Ok, surely you've seen this somewhere today, right? Sarah Palin doodled on some paper back in 1996 when she was deciding to run for mayor and basically she is a 10-year-old girl. Or was still a 10-year-old girl in 1996. Now, adjusting for her slow development, she's clearly in her "bitchy teenager" stage which is why she keeps telling John McCain she wants to go to Michigan and disobeying his strict order not to bring up Jerimiah Wright all the time. [TNR/The Plank]

The cornerstone of so-called Rovian politics is "attack your opponent on his strengths." At its most basic, perfect level, it means attack war hero John Kerry for being a spineless anti-American coward. McCain tried it early this season: Obama is popular and energizing, just like a dumb blonde celebrity. Everyone cooed and said "oh good one Mr. McCain." But that line wasn't enough to get McCain through the end of the summer, let alone the fall. So now, yes, Steve Schmidt and John McCain have developed and employed a brilliant new twist on Karl Rove's old dictum: attack your opponent on your own weaknesses! In McCain's terrible new speech today on how none of us know who this mysterious and dangerous terrorist Barack Obama actually is, he says, literally, that Obama gets "touchy" and "angry" whenever he's attacked or criticized or accused of lying. As Josh Marshall points out, this is called "projection," because Obama actually remains infuriatingly cool and collected in the face of things that would drive us insane. Meanwhile, McCain is notorious for his temper, for his pettiness, and for his grudges. So naturally McCain found that he was being criticized by everyone for lying all the time, and he decided that meant that he was hitting a nerve with Obama (and not just all the dudes in the press who used to have man-crushes on him), and decided further to expand this into a whole new line of attack. A line of attack based entirely on projection. So when we said "a brilliant new twist on Karl Rove's old dictum" what we actually meant was "a sad foray into the extreme disconnect between perception and reality that is probably the logical conclusion of Rovian politics."

So this weekend, the McCain camp called up all the reporters they're still speaking to to be like, "fuck it, we're going negative." The reporters were like, "going?" And McCain's people were all, "no, like super negative!" Then Sarah Palin showed up saying nonsense and the press backlash was immediate. You don't call up the press corps to announce that you're finally utterly trashing your Honorable Brand, for good, when they're in the middle of tearing you apart for abandoning your Honorable Brand to begin with, guys. Sheesh. But Steve Schmidt can't grasp that it's not 2004 and, more importantly, John McCain thinks he is still the honorable one, because he personally dislikes Barack Obama. Regardless, Obama's in a fine position right now! He's winning, his favorables are great, his Brand is still in tip-top shape, and everyone is crowing about how much smarter his campaign has been. So why's he going and ruining that with this Keating 5 business? Obama's people called the members of the press in their tank today to point them toward Keating Economics, an Obama campaign site about John McCain's role in the Charles Keating mess, because no one remembers that anymore. Their problem was not so much in doing this, it was in making it an official Obama-funded campaign stunt announced to the press, and not just quietly pushing Keating stories, Rove-style. Yes, the Keating 5 scandal is a legitimate talking point. Yes, McCain is certainly more tangibly and credibly "linked" to misdoings by Keating than Obama is linked to misdoings by a hippie mad bomber in 1968. But guys, you are just opening yourselves up now to the worst story in the world: "Both campaigns intensifying attacks! Film at 11! Obama sez McCain's corrupt, McCain says Obama's a terrorist, boo hoo how the standards of discourse have fallen!" (Hi there Politico!) Now indications are the newly emboldened press will not treat the factually accurate if slightly spun Keating story as equivalent to the sleazy insinuations of Palin. But it's still a dumb move when all the momentum is already in your favor. (Or, of course, maybe it's brilliant. We're sure as hell no experts.)

Here is a clip of everyone on TV trying desperately to explain Sarah Palin's lousy, winky, over-rehearsed debate performance. All of them say she was "folksy," a useless term that means she drops her g's when she speaks. That is literally all it means. Well, that and "she is a little dumb and a very nice example of the kind of condescending to rural voters and poors that we always admonish in Democrats and always celebrate in Republicans." Hey, click on this and watch astute political analysis by people who are very secure in their high-paying jobs! (Thanks, Intern Chris Person!)

