* Rebecca Traister (Salon): I feel sorry for women who have to live with what Palin and her running mate have wrought.

Rebecca Traister writes at salon.com (thanks to BRIDGET for sending the link) …

• Everyone seems to be oozing sympathy for the fumbling vice-presidential nominee. Please. Cry me a freaking river.
• What Palin did was move forward thoughtlessly and overconfidently, without considering that her abilities or qualifications would ever be questioned.
  • Sarah Palin is a politician who took the national stage and sneered at the work of community activists.
  • When you don’t take your own career and reputation seriously enough to pause before striding onto a national stage and lying about your record of opposing a Bridge to Nowhere, I don’t feel bad for you.
  • When you don’t have enough regard for your country or its politics to cram effectively for the test that helps determine whether or not you get to run that country and participate in its politics — I don’t feel bad for you.
  • When your project is reliant on gaining the support of women whose reproductive rights you would limit, whose access to birth control and sex education you would curtail, whose healthcare options you would decrease, I don’t feel bad for you.
• Palin is tough as nails. So, no, I don’t feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for women who have to live with what she and her running mate have wrought.

Read the entire article at … http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/30/palin_pity/

* NYT editorial: House Republicans, prodded by McCain, gave Americans nothing

An editorial in today’s NYT says …

• After nearly eight years of voting in virtual lock step with President Bush on everything from tax cuts to torture, House Republicans decided on Monday to break ranks on the survival of the nation’s financial system.
• Republican no votes were rooted less in analysis or principle than in political posturing andideological rigidity. 
• Republicans were also upset that serial bailouts represent a rejection of free-market principles. They do. That’s because the free market in finance, unregulated and unsupervised, has failed. 
• the imperfections in the failed bill are the result of a democratic process that can be rethought, revisited and reworked. 
• It is better than nothing, which is what some backward-looking House Republicans gave Americans on Monday.

LMW COMMENT:  John McCain frantically sought to swoop into Washington to bring House Republicans into line in support of the bailout bill. He failed. Barack Obama has remained calm while he respected and supported the legislative process among both Democrats and Republicans, demonstrating the Presidential ability to work for compromise that neither George W. Bush nor John McCain, with their confrontational ways, can match, even within their own party. I suspect that Obama’s less confrontational leadership will ultimately prove successful.

                           

* LMW: the recent litany of John McCain flip-flops; this man is a lier who will say anything to get elected

LMW COMMENT: We’d better ask John McCain every day what he thinks about the financial meltdown, since he changes his position every day, from “I consider myself a de-regulator,” to “the economy is fundamentally sound,” to “the economy is in crisis,” to “I’m suspending my campaign,” to “I won’t debate unless there’s a deal on the bailout package,” to taking credit for the House Republican member’s support of the bailout package (until they didn’t), to “It’s Barack Obama’s fault.” John McCain has lost all sense of his guiding principles, as he desperately veers hither and yon putting his victory ahead of country every time, including most obviously the bizarre choice of the unsuited Sarah Palin.

* Bob Herbert (NYT): How does self-proclaimed “de-regulator” John McCain explain himself today?

Bob Herbert writes in today’s NYT …

• George W. Bush, along with his irresponsible Republican colleagues (including John McCain) and their running buddies in the corporate and financial sectors, put the entire economy in danger.
• George H.W. Bush warned us about “voodoo economics” in 1980, but the ideologues clamped a gag on him and put him on the Gipper’s ticket.
• These madmen of the right were freed of their remaining few restraints with the ascendance of George W. Bush in 2000.
  • These were the reckless clowns who led us into the foolish multitrillion-dollar debacle in Iraq
  • and who crafted tax policies that enormously benefited millionaires and billionaires while at the same time ran up staggering amounts of government debt.
  • This is the crowd that contributed mightily to the greatest disparities in wealth in the U.S. since the gilded age.
  • This was the crowd that cut the cords of corporate and financial regulations and in myriad other ways gleefully hacked away at the best interests of the United States.
• Now we’re looking into the abyss.
• It’s fair to ask Senator McCain whether he still considers himself a conservative, small government, anti-regulation, free-market zealot. Or whether he’s seen the light.

Read Bob Herbert’s entire column at … http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/opinion/30herbert.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

* Lupica: John McCain can’t hide his Sarah Palin problem

Mike Lupica writes in today’s Daily News …

• John McCain “suspended” his campaign last week because he said he needed to fly down to Washington and save a failing economy all by himself.
  • McCain was doing the opposite, of course, wasn’t suspending anything, just campaigning harder than ever, trying to figure out a way to bail out his own campaign.
  • And this was only the second great publicity stunt of McCain’s campaign. The first was the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
• Except now McCain can’t hide Palin anymore.
  • He couldn’t hide her from Katie Couric last week and he can’t hide her on Thursday night at the vice presidential debate, even if the bar for Palin will be set lower than the curb in St. Louis.
  • There will be those who declare her a winner on Thursday night in St. Louis if she remains standing.
  • Sen. Joe Biden will be called out for bullying her or patronizing her if he comes close to breaking arbitrary rules that would never be set up for a male candidate running against him.
  • It won’t change what she is and has been from the start, which means a prop.
  • She will leave the stage Thursday night, having hurt McCain as much as she helped him at the beginning.
• Then the stage will belong to McCain and Obama, and they will talk about the economy and how they plan to fix it, and McCain will continue to talk about his experience and being a war hero, and Obama will try to show he is smart enough to have a real foreign policy and tough enough to enforce it.
• And then the campaign will finally become what it has really been about all along: race. It will be about how many people are going to vote for the black guy on Nov. 4.

