that come-hither looks and winsome head nods are no substitute for substance, has that sinking feeling at Rightwing Nuthouse. He's all for name calling, mind you, but fears that it "may backfire."

Gerard Vanderleun, whose anger-management problems mask one of the keenest intellects in conservative blogging, rants away at American Digest, but fails to give himself credit for the McCain campaign taking his own well-traveled road.

Oh, dear.

* * * * *

Sharp-eyed readers will notice the absence of any mention of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose vetting during the primary season was exhaustive and exhausting.

This is because focusing on the ravings of Obama's former pastor, whom he has denounced, would invite opening the door to the ravings of Palin's longtime and current pastor and their own particularly kooky brand of Christianity.

While McCain and Palin are playing the guilt-by-association game, Obama and Biden will repeatedly note in the coming days that McCain played a central role in the last great U.S. financial crisis -- the savings-and-loan scandal that nearly destroyed his political career -- subsequently fought against institutional reforms, and has had as his chief economic adviser the one person most responsible for the economic meltdown.

While Republicans can hope that some voters change their minds, the economy isn't listening.

Publius writes at Obsidian Wings that "Political campaigns are the ultimate Darwinian environment. Whatever strategy wins passes its genes on to the next campaign. Atwater won. Rove won. And so they live on even today. It didn’t matter that they used slimy tactics. So long as these tactics succeeded . . . . they would inevitably reemerge in future campaigns."

There is only one way to end the slime -- and that is to win.

That is what Barack Obama will do four weeks from now as the coda to John McCain's career is written in the gutter.

Image: A Far Side classic by Gary Larson

Is This What It Has Come Down To?

John McCain delivers yet another invective-filled stump speech, this one at a rally in New Mexico. He asks rhetorically:

"Who is the real Barack Obama?"

Someone shouts:

"A terrorist!"

The crowd cheers. McCain remains silent.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin is doing her part in Clearwater, Florida, telling a rally where reporters are herded away from the audience by campaign workers, that:

"I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day."

The crowd boos.

"I knew you guys would react that way, okay. So I was reading the New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago."

More boos.

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers."

Still more boos.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol."

Booing continues, accented by the shout of a man in the audience:

"Kill him!"

The crowd cheers. Palin remains silent.

This is not merely lowering the bar. This is playing to the basest instincts of a lynch mob. We can only pray that some demented soul doesn't take the tacit support of McCain and Palin for such hatefulness as a message to . . . K - I - L - L - H - I - M.

Photograph by Jewel Samad/AFP-Getty

Ah, For Those Good Old Wall Street Days

Remember when people were asserting that the sky was the limit for the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

Well, let's see. If you had invested 11 grand in blue chip stocks when Dow 36,000 was published in September 1999, you'd be fortunate to have 9 grand to stuff under a mattress in the master suite of your McMansion.

Oh, your McMansion was foreclosed on? So sorry.

Hat tip to Will Bunch at Attytood

Still Guilty As Sin After All These Years

The Supreme Court has refused to hear arguments for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, who became an icon for the anti-capital punishment movement although he murdered a Philadelphia police officer in cold blood in 1981.

Abu-Jamal's death sentence was overturned in March by a federal court in Philadelphia, which found that the jury in the case had been incorrectly instructed. The judges voted two-to-one to uphold his conviction, however, while his lawyers are now fighting a life sentence and want to bring him back before a jury for a new trial.

In the 27 years since the murder, Abu-Jamal has become a jailhouse pundit and international cause célèbre, a darling of Amensty International and lightning rod for opponents and proponents of the death penalty. He enjoys little support in Philadelphia, but the further one gets from there the more people consider him to be the victim of a racist political prosecution. Among his celebrity supporters are Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Michael Moore and Spike Lee.

Unlike any of those people, I knew Abu-Jamal. I too am against the death penalty. But this unapologetic scumbag deserves to live out his remaining years behind bars.

The Empire Ends With A Whimper

I will never forget how my friends and I felt after seeing The Empire Strikes Back on Memorial Day weekend in 1977: So exhilarated that after leaving the theater we turned around and saw it all over again.

Alas, this once fresh intergallactic soap opera ends not with a bang, but a whimper with The Clone Wars, a TV cartoon series geared to sixth graders.

