Who's holding McCain responsible for this inanity? Certainly not the one man in the whole country who should be. The first words out of Obama's mouth this morning: "I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to...."

This sums up our candidate's fatal flaw. He is constitutionally incapable of delivering this line as it needed to be delivered on a day when he absolutely, positively had to go on the offensive. You want to make the media pay attention? You want to put your opponent back on his heels? You want to get this thing off the Palin personality and onto the issues? You want to get the American voter to see you as a fighter? You don't say "I don't blame John McCain for this," you say: "We can blame this unfolding economic nightmare on Senator McCain's economic philosophy. It's in the marrow of his bones, it is in the very fabric of his party, and it is why they continue to claim that everything is just swell. They are in denial, and it is a dangerous denial."

Tomorrow's headline: "Obama says McCain in Denial," and suddenly we're not talking about frickin' lipstick on pigs any longer.

"Apparently, there is a constituency of people who want their president to be just like them, who want him or her to be someone they can have a beer with, to be just as clueless and uninformed as they are. But I believe that's a small constituency."

Karl Rove never lost an election underestimating the American voters' appetite for total bullshit. Dems give this girl a free ride at their peril. And ours.

If you'll notice the pivot point in Sarah Palin's speech from the personal to the political was Harry Truman. Lucky for her it hasn't gotten as much attention as it should. Really, Sarah? You want to be comparing yourself to a vice presidential pick who assumed the presidency before the elected president was even half-way into his new term?

I don't think that Obama's crew of advisors have underestimated McCain as much as some of Obama's followers have. McCain's performance last night should have disabused anyone of the notion that there was going to be some dithering old man stumbling on the stage in upcoming debates with Obama. I trust the Obama people will watch the replay of last night and get themselves into a proper Stephen Colbert "Formidable Opponent" frame of mind.

"The 'Simple Jack' jokes would be more offensive if Stiller had substituted tasteful, half-assed synonyms for the word we all know we're not supposed to use."

Nicely put, Stephanie. Save us from drawing room comedy where characters call slow-witted characters the "R-word" and academic tea urban dramas where characters call dark skinned characters the "N-word." Speaking of half-assed synonyms, doesn't Salon routinely treat us all like babies by using the infantile N-word formulation? If I'm a writer (and I am) and I want to convey a fictional character as sensitive and highly evolved, I have that character use phony constructions like the R-word and the N-word. If I need to convey the character as somewhat of an A-hole, I have the character use "retard" and "nigger." What is it that supposedly bright, literate people don't get about this?

This article answered the first question that came to my mind when I heard about this poll on the news last night, which was: Have they ever polled this question before?

No. I didn't think so.

And that brings up the next question: Why did they poll it this time? And how would similar questions poll, such as: Would you prefer that Obama had a more American sounding name? Would you prefer that Obama was white? Would you prefer that Obama had smaller ears? Cable news could ride the results of those questions for at least a month.

It's as insidious in the general as sexism was in the primary. There is absolutely no need for Garrison or anyone else to tie McCain's dithering to his age or to make the link to Reagan in incipient decline. We have had the most dithering, imbecilic president in our nation's history for the last eight years and age had nothing to do with it. Enough with smearing 70-year olds because the fraud running for president on the Republican side is a pandering hypocrite with an intellect that was lacking in wattage as far back as his academy days when he was still in his 20s.