Is McCain acting out some elaborate Rovian set piece drama with the complicity of the White House and House Republicans --one in which the script (i.e., ultimate compromise) is pre-written and designed to allow him to take credit for a taxpayer friendly bill and then grandstand his way to the debate, to boot? Or is he really winging it in an uncertain way?

Let me offer a few thoughts. First, I was a bit suspicious several days ago when reports leaked out that Obama was doing standard debate prep with a typical stand-in guy named Craig, and that McCain was going to wing it with little prep. Felt a little like the sucker punch surrounding Rudy & Palin night at the RNC. Now, in hindsight, do we see the contours of a pre-arranged plan?

Second, Barney Frank raised the specter today of 1968 -- where LBJ (for the benefit of Humphrey) and RMN famously knifed one through a series of moves centered on the North Vietnam peace process, including back and forth misrepresentations right up through the evening of the election. Is McCain as clever as Nixon? Is Karl Rove peering out somewhere from behind a curtain?

Third, reports tonight indicate McCain may turn around and campaign against the bailout. If so, and we use a stunt analogy like Evil Kineval, this is the equivalent of going from jumping cars on your bike to jumping the Snake River Canyon. The stock market may fall badly tomorrow if McCain scuttles any deal, yet McCain could take the blame and argue he is more concerned about taxpayers than investors.

Would that work? I dunno, but I did see a three point jump today for McCain in Gallup.

NBC and CNN have both picked up the story of Palin's reportedly dreadful interview.

I saw it, and basically understood her comment on Russia to be a reference to missile defense. It has been reported since Palin's selection that most of our ABM systems are located in Russia, and that if Russia (or, for that matter, North Korea) were to ever attack us from the west with nuclear missiles, Alaska would be the front line of any defense. I agree, Palin could have made that clearer. However, I thought her answer was basically a yawner, not something to get excited about.

One thing that seems to get in the way of any real damage for Palin is the approach of the interviewers. Such as: Katie Couric's suggestion to Palin that she is worthless (in Katie's eyes) by virtue of having no passport until last year. Palin had no trouble throwing that one back in her face. Chuck Gibson made similar mistakes.

Palin may be imprecise at times, but I have never failed to understand what she is saying. That is not always true of Obama (e.g., his inexplicable statement to 60 Minutes that the $700 billion corporate shareholder bailout must not, under any circumstance, benefit shareholders -- maybe those shareholders will be required under his plan to assign all of their newfound benefits to others).

Allow me to retort.

First, seriously, what did you think of Biden's comment that FDR went on television in 1929 to decry the October crash? Has a dumber affirmative misstatement ever been uttered by a candidate for high office? Dan Quayle made his share of garbled verbal miscues, but I don't recall him ever getting anything obviously factually wrong like that.

I know, I know, Biden is a really smart guy, right? Actually, no. He finished near the bottom of his class and lied about his record before he was bounced out of the race for plagarism in 1988. Most political observers regarded him as a laughingstock before he was added to the ticket to give gravitas to Obama. If you are going to bash Palin, let's be even handed.

Since I started posting a few weeks ago (having learned about this site through Ms. Walsh's fine television appearances), I have been called a "troll" at least three times and an agent of Karl Rove at least once. What ever happened to civility! Incidentally, although I do lean right on a number of issues, I have peppered my posts with a mix of what I hope to be well reasoned opinions -- some critical of George Bush, John McCain, Clarence Thomas, and the Wall Street Journal.

Look, I don't know whether Alaska is the home of anti-ballistic missile defense. I read what I thought was a credible report a couple weeks ago saying it is, and I assumed that's what Palin was talking about. I understand North Korea is not going to attack Alaska; the question, however, is: if North Korea fires a missile at Los Angeles, would the SDI defense mechanism emanate from Alaska? I dunno, but I understood the answer could be yes.

Finally, I wholeheartedly agree that Palin sounds like no other professional high level politician I have ever heard before. She sounds like someone I would meet at a school meeting -- the working mom who has all her papers and tasks in order and organized the PTA budget a year in advance while the men are out milling around talking football. We have never had someone like that run for high office before.

Will the country accept it? Who knows. I do know this, however. You could plant Barack Obama in the Richard M. Daley Center in Chicago and he would not be distinguishable, intellectually or in terms of talent, from dozens of other forty something lawyer/bureaucrats in that organization. He fell into his Senate seat (longer story than this post will allow) through incidents of sheer unimaginable luck, and then ran for president before ever doing serious legislative work. I know, Barack can talk federal policy turkey better than Palin. But can he do more than talk? None of us has any idea.