Because journalists and people on TV have been focusing exclusively on Sarah Palin for more than a month now. The people familiar with Senator Joe Biden are the people already inclined to vote for him. The uninformed just-now-paying-attention "undecideds" who tuned in last night were introduced to this smart, reassuring guy. And the Obama campaign debate strategy is reassurance—don't worry, you don't need to vote for the old white guy, we do know what we're doing. It's brilliant and it worked as well as ever last night. (Also his FUCKING FAMILY DIED.) To sum up, we were right. (Also the best part of CNN's coverage last night was the ladies maxing out on approval for Biden in his opening statement until the shot switched to a view of his bald spot and terrible plugs, at which point support of undecided women plummeted.)

If we may respectfully disagree with everyone on Earth, Joe Biden will do fine. The expectations are so ridiculously low for Sarah Palin that smart people know any half-competent performance will be met with cheers and audible relief and the nation will love her again. But you know what? That's all meta-expectations gaming for Biden. It is now a truth universally acknowledged that Joe will be boorish and say a thousand stupid things and he'll be mean and condescending and no one will like him. But no one seems to remember that ol' gaffey Joe gets away with all of his thousands of gaffes not just because he's been around forever, but also because he seems like a nice guy! He's genial when he says 7/11s are full of Indians! He's friendly even when attacking John McCain! He was great and funny and succinct in primary debates! Sarah Palin will ramble and make no sense and spout talking points and platitudes and Joe Biden will be well-informed and maybe have a couple zingers and a couple crazy unfortunate misstatements and, like the first presidential debate, the punditry will say the Republican won and the viewers will decide which one they want to see on TV for the next four years and go with the Democrat. So calm down, liberals.

Sarah Palin was kind of embarrassed by her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, so she sought out the more comforting company of Secret King of All Hacks Hugh Hewitt for her most recent solo media appearance. Hewitt, who is really indefensibly hacky, interviewed her like a child he was particularly fond of. And she responded like a particularly slow child. Above, the very first question from Hugh and Palin's very first answer. You will not be disappointed in either of them! (Because you should be incapable of disappointment by now, haven't you been paying attention?)

Vice Presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill broke her ankle last night, TVNewser learned. She says she tripped, at home, by herself, down the stairs. Suspicious! Especially because CBS keeps slowly leaking more clips of Sarah Palin babbling nonsense while Katie just stares coldly (but warmly! it's weird) (see attached). Meanwhile, the AP says John McCain has a 1 in 4 chance of dying before the end of his second term (or, to put it another way, "McCain has a health expectancy of 8.4 years). They asked some actuaries. This went out on the wires to everyone, it will probably upset the GOP. Now you are informed about the newest in useless minutia.

Democratic strategist Peter Feld, who recently warned Gawker readers not to underestimate Sarah Palin's visceral appeal, checks in occasionally to rain on your parade. Today he warns against declaring the McCain capaign dead in the water.

