I'll admit that naming a mountain after President-elect Obama before he's even sworn in might be a tad over the top. But, it does show the overwhelming enthusiasm and support he is receiving from around the globe and the stark contrast between our new president and the outgoing national embarrassment that is George W. Bush.

The prime minister of Antigua wants to rename the island's highest mountain Mount Obama in honour of the US president-elect.

The prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, announced the plans on Wednesday in a congratulatory letter to Barack Obama.

Antigua's attorney general, Justin Simon, said he would find out if parliament needed to approve the name change. The political analyst Avel Grant said it could draw more tourists to the island. Read on...

As for Dubya? Well, the comedy world is going to miss him, but he's finding out that the rest of the world just isn't that into him:

In less than three months, President-elect Barack Obama will take office and the Bush administration will belong to history. With the president reportedly interested in writing about his White House years, publishers have a suggestion:

Take your time.

"If I were advising President Bush, given how the public feels about him right now, I think patience would probably be something that I would encourage," says Paul Bogaards, executive director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf, which in 2004 released Bill Clinton's million-selling "My Life." Read on...

The corporate media and the right wing blogs have followed The Drudge Report for years, looking for talking points and proper GOP framing for their reporting. As you can see from the above picture, and the headline "Obama Congratulates McCain," it appears Matt Drudge, along with the Republican Party is in complete meltdown.

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McCain flack Michael Goldfarb gets on CNN with Rick Sanchez and starts smearing Barack Obama for allegedly "hanging out" with anti-Semites. Sanchez does the Journalism Thing and actually tries to pin him down. What transpires is both amusing and terribly telling:

Goldfarb: Look, you're missing the point again, Rick. The point is that Barack Obama has a long track record of being around anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American rhetoric.

Sanchez: Can you name one other person besides Khalidi who he hangs around with who is anti-Semitic?

Goldfarb: He pals around with William Ayers who is a domestic terrorist.

Sanchez: No, no. The question I asked you is, Can you name one other person that he hangs around with who is anti-Semitic? Because that's what you said.

Goldfarb: Look, we all know that there are people who Barack Obama has been in hot water ...

Sanchez: Michael, I asked you to name one person. One.

Goldfarb: [Smiles smugly]

Sanchez: You said he hangs around with people who are anti-Semitic. OK, we got Khalidi on the table. Give me number two. Who's the other anti-Semitic person that he hangs around with that we, quote, all know about.

Goldfarb: Rick, we both know who Number Two is. [Silence]

Sanchez: Who?

Goldfarb: [Smiles, says nothing]

Sanchez: Would you tell us?

Goldfarb: No, Rick, I think we all know who we're talking about here.

Sanchez: Somebody who's anti-Semitic who he hangs around with?

Goldfarb: Absolutely.

Sanchez: Well, say it!

Goldfarb: I think we know who we're talking about, Rick.

At this point Sanchez just has to move on and does so.

But it's interesting how right-wing smearmongers work, isn't it? They'll say Obama hangs out with anti-Semites but won't actually name them. This is straight out of the Joe McCarthy Handbook.

Obviously, Goldfarb realized he had gone too far, probably because he knew that bringing up Louis Farrakhan had been ruled out by his superiors for this campaign, and with good reason: It's a completely specious claim and old news to boot.

That dead air told us everything we need to know about Goldfarb's integrity as a source of information and insight, though.

(Photo courtesy The Improper)

Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin has been a treasure trove of highlights. Charges of Socialism, Communism and terrorism on the campaign trail have transformed her into the walking, talking poster child for failed Republican policies and talking points -- not to mention one of the biggest jokes in American political history.

According to the AP's Beth Fouhy, Sarah Palin's attempt at an energy policy speech in front of workers at a solar energy plant in Toledo, Ohio Wednesday didn't go over too well. Gee...I wonder why?

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Wednesday called for a "clean break" from the Bush administration's energy policies, which she says rely too much on importing foreign oil.

Palin spoke after touring Xunlight Corp., one of a handful of solar technology startup companies in Toledo, a struggling industrial city in this swing state. The city's leaders are hoping that the solar companies will create jobs to replace some of those lost by downsizing in the auto industry.

But Palin made only a passing reference to solar power in her speech and instead renewed her call for more drilling in U.S. coastal waters. She repeated her signature anthem, "drill, baby, drill," which seemed to fall a bit flat on the audience at the plant even as it's become a popular chant at her rallies. Read on...

I swear, this is the best Republican circular firing squad evah!

According to Sarah Palin, it was the RNC

According to the RNC, it was the McCain campaign

And Fred Barnes throws consultant Nicole Wallace under the Straight Talk Express and says it was her.