Because Stupid Men Will Buy Anything

I have a beard because I hate to shave. I hate to shave because I grew up at a time with the Gillette Safety Razor ruled the world and thewould cut the bejeebus out of my face.

Even though my oft-used styptic pencil hit the trash when Gillette marketed the first surgically precise disposable razor in the early 1970s, I kept my beard. Same thing when Gillette rolled out the Mach 3 with the replaceable three-blade heads, or the Mach 3 Turbo, which added an aloe strip. Or that symbol of consumerism run amok, P&G's five-blade Fusion, which retails for an outrageous 25 dollars large for an eight pack.

I still hate to shave, and no number of blades are gonna change that fact no matter what these clowns do or say.

So there!

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

SHADOW ON THE GAME
By Wawan Setiawan

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

George Walker Bush is not a stupid or a bad man. But in his conduct as president, he behaved stupidly and badly. He was constrained by neither the standards of conduct common to the average professional nor the Constitution. This was not ignorance but a willful rejection on Bush's part, in the service of streamlining White House decision-making, eliminating complexity, and shutting out dissenting voices. This insular mind-set was and is dangerous. Rigorous thinking and hard-won expertise are both very good things, and our government for the past eight years has routinely debased and mocked these virtues.

-- RON SUSKIND

Plenty of people can be blamed for the calamity on Capitol Hill on September 29th. Two-hundred and twenty-eight congressmen decided they were ready to risk another Great Depression. Nancy Pelosi made an idiotic speech damning the Republicans. Sheriff McCain claimed that he was going to ride into town to sort out the mess—and promptly fell off his horse. But there is no doubt where the lion’s share of the blame belongs: with George Bush. The dismal handling of the financial crisis over the past fortnight is not only a comment on Mr Bush’s personal shortcomings as a leader. It is a comment on the failure of his leadership style over the past eight years.

-- LEXINGTON

Grow up. If John McCain has a better set of plans to deal with the immediate crisis, and the medium-term real-economy fallout, and the real global problems of the era -- fine, let him win on those. But it is beneath the dignity he had as a Naval officer to wallow in this mindless BS. I will say nothing about the dignity of a candidate who repeatedly winks at the public, Hooters-waitress style. A great country acts great when it matters. This is a time when it matters -- for politicians in the points they raise, for journalists in the subjects they write about and the questions they ask of candidates. And, yes, for voters.

-- JAMES FALLOWS

In the past half century, racism has morphed from an open wound in the body politic into the mostly unspoken X factor in this year's election. With Obama now holding a solid lead in the polls, the haunting question is how many Americans who would never admit it openly will vote against him because of his race.

Time has caught up the criminality of Simpson in another century, but how much will Barack Obama be punished next month for the offense of being African-American?

-- ROBERT STEIN

I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities. The distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

--- BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Palin . . . may be the first conservative politician since Nixon to experience resentment so authentically. For her, it's not so much a political tool as a motivating principle. A trip through Palin's past reveals that almost every step of her career can be understood as a reaction to elitist condescension--much of it in her own mind.

-- NOAM SCHEIBER

There is a time and place for character attacks in politics: August. Every successful character attack in prior elections took place in August and early September - never October. The point is simple: destroy the opponent just when people start tuning in. But when it comes time for the homestretch, pivot back to unifying and positive themes. Bush did this in 2004 as did his father in 1988.

. . . So here we are, with McCain descending further and further into Michelle Malkin-land, invoking far-right conspiracy theories just to rile the base. As Peggy Noonan pointed out today, McCain and Palin just aren't big enough for this moment. Going to the base in October is a sign of weakness. Having a uniformed sheriff from Lee County, FL say "Barack Hussein Obama" is a sign of desperation, not strength. And accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" while the financial crisis instills real terror into people's hearts is a sign of how out of touch the McCain has become.

-- ELROD

Obama is different. He's biracial. He's got a funny name. He's had a meteoric rise and doesn't have a tremendous amount of experience. He's urban and urbane. He's cosmopolitan, he's Ivy League. In short, he has a cultural disconnect with a lot of American voters, including a lot of traditional Democrats. 'Cultural disconnect' could be a polite way of saying that this country has a lot of rednecks. And it does. But I don't mean that term to be so harsh. A lot of people just have a hard time computing the idea of a guy like Barack Obama being president of the United States. A lot of people have to overcome a feeling of unease or discomfort. And that unease has held Obama's numbers down in both the primaries and the general election.

