Some good points, but the part I liked the best was your coinage of the term, "ravelation," which seems particularly appropos when applied to Palin and the McCain campaign in general. (It must have been a Freudian typo.)

rav·el (rvl) v. rav·eled also rav·elled, rav·el·ing also rav·el·ling, rav·els also rav·els v.tr. 1. To separate the fibers or threads of (cloth, for example); unravel. 2. To clarify by separating the aspects of. 3. To tangle or complicate.

Posted at October 8, 2008 11:30 AM in response to pssst (between us feminists)

Now that we've actually had the debate, your points were proven true, John. McCain apparently preferred the town hall format because he just never realized that the reason the town halls felt so good to him was that the pre-selected audience was as a matter of course going to laugh at all his jokes and feed him easy questions. Last night's debate was different - not what he expected. His jokes fell flat and the questions weren't so easy to answer.

I think he was surprised that things didn't go as he expected and that Obama was clearly quite comfortable with the town hall format. That may be why he and Cindy took off so quickly when the debate was done. Kinda sad, actually...

Posted at October 8, 2008 10:55 AM in response to Debunking McCain's Town Hall Advantage

Whoops...here's the link:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/mccain

Posted at October 6, 2008 6:47 PM in response to Sarah Palin: The Drive-By Accuser

I'm happy to recommend your post, too, Jan. There's something very jarring about Palin, a newcomer to the national politics with a whole lot of shady stuff in her own background, attacking Obama. But let's not forget McCain himself in all this. Check out this archive of McCain articles on the Phoenix New Times website (the newspaper is associated with the Village Voice). It's a virtual treasure trove of McCain dirt, going back several decades, to nearly the very beginning of McCain's political career.

There's enough for a multitude of blog posts in there, but I don't have time to write any right now. Please circulate the link.

And while I'm at it, I happen to think since Palin's a Christian, that someone ought to remind her of Matthew 7:1-5.

Posted at October 6, 2008 6:13 PM in response to Sarah Palin: The Drive-By Accuser

A lot of people have criticized Ifill for her soft-pedaled moderation, but apparently don't realize that the rules said she couldn't ask follow up questions. Really, when you think about it, what Ifill did was to give Palin enough rope and Palin went on to hang herself. The McCain campaign has been crowing over the Palin performance but Palin was unlikely to have reached the independence. (And did you hear McCain literally squawking over Palin when he introduced her today - it had the sound of thinly veiled desperation about it.)

I've read that Palin's comment - that she had decided simply not to answer some of Ifill's questions - although the RW base probably loved it, didn't go over so well with moderates. And maybe she not only doesn't know much about foreign policy, but also doesn't know what an "achilles heel" is. I think Ifill's questions, although seemingly soft, really exposed who was being straight with the viewers and who was just BSing.

I watched CNN and they had the graph of how their panel of independents were reacting. Although sometimes they seemed to respond positively when Palin went into what Andrew Halcro calls her "glittering generalities," often they didn't seem to be buying it. And the panel overwhelmingly voted afterward that Biden was the winner.

Maybe Ifill was a lot smarter than some of the pundits have given her credit for.

(Biden really did shine - I don't think he could have done better.)

Posted at October 4, 2008 1:12 AM in response to Tonight's debate winner...

I pretty much agree with the basic analysis, but whether she intended to or not, Ifill did the Dems a favor by soft-balling it. If she hadn't, all we'd be hearing about is how unfairly Palin was treated. The way she handled it co-opted the McCain pre-emptive strategy of making it all about the moderator in anticipation of Palin doing poorly.

Posted at October 3, 2008 1:00 PM in response to Biden Won. Does It Matter?

Biden certainly did win, because he made a forceful case against McCain, but also simply because he answered the questions. Tonight, Palin applied for a job with us, the American people. Can you imagine if a job applicant in her first employment interview refused to answer the questions asked of her but instead chose to answer entirely different (unasked) questions of her own choosing? By such an arrogant and self-serving approach to the debate, she simply proved (and hopefully reminded the viewing audience) how alike she and Bush are. Can't you imagine him pulling the same stunt?

Even though it was an extremely difficult situation that didn't play to Biden's natural strengths as a debater, as he couldn't be seen to be going after Palin too much, he did an excellent job. It would have been so easy to slip up, but he hit all the right notes; his performance surely showed that he really does have tremendous discipline. I was so proud of him. Thank you, Joe!

Posted at October 3, 2008 11:10 AM in response to Biden Won, Because He Made Forceful Case Against McCain

I'm writing this as a person without much in-depth knowledge of the markets, or understanding of how the bill will actually work, so consequently I have more questions than answers.

I'm wondering why the Congress gave Paulson so much latitude. Are there other important (to the American people, that is, not to the Wall Street guys per se) goals being served by doing it that way? I mean, in order to achieve the things that will create the liquidity that will prevent another depression, does the Treasury Secretary need the ability to move quickly, with no worries by investors that he might be second guessed? In other words, is part of the reason for the wide latitude given to Paulson merely psychological? I myself am only guessing that might be a reason why the bill was structured as it was.

My understanding of markets and how they operate is so limited that I hesitate to venture an opinion, but it sure does seem to me that Paulson is still left with an awful lot of personal discretion. Do the oversight measures really have enough bite?

And what about the excessive speculation that did so much to create the problem in the first place? Is there anything in the bill to permanently rein the worst of that in? Is anyone thinking about how to moderate the market so that we won't keep experiencing these boom-bust cycles in the future? If not, why not? Don't we need to do something akin to the "trust-busting" of Theodore Roosevelt's time in order to reduce the size of these huge financial giants so that a failure or stumble of just one doesn't spread throughout the entire economy?

Posted at September 29, 2008 1:03 PM in response to Bailout -- Part 3, The Legislation

He suspended it before not suspending it.

(I really can't take credit for that - I saw it on another site, written by df1. It's perfect.)

Posted at September 25, 2008 12:23 PM in response to Despite "Suspension" Of Campaign, Two McCain Advisers Attacked Obama Today

Hey, the link to the page with the plan itself now says "File Not Found."

Posted at September 24, 2008 8:59 PM in response to House Dems' Bailout Plan