Please tell me how Hilary would have been a more viable candidate than Obama. Die-hard Hilary supporters keep coming on the letters threads and making that statement apropo of nothing.

Even the subset of that group of posters who honestly used to be Hillary supporters can't be accurately called that any longer. It's not about supporting Hillary anymore. (And it's certainly not about supporting women.)

No doubt this judgment was made by the same criterion they used to declare that Obama was "the most liberal member of Congress". That criterion, of course, is that he's running for President as a Democrat.

I wonder what huge lie McCain is saving for a day or two before the election. It's gonna be a doozy, I bet.

Do you suppose someone from underside of the McCain campaign is working with bin Laden on the timing of his upcoming "endorsement" of Obama, or do they trust his judgment on how best to help his enablers hold onto power?

"And there's no better place to talk politics than standing around the grill!"

"Especially if'n you're feedin' a mess of reporters, 'cause that's an easy way to keep 'em from grilling you! Haw, haw, haw!"

It's a little too bad that the first debate is focused on foreign policy, though I trust Obama will point out the obvious connection between our screwed-up foreign policy and our screwed-up economy.

... considering that Paulson is suggesting a deeply questionable response to a bad situation McCain himself helped enable.

McCain: Against regulation before he was for it.

They're not "conservative letter writers", they're McCain supports. Big difference.

Of the four people that the ad links to Obama only one, Emil Jones, is black. (Though the problem with Obama's link to Jones is never made clear.)

Isn't it? You just mentioned it. Emil Jones must be part of "the black conspiracy", just like Franklin Raines.

(Some people really do think this way. I like to think they're rare, but it's hard to tell.)

You know, maybe the Republican party is the better party.

They at least make a half-way competent opposition party.

Given that Republicans have shown quite clearly that they're not even half-way competent as the party in charge, obviously we'd all be better off with them as the opposition party. (At least until the current bunch retire.)

But then, what can you expect from a group of people who believe that "government is the problem, not the solution" ... and desperately want to be that problem.

The most absurd practice in American political life is throwing ourselves into the arms of the very people who have caused our crises ...

It's not just absurd, it's disturbing. It reminds me of victims of domestic abuse turning to their abusers for care and comfort.

It's even more disturbing when one realizes that the similarity goes deeper. One of the reasons why abuse victims often turn to their abusers for care and comfort is that the abusers have manipulated them into believing that there's no-one else to turn to, nobody else who really cares. This is done not just with simple dishonesty, but also by limiting access to (and actively sabotaging any contact with) other points of view.

How this plays out in our current politico-economic system is left as an exercise that should be fairly simple for anyone paying attention.

The economy is unquestionably a huge factor, but I suspect some of it is also the spread of the McCain-is-dishonest narrative. Most people expect politicians to be dishonest -- and essentially encourage it -- but there's a hard-to-locate line beyond which dishonesty backfires. McCain seems to have crossed that line repeatedly, to the extent that even some MediaCorp people grudgingly pointed it out. Having built up an image of being a "straight shooter" and a generally honorable person just makes the reaction to this worse.

So the McCain campaign is in a tricky spot. At this point in their campaign, they have to continue to be dishonest, or their own narrative collapses. But they have to be really carefully not to cross that fuzzy "too dishonest" line and feed into the McCain-is-dishonest narrative.

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, does needs to continue to "Hammer. Away. On. Economy.", but they also need to continue encouraging the McCain-is-dishonest narrative. Conveniently, given McCain's record, they can do both of these at the same time.

Question: Why would John McCain’s camp agree to have the only debate held on a Friday night be the one that its guy is supposed to dominate?

That's so they can use the Sunday talking heads to try to explain away the gaffes McCain will make.

McCain is already the presumed winner of the foreign policy debate. All his campaign staff needs to do is make sure he isn't seen as having blown it.

Long answer: "Uncertainties blah blah blah leveraging blah blah blah confidence blah blah blah market factors blah blah blah unpredictable blah blah blah nobody could have predicted blah blah blah ..."

Short answer: "We were hoping the meltdown wouldn't happen until after the election."

Bunning declared, "This massive bailout is not a solution. It is a financial socialism and it's un-American."

You know what? He's got a point.

Bullshit. What Paulson wants is only the nationalization of losses, while gains would still be privately held. That's not "socialism", that's supporting the oligarchy.