But, the way I figure it, once someone overcomes that feeling of cultural alienation, even for a moment, and comes to accept the idea of Barack Obama as President of the United States, there is no going back. The argument in his favor is obvious, and no amount of fear-mongering is going to change the mind of someone once they have let their mind be opened. In other words, once a voter gets to the point where they will consider and accept the idea of a half-black president, the biggest obstacle has been overcome. At that point, you have to rely on winning the argument on its merits. You are now judging Obama by the content of his character and the worth of his ideas.

And once Obama convinced 50% of the people to do that? He had this thing won.

-- BOOMAN

Cartoon by Kal/The Economist

Opening A New Front In The War On Law & Other Bush Torture Regime News

The Bush administration's refusal to follow the rule of law on a wide range of issues is by now monumental, but it nevertheless is shocking that despite three Supreme Court rulings striking down key aspects of its extralegal system for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, it continues to argue that it's all a big misunderstanding.

The pushback is part of a larger strategy for George Bush, a man equal parts arrogant and cowardly: Major decisions, whether they concern Iraq, Afghanistan or the Rumsfeld Gulag, will be dumped in the lap of Barack Obama, who with every passing day seems more likely to be the next president.

When the Supreme Court ruled in June that Guantánamo detainees had a right to challenge their six-plus year detentions in federal court, the justices said that these prisoners should have their cases heard quickly because "the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody."

But although most of the 255 detainees have filed habeas corpus lawsuits and the White House initially said in response to the ruling that Guantánamo would in all likelihood be closed, not one of the cases has been resolved. The administration continues to fight back over a range of issues -- from whether federal courts have jurisdiction (they do) to what evidence constitutes proof that detentions should continue (a good deal more than prosecutors typically have been able to marshall) -- and there is no longer talk of closing the detainee facility at the Navy base in Cuba.

More here.

HOLDING HIS NOSE NO LONGER

Yet another military prosecutor at Guantánamo has quit, this one over ethical concerns about his office's failure to turn over exculpatory evidence to attorneys for an Afghan terror suspect scheduled to go to trial in December.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld filed a declaration with a military court explaining his concerns about the case and procedures in the military prosecutor's office.

Wrote Vandeveld:

"My ethical qualms about continuing to serve as a prosecutor relate primarily to the procedures for affording defense counsel discovery. I am highly concerned, to the point that I believe I can no longer serve as a prosecutor at the Commissions, about the slipshod, uncertain 'procedure' for affording defense counsel discovery."

The reservist's departure is the latest blow to the military trials process and a prosecutor's office that has been buffeted by resignations over fairness issues and efforts to cover up the torture of detainees.

Other officials have stated that the leadership of the military commissions is sacrificing principles of justice in a rush to secure convictions. The Army reservist was prosecuting Mohammed Jawad, 24, who is accused of tossing a grenade into a military jeep at a bazaar in Kabul in 2002, injuring two U.S. troops and their Afghan interpreter.

The Jawad case has been a flash point for much that is wrong atGuantánamo.

Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, an Air Force reservist and corporate lawyer, has been such a relentless and aggressive advocate for the military commission system despite his supposedly neutral role and so shamelessly pro-prosecution that a military judge barred him from acting as a legal advisor to the court on the Jawad case.

And Lieutenant Colonel Diane Zierhoffer, an Army psychologist who ordered the torture of Jawad, has invoked her right not to incriminate herself and refused to testify at a hearing on whether charges against him should be dismissed.

More here.

FAILING UPWARD

Brigadier General Hartmann has been so bad at his job that he has been promoted to the post of director of operations for all Guantánamo show trials.

The new job takes Hartmann away from direct supervision of prosecutions.

More here.

PSYCHOLOGISTS VOTE 'NO' ON TORTURE

Members of the American Psychological Association have voted by a large margin to pass a referendum banning their participation in torture at illegal detention facilities.

In a letter to President Bush, the association advised him that:

"The roles of psychologists at such sites would now be limited to working directly for the people being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights, or to providing treatment to military personnel. The new policy was voted on by APA members and is in the process of being implemented.

"For the past 20 years, APA policy has unequivocally condemned torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which can arise from interrogation procedures or conditions of confinement. APA's previous policies had expressed grave concerns about settings where people are deprived of human rights and had offered support to psychologists who refused to work in such settings."