Unsurprisingly, now it's suspected that Nicole Wallace is the "unnamed McCain campaign worker" feeding the media all the stories about the diva-like behavior of Sarah Palin. Rachel Maddow talks about the McCain campaign meltdown:

It is just too schadenfreude-licious

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To hear Brian Williams and Chuck Todd talk, as they did last night on Hardball, you'd think things were perhaps not so peachy these days over at Camp McCain, after they spent the afternoon interviewing John McCain and Sarah Palin together:

Well, Chris, and this something that I -- I wouldn't blame Brian for not wanting to say this, but -- there was a tenseness between -- first of all, between the two -- there's no chemistry. I couldn't see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. It was -- I felt as if we grabbed two people and said, 'Here, sit next to each other, we're going to conduct an interview.'

There wasn't -- they're not -- you know, they're not just ... comfortable with each other, uh, yet. The other thing about it is that you can tell they know that they're losing. They just have -- there's an intensity there, they're drained, the entire campaign staff is drained. The two candidates are guarded, they seem on edge. It's not as if they were rude or anything, it's not as if they weren't trying to be forthcoming, it's just, they seemed -- it's a negative intensity. I don't know how else to describe it.

But you'll see, when you see the two of them together, the chemistry's not all there. You do wonder, is John McCain starting to blame her for things, blaming himself? Is she blaming him? You just wonder what's going on inside their heads. Are they upset with how the other has treated them, and is that why her numbers are low? But whatever it is, it's a negative vibe that you get in that room.

This happens to echo the recent New Yorker piece (which Todd in fact cites a little later in the discussion), which described how much McCain wanted to name his favorite fellow Mavericky Senator, Holy Joe Lieberman himself, and as many of us suspected, strongly preferred Joe as his running mate:

By the spring, the McCain campaign had reportedly sent scouts to Alaska to start vetting Palin as a possible running mate. A week or so before McCain named her, however, sources close to the campaign say, McCain was intent on naming his fellow-senator Joe Lieberman, an independent, who left the Democratic Party in 2006. David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, who is close to a number of McCain’s top aides, told me that “McCain and Lindsey Graham”—the South Carolina senator, who has been McCain’s closest campaign companion—“really wanted Joe.” But Keene believed that “McCain was scared off” in the final days, after warnings from his advisers that choosing Lieberman would ignite a contentious floor fight at the Convention, as social conservatives revolted against Lieberman for being, among other things, pro-choice.

“They took it away from him,” a longtime friend of McCain—who asked not to be identified, since the campaign has declined to discuss its selection process—said of the advisers. “He was furious. He was pissed. It wasn’t what he wanted.” Another friend disputed this, characterizing McCain’s mood as one of “understanding resignation.”

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We are witnessing the implosion of the the modern day, Bush/McCain/Rove Republican Party. With William Kristol feuding with the McCain campaign, and Kathleen Parker receiving death threats for truthfully stating that Sarah Palin was in over her head, we now find William F. Buckley's son Christopher is the latest victim of GOP rage. Bloodied and brutalized for endorsing Barack Obama, Buckley has come to the realization that today's GOP has been rejected by America and that it barely resembles the party he has always known. From the New York Times:

Christopher Buckley, the author and son of the late conservative mainstay William F. Buckley, said in a telephone interview that he has resigned from the National Review, the political journal his father founded in 1955.

Mr. Buckley said he had “been effectively fatwahed by the conservative movement” after endorsing Barack Obama in a blog posting on TheDailyBeast.com; since then, he said he has been blanketed with hate mail at the blog and at the National Review, where he has written a column.

Mr. Buckley said he did not understand the sense of betrayal that some of his conservative colleagues felt, but said that the fury and ugly comments his endorsement generated is “part of the calcification of modern discourse. It’s so angry.” Quoting Ronald Reagan, he added, “I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.” Read on...

If there's one thing the hot headed Senator from Arizona won't let stand, it's being called (and proven to be) a coward. McCain can't let the Ayers issue go because his ego and temper won't allow him. If I were advising him, I would tell him to stay clear of Ayers. But as someone who wants to see his campaign go down in flames for the good of the country, I think he should go full steam ahead -- the polls show this is a losing issue for him and playing the Ayers card at the third and final debate could seal the deal for Obama:

John McCain said Tuesday that Barack Obama is “probably ensured” that his association with 1960s radical William Ayers will come up in Wednesday’s debate.

“I was astonished to hear him say that he was surprised that I didn’t have the guts” to bring up Ayers, McCain said on KMOX, a St. Louis radio station.