So the bailout plan was cock-blocked by the very same House Republicans who John McCain had promised to bring on board in last week's trumped-up "campaign suspension." A cool trillion of investor dollars was wiped out in under half a day. Elsewhere, the now-mortified conservative base has been frantically bailing on Palin. Swing voters — though not some instinctively despondent Obama diehards — declared Obama the debate winner. And Barack Obama hit the magic 50 mark in the two leading tracking polls, Rasmussen and Gallup. So, time for doubters to stop whining about Obama's supposedly cold, passive strategy that's keeping him from "sealing the deal." Right? Maybe. It's certainly looking much better. Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics explains this nicely with charts and statistics, but basically, Obama's support has risen slightly through the two-week financial crisis, after holding steady for months, while McCain's numbers have been bouncing around like bedbugs since June and are now at low ebb. However, his support's gone mostly to undecided, not to Obama. With Barack at just around 50, there is still — barely — room for McCain to bounce back. But wait - wasn't Obama behind? And now he's up by 8? Yes — in some polls, though the RCP average has him up now by 5 points, 48%-43%. But to read these polls better than the press usually does, ignore the margin. The key is to watch the separate Obama and McCain numbers individually. First, Obama. Since locking up the nomination, his numbers have held to a narrow trading range — rarely below 45% or above 48%. He's occasionally flirted with 50%, but until this weekend, never in two trusted polls for several days running. McCain's trading range has generally been a little lower, but more importantly, twice as wide. His volatility is a result of his shaky base — Republicans who don't like him, whether because he's not conservative enough or they think he's too erratic, too old, or whatever. When he rallies them, he's guaranteed about 46%. At his peak, McCain scored 48% after picking Sarah Palin (which then briefly put him ahead of Obama, who was drawing 46% or 47%). But numerous times, he has dipped into the low 40s or even below — down to 36% in several polls last June. My own instinct is that the verdict on McCain's past week is mixed, and that after a debate performance some saw as winning, politically tuned-out swing voters don't yet see him in the same harsh light as, say, Letterman fans. If so, McCain can get himself back to 46% with little trouble and stay alive, as long as Obama is under 50% and there are still enough undecided voters to make up the gap. A solid debate performance, perhaps, or some new stunt like pretending to "rescue" the bailout with provisions that "protect the taxpayers" the House GOP can support (on Thursday night, ideally, to distract from his veeptard's debate performance) — would let McCain bring back his wavering supporters more easily than some Obama supporters realize. Some may reasonably think McCain has already permanently branded himself as a desperate, washed-up gambler holding his campaign together with flypaper and selfishly disrupting delicate negotiations at the exact moment when Americans are begging for a rational grown-up who'll take charge. If that's so, look for Obama's numbers to tip above 50 and stay there — which will mean that McCain has run out of road. Until that happens, I'd keep the irrational exuberance in check. For the time being, I would mentally spot McCain 46% in any poll. Assume that the remaining undecideds could break two to one in his favor (yes, racism's a factor), do the math, and see if that still leaves Obama ahead. Right now, it looks like that's the case.

The New York Times ran a huge (huge!) A1 investigative piece on John McCain and his weird gambling obsession and ties to the Indian Casino industry and Vegas and lobbyists and ten thousand other things yesterday. It was well-reported, historical in focus, and fair. It ran on the front page of the Sunday edition, which reaches almost half a million more readers than the weekday edition. But, you know, no one is talking about it. It didn't really stick! Did anyone read the whole thing? Were there bombshells? Who knows! What happened? The Times sabotaged itself, either intentionally or through ineptitude. Allow us to explain. Times editor Bill Keller complains a lot these days about how no one pays enough attention to the Times and their big stories. He blames the internet and a million competing voices for distracting people from the Important Work of Times journalists. He's sorta right! Gone are the days when the Times set the agenda for the national press. Though the slow death of newspapers across the nation has been beneficial to the Times in one important way: they're the only national paper, effectively. A Times investigation reaches more of the country than a Washington Post investigation. So one would expect a story of this size and seeming heft would make a big splash. But it didn't! Drudge didn't play it up—though as we move closer to the election, he regresses even more to his natural Republican hackdom, so they shouldn't have expected a push from him. And the liberals have no one coherent answer to Drudge, just a million sites trying desperately to push their own often competing agendas. Kos, Talking Points Memo, and the Huffington Post all share an elitist coastal liberal bias and huge audiences, but very different methods of achieving their goals and working the media refs. But on the other hand... the way the Times dropped the story seems self-defeating. Front page of the Sunday edition, sure. But it went online Saturday night. So by the time Monday morning rolls around, it seems ancient, even though no one actually talked about it over the weekend. Furthermore, it came right after a presidential debate, right before a hugely anticipated vice presidential debate, and right in the midst of a gigantic economic crisis and a desperate attempt by Congress to prevent another Great Depression. The Times should've had the story go live online on Thursday night (in time for it to be an issue in the debates!), they should've leaked salient details to Drudge beforehand, or they should've waited until the bailout negotiations collapsed or succeeded. The fact that they did none of those things indicates to us that they didn't actually want this story to blow up. Maybe there's nothing actually to it (though the bit where McCain helped take down Jack Abramoff because he was the competition to McCain's preferred lobbyists seems a bit juicy, right?) or maybe they've actually been cowed by the McCain campaigns attacks on their credibility, or maybe they just don't know what the hell they're doing. Now, for your edification, some interesting bits from the 100-page Times piece on John McCain's gambling addiction:

The talking heads tended to think John McCain won the presidential debate, but what do elitist Beltway observers and political scientists know about such matters? They might have sneered at Obama's epic "I have a bracelet, too!" line, but America thought it was kind of sweet. According to a USA Today/Gallup poll, 46 percent of debate-watchers thought Obama won, versus 34 percent for McCain. At CNN, it was 51 percent for Obama winning the debate vs. 38 percent for McCain. Similar results at CBS. In the election, Rasmussen said Obama led 50 vs. 44 percent in polls taken after the debate. The numbers give you a sense of how the debate might nudge the race, and Politico has more of them, but of course the election is many days and market meltdowns away, and really who knows if America will event exist by November, so try not to care too much.

The talking-head consensus seems to be that John McCain showed authority as the debate turned to foreign policy. But Barack Obama "held his own." I reckon the Democratic candidate-intent on demonstrating his foreign policy knowledge and dropping names of hard-to-pronounce foreign leaders- missed several opportunities to turn the discussion back to the domestic economy and score. When McCain waxed lyrical about the great social and economic progress in Iraq, Obama could have asked him: what about social and economic progress back home? John McCain sounded sometimes as if he were running for president of Iraq, not the United States. A bolder opponent would have exposed that vulnerability. But enough of what I think. What about you?

So here are our hosts for tonight's debate liveblog, the best political team on the web, clockwise from top left:

Thank god John McCain solved the financial crisis! Earlier today his campaign was downplaying the importance of a debate, once again arguing that the fact that Barack Obama refused to do 10 Town Halls with him meant that it was Obama's fault that McCain was ditching tonight's debate, and they even floated the idea that an all-Obama interview/town hall would be illegal. But in the end, they blinked. The debate is on. The "suspended" McCain campaign is un-suspended. McCain's bizarre political "Hail Mary" accomplished nothing, except for pissing off a late night talk show host and maybe helping derail a bipartisan political compromise. The McCain campaign statement, after the jump:

That's why Edward Murrow—famed for his measured wartime broadcasts from London—had such an effect when he took on red-baiting Senator McCarthy. (Here's a scene from Good Night and Good Luck, a movie account of that confrontation.) And it's why Late Show host David Letterman's disillusionment with Republican candidate John McCain, evidenced two nights in a row now, could swing the presidential campaign. "The road to the White House runs through me," joked Letterman on Wednesday night when he berated McCain for suspending his campaign and canceling a planned appearance on the CBS late-night show.

So Barney Frank and Chris Dodd—and some senior Republicans!—hashed out a compromise bailout plan that looked much better than the Paulson plan, and it should pass the House and Senate before the markets open on Monday. Hooray! Except John McCain needs to look like he solved this crisis, so he told Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, to announce that no one agreed to anything and then Bachus added that McCain has his own brand-new plan no one has seen before. So by "solving the crisis" McCain basically torpedoed the bipartisan consensus just as it formed. Barney Frank is all "why didn't Bachus bring this up during our meeting, the fact that John McCain would immediately force him to denounce the plan he just agreed to?" Meanwhile John Boehner has appointed nine ultra-conservative House Republicans to draft a third plan. Ha ha ha...?? The Dodd/Frank plan still might pass. But who knows what Bush will do! We won't debate any of the plans on their merits because what the fuck do we know (except that the Boehner plan will be terrible). Oh and how about those debates? "I'm hopeful that we can. I believe it's very possible if we can get an agreement in time to for me to get to Mississippi but I also asked Senator Obama to go to 10 town halls with me...he refused." That's a rough quote from McCain to the press at 5:30 or so today. He probably thinks he sounds very leader-y and not just petulant. Obama wouldn't debate me then, on my terms, 100 times, so I won't debate him now! Why can't this 100-year-old man GROW UP.

