It's a big mistake to discount Palin tonight. Yeah, she's appeared as an ill-prepared, out of her league wannabe in the Couric interview, but the format of tonight's debate definitely favors her strong points--90 second responses, sitting down, etc. and the McCain campaign has been in overdrive to manage expectations no matter her performance

The word from the DNC is that they have prepped her to go nasty. That's a warning for Biden, who--if he falls in the trap--could damage himself by appearing to be patronizing or too aggressive towards her.

But this could be a make or break moment for the slowly slipping McCain campaign. As Howard Fineman says on today's Hardball, Palin's performance tonight will reflect McCain's judgment:

Red Room: This is your nation on white privilege

Alas, a blog: So McCain is the candidate with the foreign policy experience ready to lead on day one. But he doesn't know who the leader of Spain is.

earthfamilyalpha: The final slipper falls

American Street: The SUPER Deregulator of Reform arrives to save the day. Word On The Street tour
needs your help!

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Women Against Sarah Palin, The Grey Matter, Things I've Figured Out, Bob Broughton

HOLY CRAP: Poll shows support for torture among Southern evangelicals...Faith of the Abomination...Values Voters Summit...Those wacky Muslims...Christian music superstar comes out...In other News...Tackling masturbation. Here's the modern solution, and here's the Biblical solution...Worldnutdaily: World to End in 2013...Bishops vs. Catholic politicians...The pastor who clashed with Palin...Fundies say the darndest things...The No Sin Zone...Pray for Pipeline...The politicized pulpit...GOP subpoenas God...Sarah Palin's Hard Rain...

Guest hosted by Blue Gal (I'll be here all week, send me tips, but don't try the veal.)

Susie Bright (nsfw): The most expensive birth control in the world, and why is it so cheap in Houston?

The Aristocrats: Signs you have too many houses.

CJSD: First Veep Possibility to answer the phone at 3am wins!

Eh? The Canadians are making fun of our turning small Iowa towns into open air prisons. (h/t Existentialist
Cowboy)

There is a conference this weekend in New Orleans on The Future of New Orleans including a blogger meet up tonight. No word on whether you'll be able to receive text messages at the conference. (On the Obama text msg. topic, Sef leaves the best. comment. ever.)

What would you call it when a person was juiced for 37 seconds?

One word comes to mind and I think it would put a smile on John Yoo's face.

Prometheus 6: This is pure evil and McCain will love it!

FP Passport: Europe is Obama country

The Cunning Realist: Growing Gills

Threat Level: Anti-Robocall crusader pushes for a crackdown on political phone droids

Each week until the election the producers of Uncounted - The New Math of American Elections, will release a clip from the film because now, more than ever, people need to see stories that will motivate them to stand up and help save our democracy.

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: The Hacktacular Mickey Kaus...The History Commons - an online tool for journalists...Austin paper pulls, apologizes for, article on Netroots...Obama (and Big Media) turn a blind eye to Israeli apartheid...Pre-programmed ideological idiots continue to be welcomed on WaPo op-ed page...Usury is quaint...He's exotic, dammit...MSNBC prez on Fox "You can't trust a word they say"...McCain's bid should've ended last week...The decline of newspapers is about the rise of the corporate state, the loss of civic reponsibility to inform the public...Stephanopoulos also hacktacular...Nas delivers...He wants journalism, but journalism doesn't want him...The year the L.A. Times died...What traditional media can learn from blogs...Israelis accused of abusing journalist...

• Want to help send Karl Rove to jail? Well watch this and sign the petition.

• Take the Pew News IQ Test and post your score. Also notice that while 84% know Oprah campaigned for Obama, only 28% know that over 4000 American soldiers have died in Iraq. Good job, media!

• Yesterdays fundraising appeal for Sean Tevis was a great success. He reached his goal in just 37 hours...and it's still going.

• Pathetic excuse for a human being Michael Savage on autism: "A fraud, a racket. ... In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out."

• Remember all the fauxtrage from the McCain campaign after Gramm's "Americans are whiners" comments? Well, it look like McCain has gotten over it, because he's keeping Gramm around.

• Netroots Nation tries to label FOX as "opinion news."

• McCain's Media™ withholds favorable Obama polls.

• After word magically "leaks" out that Jesse Jackson said more than "nuts," O'Reilly threatens to waterboard his staff to get to the "truth."

