...you'd think the woman could improv at least a bit. Wasn't she a communications major?

It took her a little longer and several more colleges than most people, but yes, she finally got a B.S. degree in Communications-Journalism from the University of Idaho.

I'm sure there are good Communications programs. And I know there are some good Journalism programs, the current state of the profession notwithstanding. But in many colleges, the Communications program tends to have a reputation for being favored by students who, um, are not up to or interested in academic challenges.

From the comments on The Washington Monthly site:

I've noticed that the McCain campaign has a history of accusing the Obama of everything that McCain himself could reasonably be accused of. It's a somewhat clever tactic, I guess. Make a charge against your opponent, no matter how ridiculous, and your opponent looks like a copycat making that charge against you. Obama is stubborn, eratic, a celebrity, an elitist, and is running a negative campaign. Next they'll accuse him of being an old, out of touch white guy.

Posted by: Rob Mac

What was most amazing is that most of these people (this guy's good, etc.) admitted that they couldn't defend their views.

"I've got a right to my opinion" is probably the most common defense of indefensible views. My rejoinder to that is generally a variation on "Sure, but that doesn't include a right to be taken seriously."

"There's nothing to see here" megaphone blaring. Most of the posts make the same lame claims that we're fighting terrorists, everybody can be tapped anyway these days, the whistleblowers should be arrested, the democrats would do it too, etc..

Um, yeah, some Dems probably would engage in that behavior. That's another reason to oppose it. I don't want anyone to be able to abuse that power without consequence.

(That's part of their reasoning? Ye gods, isn't that the sort of "Well, so-and-so does it, too" that Moms (and Dads) nip in the bud when we're young? Were these people just not raised right?)

As has oft been said: It's unfortunate that ignorance is not painful.

Oh, but it is. Unfortunately, it usually either painful only to someone else, or the pain is sufficiently delayed that it doesn't make an effective lesson.

You’ll now be able to easily spot a car

Sweet! As soon as it's available, I'll be able to find out where I parked my car.

And exactly how is that politically relevant?

Not only is our banking system broken, our "free market" health care system is also broken.

The health care system itself is flawed but pretty good. It is, however, severely hobbled by a broken health care funding system.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this whole investigation well under way before it was even known that Palin was going to be the Republican VP candidate?

Yes. It's also a bipartisan investigation.

Hell, the vote to subpoena Gov. Palin's aides and Mr. Palin himself was bipartisan, including a yes vote from Republican senator Charlie Huggins, of Palin's hometown of Wasilla. (Taht's gotta hurt.)

It's also amusing that the McCain-Palin campaign has "investigated" this themselves and has -- surprise, surprise -- declared Gov. Palin to be totally blameless.

What we need now ... is a scandal about Palin fooling around with Ayers.

Well, Palin does seem to be bombing in the polls ...

It's only allowable to go massively into debt to pay for a war and occupation, or to bail out big corporations, or to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy. Suggesting going into debt to invest in public infrastructure is just crazy talk.

I might think it's October Surprise insurance, except that he might've wanted it closer to Election Day (aka Hope Day).

Yeah, because "s" is right next to "b" on keyboards.

(1)if you can spell "Rensselaer," you ought to be able to spell "Obama."

Heh. I'm actually an alum of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and you wouldn't believe all the ways that gets misspelled. It was something of an inside joke. Don't know if anyone still makes them, but there were various bumper-stickers and t-shirts with creative misspellings. My favorite was "Rensselpolyinstitechnitute". (I still love the way it rolls trippingly off the tongue.)

Lately, it’s looking more and more like this thing might really be over ...

It ain't over until the votes are counted ... to whatever extent that happens.

I'm not going to breathe easy until I hear McCain's concession speech. Hell, I'm not going to breathe totally easy until Obama is sworn in.

Anyone with a bare modicum of common sense is only going to be a little relieved by the last two days on Wall Street. Sure, up is better than down. But up that much after down that much shouldn't exactly inspire any confidence.

(How is the stock market like John McCain? They're both erratic.)

It would be interesting to see Obama raise the issue first. That would take the bite out of McCain raising the issue and Obama would control that narrative.

Except for Palin's base, I think Obama already controls the narrative on this. The narrative is that McCain wants to waste time on an even-more-lame-than-usual guilt-by-association attack because he has nothing else to run with.

So I suspect Obama's best approach during the debate would be to wait and see if McCain brings it up, and maybe subtly goad him a little more. If McCain brings it up, put it in context (and dismiss it) in three sentences or less and end by enforcing the "Senator McCain doesn't want to talk about the important issues" narrative. If McCain doesn't bring it up, ignore it. If non-Palin people think about it at all after that, it'll be in the context of "Well, McCain either was too ashamed to bring it up, and/or didn't really think it was important after all."