So. That Couric interview? Didn't seem to instill much confidence in anyone that we're dealing with anything other than a stunt that's gone horribly awry, like suspending a campaign to fix the economy. Like, people who thought she was dumb are shocked at just how dumb. (Or incurious, whatever you want to call it! You can't be a complete idiot and be a successful politician in Alaska, after all.) (That was a joke.) So would it maybe alarm you to know that her insane answers to Katie's pretty standard-issue questions were based off of pre-written notes? That's the contention, anyway, of some DailyKos diarist, whose proof is that Palin appears to look down a couple times. If she did have notes, she sounds like she got them from the dumbest kid in class. Honestly, what did these notes say? "MAKE NO SENSE"??

Did you cancel your debate party? Ha, ha, you are a nerd. But wait, un-cancel it! Or, uh, postpone it? Honestly we don't know what to tell you. Yesterday, John McCain "suspended" his "campaign" in order to fix the economy, and as part of that suspension he backed out of tomorrow's scheduled presidential debate. But Obama said the debate is still on! And Ole Miss (they are sponsoring the debate) also said they are going to still sponsor this debate! So... what? They can't reschedule. The TV networks don't want to move their fall schedules around to accommodate John McCain's crazy whims. Further, the event itself is the result of months of planning and involves massive security and making sure the moderator's free that night and getting all the cameras there on time and so on. So, no, they can't just decide to have this another night. Unless, of course, they reschedule the debate to take place the night of, say, the Vice Presidential debate! DON'T DENY US THAT TREAT, JOHN MCCAIN. If McCain Doesn't Show? If John McCain doesn't show up tomorrow, Obama will just have an interview, by himself, with Jim Lehrer, or he'll have a townhall, or both. So. Now that the House and Senate have reached an accord on the historic bailout agreement, McCain is going to maybe have to make a decision of some kind, regarding this debate, lest he look like even more of a fool (seriously, no one but Bill Clinton thinks he looks like anything but a fool). Some people say McCain will probably show up to the debate now, but the man is stubborn and petty (which is why he did this in the first place!). And right now, he's not blinking (they NEVER BLINK at ANYTHING). "There's no deal until there's a deal. We're optimistic but we want to get this thing done," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. Of course, there sorta is a deal, now. But maybe it's not a deal McCain likes! McCain Will Probably Cave So McCain will probably show up tomorrow, to debate Obama. Because if he doesn't it's free airtime for Obama alone. He's painted himself into the stupidest corner ever! Because this plan he had nothing to do with crafting might work, in which case he looks like a grandstanding idiot, or else it will fail (maybe because of Republicans!) and nothing will get done and he'll show up to the debate regardless and he'll look like a grandstanding idiot. Then Sarah Palin will accidentally answer a question again and America will cringe and weep. (Because we are a nation of whingers.)

Honestly it's just sad now. Sarah Palin looks genuinely upset that everyone mocked her for saying she has foreign policy experience because of her state's proximity to Russia. Asked to explain what sort of foreign policy experience that proximity lends her, she says her state is very close to Russia. Katie Couric just smiles politely. The new exclusive clip from the CBS interview with America's Saddest Joke is attached below. Click to view
Watch CBS Videos Online John McCain should be ashamed of himself.

Some shadowy nonprofit is running ads accusing John McCain of having cancer. Which is true and actually maybe relevant (the fact that John McCain will be America's oldest president ever is certainly more relevant than Obama's house party with Mr. Ayers). The groups behind the ads are apparently run by nutty lefty filmmaker Robert Greenwald and Howard Dean's brother, and the ads feature doctors (with stethoscopes and stuff) saying that cancer is really bad and might kill John McCain. As an underhanded dirty smear, it at least has the advantage of being, you know, 100% demonstrably true! But still. The ads fail, miserably, by not pointing out explicitly that should McCain die in office, he'd be replaced by Sarah Palin. That is the scary thing here! No one would care if old man McCain died and was replaced by someone with half a fucking brain. Anyway, controversy!!