• Even though McCain thinks Social Security is a "disgrace," that's not gonna stop him from cashin' in those checks.

• Michael Chertoff has a message for you: I'm trying my best, but you still may die.

Stop me if you've heard this one...

A lesser-known candidate attracts a small following of dedicated supporters by the promise of being different than your usual Washington DC elected officials. Taking advantage of these supporters' talent in getting the word out over the internet, scheduling meetups of other potential supporters, raising funds and generally building up a wave of enthusiasm that carries the candidate to national prominence, that same candidate starts taking on the trappings of traditional politicians-consultants, pollsters, campaign managers from inside the Beltway-and slowly, but heartbreakingly surely, the candidate moves away from those netroots supporters that got him where he was.

Sound like anyone you know?

Well, to Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox, authors of Netroots Rising: How A Citizen Army Of Bloggers And Online Activists Is Changing American Politics this is altogether too familiar a story. Lowell and Nate are veterans of several netroots campaigns, such as Wesley Clark, Jim Webb, Tim Kaine, and Mark Warner. Netroots Rising documents instance after instance where candidates are profoundly grateful for the support and work of the netroots only to distance himself after surrounded by those desperate not to change the status quo of the power circles.
I am hosting the Book Salon discussing Netroots Rising at Firedoglake starting now 5:00 pm Eastern/2:00 pm Pacific. Come join us and let's discuss the growing power of the netroots and how we can get our voices heard.

Auto-correct can be a very helpful feature of any word-processing program. But when conservatives use it, they run the risk of embarrassing themselves.

The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website, for example, takes its AP articles and replaces the word “gay” with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.

The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.

That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.” The headline on the piece read, “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.” Readers learned:

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.

Continue reading »

Unbelievable. Wesley Clark just destroys the media narrative that being a prisoner of war is somehow the "experience" necessary to be Commander in Chief, much to the dumbfounding of host Bob Schieffer. It's a fantastic appearance--much like this earlier one that Jesse at GroupNews recounts:

The media simply couldn't argue the POINT, which Clark made clear without saying word one directly about them to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, that they have been lazy goof offs who are brutally biased for McCain, against Obama, and are not doing their damn jobs. Or they would already have reported this obviously well-grounded assessment/interpretation about McCain's national security ability -- "Largely Untested and Untried" -- over which Clark was taking them to school. They couldn't argue the actual point. It was that clear, that obvious, that elegant a takedown. In effect, Clark's hit on McCain took out two targets with one shot.

So how does CNN characterize this tête-à-tête? That Wesley Clark was SWIFTBOATING John McCain!

Rick Sanchez's lead-in to his next segment just now on CNN:

"Wesley Clark tried to Swiftboat John McCain today."

I'm liveblogging. He goes on to say:

"It will reverberate for weeks. Wes Clark tried to diss McCain's military record, that his service doesn't qualify him to be president."

Rick Sanchez is mad.

No, not mad...just a huge partisan hack. Now that "swift-boating" has entered the vernacular, let us remember that the original SwiftBoat Veterans for "Truth" were for the most part neither in their hope to take down Kerry's candidacy. Has Wesley Clark in some way made any untrue allegations in saying that being a POW and a non-combat era fighter pilot does not necessarily qualify you for the highest elected office in the land?

Iraq veteran and political activist Rafael Noboa adds his 2 cents here.

While talking about RNC Chairman Mike Duncan's promise to go negative on Barack Obama Thursday night on "Verdict," conservative dinosaur Pat Buchanan made the astute observation that the GOP's only shot at winning this year is to trash Obama for his "associations" with controversial figures, and raise doubts among the electorate about choosing an "exotic" (code word for black) guy. Luckily, Tanya Acker was there to call him out on it right away and make him look like the racist "exotic" fool that he is. Buchanan's stammering definition of exotic is equally as absurd.

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Buchanan: The only way the Republicans can win this -- when everyone wants to throw the Republicans out -- is to raise questions, raise doubts about the alternative. They're gonna use his associations, and they're gonna use his statements, his elitism, they're gonna use the fact that hes exotic. That's what's gonna happen.

Acker: Exotic? What does exotic mean? Is exotic code for black? I dont understand what exotic means.

It's pretty fascinating to watch someone like Pat Buchanan opine on the 2008 Presidential race with Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee. It's almost seems at times like Pat is living in a different country, in a different era. One which doesn't resemble 21st century America, and one in which he undoubtedly would feel more comfortable.