News flash, genius. The market meltdown was already well underway before Obama appeared on CBS, and in any case there's nothing any one person can do to stave it off, if it can be staved off at all. But better someone reacting coolly and with reasoned measures that racing around in panic mode like a Chicken Little media whore.

Does this mean McLame was for suspending his campaign before he was against it? I think that makes him a flip-flopper, and aren't only those weasely, Frenchified, America-hating liberals flip-floppers?

That's one way to look at things, your trollship. Of course, it's a delusional and grossly stupid way, but whatever puts wind in your sails. We in the reality-based community see McCain as a panicked old fart desperate to grab a headline in a situation that didn't need him, running off in all directions like a headless chicken while Obama stayed cool and--what's the word I'm looking for?--oh, yeah: presidential.

Presidential vs. Panicked. Add in one of the most pathetic, overmatched performances I've ever seen from a politician by Sarah "Georgia Bush" Palin with Katie Couric (Katie Couric, for God's sake, not Edward R. Murrow) and the McCain campaign is teetering on the edge of oblivion. Tomorrow's debate will bury it.

Mourners please omit flowers.

I just want to see Obama utter two words in tonight's debate:

"Keating Five."

I suspect we would see McCain and his entire campaign staff quickly suspend respiration and cardiac activity.

Brilliant. That's the reference I've been fishing for for about two days. From now on, McCain for me is Norma Desmond, desperately chasing after C.B. DeMille to get him to make their next big picture when all he wants to do is buy her car.

Ironically, McCain actually looks more like Erich von Stroheim, who played Norma's manservant.

Ready for your close-up, John? I thought not.

No, Palin HAS no record. That's the thing. She's a small town mayor become governor of a state that's smaller than the city I was born in. That, plus being a mom and beauty pageant contestant, are her only qualifications. Joltin' Joe Biden may get his adrenaline pumping and say some wack shit, but he has 35 years in Congress to draw on. The man knows governance.

What this comes down to is that the VP candidate's main job is to appear potentially presidential. Biden, for all his foot-in-mouth disease, appears presidential via the gravitas of his age and his long Senate experience and record. Is there anyone who doesn't own the entire Left Behind series of novels who still thinks Georgia Bush is REMOTELY presidential?

Dare I remind everyone that "Sarah Palin" rearranged is "nasal harpi"? I rest my case.

Brilliant. Tina Fey almost makes SNL worth watching again.

Almost.

This is not about Wall Street fat cats, folks. This is about the total freeze of the short term paper market—-in other words, the fast credit lines that companies take out on an almost daily basis to pay their bills and payrolls. Right now, the credit crunch has almost got that market locked up, and it's essential. If that credit market dries up, tens of thousands of medium-size and large companies will have no access to capital to pay their expenses while they wait for receivables. That means layoffs, shutdowns and the possible collapse of the economy.

Yes, in the short term this is helping the big investment banks and thrifts, but it affects everyone.

I'm beginning to think a 2-day bank and NYSE holiday to let everyone cool off might be the best thing for now. Clearly, this is a titanic issue and we cannot allow a "solution" as poisonous to our already-reeling democracy to be forced through in a panic.

Where is Barack Obama during all this? Man, he could cement his victory if he were to appear with Robert Reich (whose alternative proposal is brilliant and prudent) at a press conference and announce a proposed alternative bill he will be presenting to Pelosi.

I agree that something has to be done to prevent the short-term credit markets from collapsing and the financial grease of the entire economy from shutting down, but this isn't it. This is more of the same from the robber barons who have raped the U.S. since 2001.

While we're cheering for the Little Guy in the face of such big, bad Wall Street investment bank oppression and would-be financial largesse, let's not forget that Joe Sickpack is not entirely without blame in this debacle. Millions of people who should have known better applied for and got adjustable rate or negative amortization loans that deep down they knew they couldn't afford, foolishly assuming that appreciation would continue forever.

Couldn't read the fine print? Sorry, Jack. You're a grownup and if you can sign papers for a $400,000 house, you can take the time to read the entire contract. Falsified your financial information because you knew your lender was handing out mortgages like condoms on Prom Night? It's your ass. Add to that the entirely voluntary $17,000 in credit card debt the average American family carries and Main Street has some guilt in this whole mess, too.

No, the average Amuricun didn't have squat to do with investment banks bundling bad loans together to create mortgage-backed securities, or with WAMU and Wachovia getting neck-deep in shit because of shoddy lending practices. But let's not pretend the public is simon-pure here. We're all part of the problem, and we all need to be part of the solution.

By the way, according to the Los Angeles Times, about 50 million Americans have 401(k) accounts. That means members of Congress will DEFINITELY be hearing about them when they go home to campaign. Hope they brought ear plugs and aspirin.