More here.

ANOTHER SMALL VICTORY

A federal appeals court has ordered the government to release 21 photographs depicting the abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ACLU, which had sued the government, said the order puts in historical context the U.S.'s "strained relationship" with the Geneva Conventions.

The government had disingenuously argued that releasing the photos would be an "unwarranted invasion of privacy" of the detainees.

More here.

'THE UNMENTIONABLE QUESTION'

Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story on How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, recently participated in a discussion at the TPMCafe Book Club on her bestselling book.

Mayer kicks things off by asking:

"So--on a morning when accountability seems to have evaporated in the financial world - I'd like to know what we do about accountability at the top of our government for authorizing the abuse- and in some cases the killing of U.S.-held prisoners, all of which were criminal until the day before 9/11. Any thoughts?"

There were many. More here.

And for those who haven't had the opportunity to read The Dark Side, it was excerpted in 25 parts at Kiko's House in July and August.

I WAS WONDERING THE SAME THING

Blogger Alan Jacobs, who recently finished The Dark Side, writes at The American Scene that:

"[T]here's no question that Mayer has an agenda, and that that agenda leads her to structure the narrative in ways that point rather crudely to Pretty Good Guys (e.g., Jack Goldsmith) and Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Guys (Dick Cheney and David Addington). And she occasionally relies on unnamed sources. But if you take all of that away, and see the book only as an anthology of information in the public record — newspaper articles, interviews with named figures, books by former Bush administration officials, government documents, and so on — it's still a convincing demonstration of how certain high-ranking leaders ignored international law and overturned decades (even centuries) of American practices towards enemy combatants.

"Yet I have seen almost no response to this book in the conservative press. What’s up with that? The Dark Side has been reviewed in most major newspapers and magazines, but not from any of the conservative organs I’ve seen. Have I missed something? And if not, what are we to make of this silence? Do conservatives think Mayer's book is so bad that it’s unworthy of response? (If so, they’re wrong.) Are they just trying to avoid acknowledging uncomfortable truths, and would prefer not to think about what the Bush administration has done in prosecuting its war on terror? Or — perhaps the most interesting possibility — do they agree that Mayer has accurately described the administration’s actions but simply judge those actions very differently, as necessary and even commendable responses to the Islamist threat?"

The answer, Alan, is that they just want the whole subject to go away, especially when they're being all worshippy in church on Sunday mornings.

My own take is here.

Noonan & McCain: Senior Moments

Simon Scowl administers well deserved wet lashes:

"Just because the broads cupcakes girls over at Jezebel have gone bonkers at the very idea of a Republican woman in the White House (seriously: bonkers), that doesn’t mean they can’t sniff out a hypocrite who claims to be on Sarah Palin’s side. They’ve got a clip of former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan defending Palin and McCain on The Daily Show. Which would be nice if Noonan hadn’t gotten caught on an open mic last month saying Palin was toast. The same day she published a column in the Wall Street Journal praising Palin. Whoops!

More here.

Cartoon du Jour

Glenn McCoy/Universal Press Syndicate

Holy Bloody Bailout, Batman!

MORE HERE.

On To The Dance Before The Big Dance

Football? We don't need no stinking football!

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

WAITING FOR SUNRISE
By Roman Loranc
Hat tip to Woods' Lot

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

McCain is looking increasingly shaky, whether he’s repeating his "Miss Congeniality" joke twice in the same debate or speaking from notecards even when reciting a line for (literally) the 17th time ("The fundamentals of our economy are strong") or repeatedly confusing proper nouns that begin with S (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain). McCain's "dismaying temperament," as George Will labeled it, only thickens the concerns. His kamikaze mission into Washington during the bailout crisis seemed crazed. His seething, hostile debate countenance — a replay of Al Gore’s sarcastic sighing in 2000 — didn't make the deferential Obama look weak (as many Democrats feared) but elevated him into looking like the sole presidential grown-up.

. . . So how can a desperate G.O.P. save itself? As McCain continues to fade into incoherence and irrelevance, the last hope is that he'll come up with some new game-changing stunt to match his initial pick of Palin or his ill-fated campaign "suspension." Until Thursday night, more than a few Republicans were fantasizing that his final Hail Mary pass would be to ditch Palin so she can "spend more time" with her ever-growing family. But the debate reminded Republicans once again that it’s Palin, not McCain, who is their last hope for victory.

