I really enjoyed your comment about Obama not being the campaigner we want, but the president we need. His ability to stay cool and not rise to McCain's bait I regard as something superhuman.

Within the next couple of debates, that will pay off more and more as McCain, unable to make the standard bully bravado work for him, will become more frustrated and condescending. Basically, on so many issues, it's all he's got left in the arsenal.

It really put food on my family, and lord knows how hard it is to do that. I like the way they subliminably used Palin's words to just hang there like Putin rearing his head into our airspace.

I sold all my pity on eBay. I got none left. Her appalling acceptance speech at the convention completely erased any goodwill I could ever have for her. Having done nothing to merit her sudden prominence, her debut speech on the national scene was to mock anyone who would dare question her right to be there. Only snobby elites could possibly object, because anyone who can drive a bunch of kids to hockey games in a minivan is fully qualified to be vice president of the USA. She granted herself instant equality with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who had worked their asses off to earn their right on the national stage, she put herself right up there with them, as if she'd risen through some kind of equally rigorous vetting process.

In the Katie Couric interviews, she cemented my disdain with her finger in the wind impersonation of Barack Obama. That — coming from a woman who is only where she is because of the ultimate finger in the wind triangulation on the part of John McCain — was simply too much to bear. Her hubris is astonishing, and though John McCain had no business picking her, she only has herself to blame for the situation she is in.

So, no pity for Sarah Palin from me. If she showed up on my doorstep cold and hungry, I would bring her in and feed her, but I would not pity her. Never that.

There is a story about McCain turning sarcastic and grumpy with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register Guard. And now there is this story. Looks like the strategy for this week will be to ramp up the sarcastic snark factor.

It's been one week today since he suspended his campaign until there was a bailout deal. There is no deal. What the hell is he doing even talking to these people? His campaign is still supposed to be suspended. Can't he even keep his own storyline straight?

Or maybe there is no storyline. Maybe he's just full of shit.

One week ago, John McCain said he was suspending his campaign until a deal over the bailout was reached. That deal has not been reached, yet here he is campaigning. 100 percent truth? Every single sentence, every word, every syllable, every letter going into the formation of those syllables was a lie.

Whatever John McCain may once have been, he is not that anymore. Or to borrow from one of his own pet phrases, he may have come to Washington to affect change, but Washington most certainly has absorbed him, transformed him and spit him out again, a hollow man driven by the idea somewhere back in his reptilian brain that he must... be... president. For some reason he can barely remember.

Great, kid! Don't get cocky.

Personally, I'm sharpening my pitchfork. I hope others will do the same. If the election is flipped this time, I hope we all will finally have had enough to take to the streets and throw these scum sacks out. They are not going to go quietly, and even after Obama wins the election I won't rest easy until he is inaugurated.

Was not his own debate. I believe the plan was to bump the V.P. debate to a later time, or have it bumped from the slate altogether.

I didn't listen to the debate. Her voice... grating and horrible to my ears. However, it sounds like someone in Palin debate camp tried to come up with an "oh, snap!" moment for her to drop in somewhere that would resonate along the lines of "Well, there you go again" or "I knew John Kennedy and you are no John Kennedy."

Doesn't sound like she deployed the snappy retort very well.

Her whole nomination has been, is now, and always will be appalling.

Appalling.

Or she should by now. If she didn't know it when she accepted McCain's offer, after weeks of cram school she now knows how much she didn't know. She knows how much she still has to memorize. She knows the degree to which her handlers finally said "Fuck it. If the question comes up, just change the subject."

By now it should be obvious to her that she is nowhere near ready to take on the office of president should John McCain die in office. She knows, or should know this by now, and yet it still hasn't taught her the slightest shred of humility. She's still a snarky asshole with no basis at all for her self-satisfied opinion for herself. The more her ignorance is revealed to her, the more justified she feels. Knowing stuff is for elites. Her ignorance only cements the idea she shares with too many Americans, that knowing something is not even a little bit better than not knowing something.

After weeks of couching, Sarah Palin went out on stage knowing full well that she is completely full of shit. It doesn't bother her one bit. As she told Charlie Gibson, it's all about not blinking. That's how ya do it. When Putin rears his head, ya don't waste your time trying to outsmart him by knowing stuff. if ya just don't blink, that's all there is to it, you betcha!

I wonder why Sarah Palin hates this country so god damned much.