“I think he is probably ensured that it will come up this time.”

As for Obama? Cool as the other side of the pillow:

“I am surprised that, you know, we've been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn't willing to say it to my face,” Obama said. “But I guess we've got one last debate. So presumably, if he ends up feeling that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate.” Read on...

From Brandon Friedman at Vet Voice:

When the non-partisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) released their newest Congressional Report Card, they gave John McCain a "D." It's because--as we've shown--he votes against veterans. Amusingly enough, it seems the pro-Bush/McCain group, Vets for Freedom, got their feelings hurt over this. And they felt they had to do something.

That's why, today, Vets for Freedom issued a skewed response to IAVA's Report Card in the form of a "Senate Analysis." In their "analysis," they graded each U.S. senator in a similar fashion, awarding grades of "A" through "F." Amazingly enough, VFF gave every single Democratic senator a grade of "F." Go figure. I'm sure their Republican membership will be pleased. But given the situation in which they found themselves (with IAVA and VoteVets on cable TV slamming both McCain's grade and his lack of support for veterans), I guess it's to be expected. I don't hold that against them. Read on...

Of course, this is a transparent, politically motivated joke. This neocon-backed group gave failing grades to the likes of Chuck Hagel and Jim Webb, both decorated war veterans and co-sponsors of the recent Webb-Hagel-Lautenberg-Warner GI Bill (the one McCain opposed)-- but it shouldn't come as a surprise. McCain backers Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham were on the board of "Vets For Freedom," but were forced to resign their positions because it violated federal election law.

CNN:

Joe Biden Thursday night told Sarah Palin not to lecture him on patriotism, after weeks of attacks mocking him for his statement the wealthy should be patriotic and pay higher taxes because not enough has been asked of them.

"Sarah Palin had great fun saying Joe Biden thinks paying taxes is patriotic. Well, let me tell you what Joe Biden thinks," the Delaware senator said at an outdoor rally. "Joe Biden thinks that anybody who takes millions of dollars offshore to avoid paying their fair share is unpatriotic."

"That is not patriotic and it will stop, it will stop in an Obama-Biden administration! Enough! I've had it up to here! Don't lecture me on patriotism," shouted Biden, getting drowned out by the applause of his supporters. "I'm dead tired of being taken advantage of. I'm getting tired of it."

During tonight's Presidential Debate Senator John McCain made the claim that he "warned" about the impending economic crisis. That's amazing, seeing as he said in 2007 that he was in fact surprised by it and failed to predict the disaster he, President Bush and the GOP brought upon America. Think Progress has the video and more:

I don’t know of hardly anybody, with the exception of a handful, that said “wait a minute, this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating.” So, I’d like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not.

Obama nails him in tonight's debate:

Obama: Now I've got to correct a little bit of Senator McCain's history, not surprisingly, but let's first of all understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system. Senator McCain as recently as March bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator. On the other hand two years ago I said we've got a subprime lending crisis that has to be dealt with, I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and told them this is something we have to deal with and nobody did anything about it. A year ago I went to Wall Street and told them we have to re-regulate, and nothing happened.

I don't want to tempt fate, but things are looking pretty bad for the GOP in the coming elections.

For instance, Al Franken looks like he's giving incumbent Republican Norm Coleman nightmares in Minnesota. He's ahead by 43 to 34 percent in the latest poll there, published Saturday by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. The new poll suggests that one reason for Franken’s gain is voters’ reaction to the abrasive advertising in the campaign. The Independence Party candidate, Dean Barkley, is also drawing support from Coleman says the poll.

And there's more good news both for Dems looking at voter registration as a way to tip the scales in November, as well as for third party aficionados.

The poll detected a significant increase in Minnesotans who label themselves as Democrats. Forty-two percent of likely voters identified themselves as Democrats, compared with 27 percent who said they were independents, and 26 percent who said they were Republicans.

According to the poll, Coleman’s support has slid among men and those in upper- and lower-income brackets. Last month, Coleman led Franken among men, 46 to 36 percent; in the recent poll Franken is ahead, 45 to 34 percent.

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The Obama campaign has already released an ad using footage from last night's VP debate and they've scored another direct hit.

The ad targets Sarah Palin from last night's debate as she proudly announced John McCain's disastrous health care plan that allows a $5000 tax credit for Americans to purchase health care -- and then strikes right back with Joe Biden's brilliant response, reminding people that in order to offset the credit McCain's plan would tax American's health insurance premiums for the first time in American history. The ULTIMATE bridge to nowhere.  Brilliant! (h/t Jamie)