You have to wonder how long it will be before they plead with him to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.

-- FRANK RICH

By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

-- DOUGLASS K. DANIEL

There is a real chance that McCain's attack on Obama's radical associations will backfire and he will fall further behind. If that happens, Election Day will see a triumphant Democratic party with the presidency, a veto-proof Senate, and much larger margin in the House.

In short, conservatives worst nightmare would be upon us; an ultra liberal president who can do anything he wants. And judging by what we know of Obama, he will attempt to remake America in the image of a European social democracy.

-- RICK MORAN

McCain himself is not doing the dirty work, although this week's debate will surely put him in the position of having to approve or disown these despicable tactics. He won't be able to hide behind the skirts of his transgendered Dick Cheney.

-- ROBERT STEIN

Had Hillary Clinton merely lost the nomination, she'd still have a sterling reputation among Democrats and within the black community. Unfortunately, she didn't content herself with a gracious loss, but started talking about her appeal to 'white, working-class Americans, real Americans.' Damage done. Senators can come back from a fall from grace. Teddy Kennedy revived his reputation after Chappaquidick by putting his nose to the grindstone and working for the next 40 years to help the poor and the middle class. John McCain recovered enough from the Keating 5 scandal to win his party's nomination. He did it by pushing for campaign finance reform. But, the best course is not to cover yourself in shame in the first place. And, for McCain, he's shaming himself anew.

The decision to unleash, or tolerate, racially-tinged and overtly racist attacks on Barack Obama is an act of desperation. It's very, very unlikely to change the outcome of this election, but it will be the final death-knell to the idea that John McCain has honor, or that he is a different kind of Republican. Lose with grace, you stupid bastard.

-- BOOMAN

Explaining the campaign's intention to shift from policy to personal attacks, Greg Strimple, one of John McCain's top advisers, told the Washingtn Post that the campaign is "looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis." It's a quote Strimple probably wishes now he hadn't made.

-- HILZOY

Incredible.Sarah Palin's message to undecided women is "Support me, or burn." Is she out of her mind? Has she mistaken Sean Hannity for America? Does she really think this is going to sway women who are on the fence? Does she think Madeline Albright is going to give her cover? Does she have any concern for her own career?

. . . What manner of Christianity is this? I can't talk because I'm not exactly a believer, but seriously -- is claiming to know who will burn for eternity Christ-like? If you're a serious Christian isn't this offensive? There's something almost Taliban-like about it. Imagine Barack Obama saying "there's a special place in hell for black people don't support other black people."

-- TA-NEHISI COATES

Palin reminds me of nothing so much as those fine "Christian ladies" I used to encounter back in the days I taught Sunday School. They were well dressed, perfectly coiffed and pillars of the church, mainly because they donated lots of money. Usually they had a stained glass window or at least a pew named after them with a little brass plaque. They were sugary sweet to everyone to their face, but would make oblique insults about parishioners they didn't like behind their backs, subtly mocking their clothes or their social status. They took their greatest delight in making themselves feel bigger by tearing others down. That's Palin in a nutshell.

-- LIBBY

Palin is the aroma that rises from the corpse of American conservatism. And they find it invigorating.

-- ANDREW SULLIVAN

No one will say that Palin is not a patriot; she is. To say that she understands the threats we face is, to put it generously, a gross exaggeration. She is opposed to Al Qaeda, as are we all, but beyond knowing that there are terrorists what exactly does she understand about the threats they or any other group pose to American security? She imagines that Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime as a whole represent a grave threat, which is not so much evidence of understanding as it is of ideological programming. Understanding is a product of reflection. Who among her defenders truly believes that she has reflected on any of the problems on which she now holds forth so confidently? More to the point, what proof do we have that she is reflective and thoughtful and not, like her running mate, prone to letting visceral and emotional reactions shape her views? Lack of reflection, lack of understanding and self-confidence do not make for a good combination.

-- DANIEL LARISON

Way, way back in February of 2006, Senator John McCain invited a shiny new Senator from Illinois to a meeting to discuss campaign finance reform. A day after the meeting, the junior Senator, a polite young man named Barack Obama, wrote to McCain, "I know you have expressed an interest in creating a task force to further study and discuss these matters, but I and others in the Democratic Caucus believe the more effective and timely course is to allow the committees of jurisdiction to roll up their sleeves and get to work . . . " McCain's brain somehow translated that to mean, "Go fuck yourself, ass." Because this is what he wrote back . . .

-- IAN SPIEGELMAN

With 30 days until Nov. 4, Karl Rove projects that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would get at least 273 electoral votes – three more than are needed to win – if the presidential election were held today.

But Rove warns that this race is "susceptible to rapid changes," so no definite prediction is possible.

The remarkable forecast from the architect of the last two nationwide political victories underscores the straits that have rapidly enveloped Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as the banking and credit crisis spread.

-- MIKE ALLEN

Concert Review: Martha Argerich, Charles Dutoit & The Russian Classical Masters

I once had a dream in which two lions of classical music played the leading roles -- pianist Martha Argerich and conductor Charles Dutoit. The dream was set in the kitchen of a Mediterranean villa. Dutoit was backing out of the room as Argerich threw china plates from a sideboard at him. They missed their mark and only feelings seem to have been hurt.

I know not whether Argerich and Dutoit were married in my dream, but once upon a time they were in real life and so my nocturnal interlude involving them may not have been far fetched.

These are two fiery people, and the passion with which they imbue their performances was again on display Friday afternoon as Dutoit conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra and Argerich soloed in Verizon Hall of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

Catching the Martha and Chuck Show, as the Dear Friend & Conscience and I call it, has become an annual ritual for us.

We first saw them together at the historic Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 2000 and at Avery Fisher Hall in New York's Lincoln Center in 2004. Both excellent shows in sonically challenged spaces.

Then in 2006 at Carnegie Hall in New York City during the Philadelphia Orchestra's annual sojourn to that great room, a ritual that began in the 1930s when orchestra was led by the legendary Leopold Stokowski, one of only seven music directors in its storied 108 year history.

Anyhow, the box office had misplaced our tickets, so we were comped to the front row.

Carnegie Hall has a sound to die for no matter where you sit. But while those seats were worth bragging about, they were a little too close to the action unless you are really into ankles. In contrast, the seats that the DF&C had gotten as a birthday treat for me last year at the Kimmel Center were in the First Tier with a commanding view overlooking the left side of the stage. (I daresay that the Kimmel, with sumptuous hand-crafted hardwoods from ceiling to floor, may even be acoustically superior to Carnegie Hall.)

Through no fault of our own, the DF&C, my son and I ended up in the Orchestra for the Friday show because of a ridiculous -- and I hope eventually self-defeating -- new policy whereby seats for this and other concerts are available to subscribers months beforehand but barely a month out for mere single-seat mortals like myself who are not in a subscriberly mood. Long story short: We were lucky to get any seats at all.

* * * * *

The DF&C has noted that the passions of Argerich and Dutoit seemed to be drawn from different hemispheres. Indeed.

Argerich is Argentine-born and a resident of Switzerland who has played with every major orchestra in the world but seldom solos these days. Dutoit is Swiss, has homes in five countries, has visited over 170 countries and has led every major orchestra in the world.

At the heart of the Friday afternoon program were two Russian masterpieces -- Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concert No. 1 in D-flat major, Op. 10 and Dmitiri Shostakovich's Piano Concert No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35.

Argerich galloped through these densely complex concertos with her trademark passion-drenched virtuosity, the piano soaring above the orchestra in sonic shock waves that reached a thunderous peak at the conclusion of each piece, plopping us back in our seats with the stunning realization that we had been transported out of our bodies to some divine place -- or places. I came as close to feeling what Prokofiev and Shostakovich had sought to convey to the head and heart of the listener as I ever have in numerous listenings to these and their other compositions. And was most grateful that there was an intermission between the two.

(David Bilger, who for all the world looks like he walked off the set of an old Lawrence Welk Show, joined Argerich to brightly solo on trumpet on the Shostakovich.)

The concertos were bookended in the front with Maurice Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales and at the end with Pictures at an Exhibition, the best known work of another Russian great, Modest Musorgsky.

Pictures was among the symphonic works on my first classical album -- a three LP boxed set purchased at an A&P supermarket with newspaper route money when I was in my early teens. I know Pictures as well as, say, the Grateful Dead's Dark Star or Bob Marley's Exodus, to name two favorite anthems from other times and places, and "The Gates of Kiev," the 10th and final movement of Pictures, was a perfect ending to just about the best birthday gift that a father could give a son.