To read the entire article, click … http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/09/28/2008-09-28_john_mccain_cant_hide_his_sarah_palin_pr-3.html

* Fineman (MSNBC): Bailout ushers in the era of Obama

Howard Fineman writes on MSNBC …

• The era of cowboy capitalism has died, largely of self-inflicted wounds.
• A new era of tight business regulation and government intervention in the markets (has begun).
• the conservative era in America, which began with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, (has) ended.
• Wall Street and Washington (especially the hacks at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) produced, in addition to colossal profits, a farrago of greed unseen since the Roaring Twenties
• Obama does represent something new — or, rather, something old that is new again.
  • He believes it is the role of government to help people and regulate the markets.
  • He is a lawyer by training, and believes in the use of the law (and the courts) for the common good.
• McCain is desperately trying to show that he, too, is willing to blame Republicans, but the more he does so the deeper he digs himself into a hole.
• It’s no coincidence that Obama now has his biggest lead in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. Watch and see what happens now.

LMW COMMENT: Isn’t it lovely that America will now (Thursday night’s debate) have the opportunity to see for themselves how injudicious and insulting was John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin to sit a “72 year old heartbeat” away from being President of the United States. That prospect, in light of what is so clearly needed to deal with the complexities that face us, is so repugnant that only the most ideologically committed Republicans can fail to see it.

To read the entire article, click … http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26933982/

* Penn: the financial crisis demonstrates the need for calm, intelligent leadership

Mark Penn writes in Politico …

• The financial crisis has redefined the presidential race, bringing into stark relief the candidate who can deal with the complexities of the global markets and return the country to prosperity over the next four years.
• The race is no longer about change, experience, Iraq, tax cuts or universal health care. The job posting has been fundamentally altered.
• This economic crisis shifts everything once again — this time to Democratic standard-bearer Barack Obama.
• With a sophisticated global economic crisis, the voters would be looking for nuance and mutual cooperation, someone who would reach out to the nation’s economic partners.

LMW COMMENT: Mark Penn is saying the same things I said in my comment to the prior article; naturally I agree. The only obstacles in the path of an Obama victory are the latent racism that may keep many white voters away, and the Republican ability to re-focus voters on the social conservative issues that some voters think are the most important issues of our time. I expect that the financial collapse will mitigate both of these factors as more voters come to understand that we really need intelligent and articulate leadership. Obama’s best strategy turns out to be the one he has been following: to demonstrate by his demeanor and words the calm, intelligent leadership he offers. Voters cannot help but see the contrast between this and the angry impetuous bombast of John McCain and the utterly incoherent world philosophy of Sara Palin.

Read the entire article at … http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/14079.html

* Brooks: the economic complexities of our time require intelligent, articulate Presidential leadership, not obsolete Republican ideological rigidity

David Brooks writes in today’s NYT …

• House Republicans led the way (to defeat the bailout package) and will get most of the blame.
• House Republicans believe in free-market principles. What’s sad is that they still think it’s 1984. They seem not to have noticed how global capital flows have transformed our political economy.
• We’re living in an age when a vast excess of capital sloshes around the world fueling cycles of bubble and bust. When the capital floods into a sector or economy, it washes away sober business practices, and habits of discipline and self-denial. Then the money managers panic and it sloshes out, punishing the just and unjust alike.

LMW COMMENT: House Republicans, some Democrats, and a substantial portion of our voting population simply do not understand the complexities, risks and opportunities of the global economy. We need what is obviously so lacking in Washington today: political leadership which is intelligent enough to understand what is going on and articulate enough to explain, teach and lead America into its risky future. What is not needed is ideological rigidity that cannot understand and deal with the facts on the ground. When voters compare the two tickets versus the requirements of guiding our country into unchartered territory, it seems to me they will reject the rigidity, bluster, and anti-intellectual fervor of McCain-Palin in favor of the breadth of understanding and competence offered by Obama-Biden. At this time in our national lives, we really do need the smartest politicians we can elect.

Read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/opinion/30brooks.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

* Wall Street Journal: McCain debate coach will try to “undo” what others have been telling Sarah Palin

 

Monica Langley writes in the Wall Street Journal (thanks to KARIN for the link) …

• The McCain campaign moved its top officials inside Gov. Sarah Palin’s operation Sunday to prepare for her debate on Thursday with Democrat Joe Biden.
• The campaign is sending in Sen. McCain’s debate coach, Brett O’Donnell, to help with her preparation. Mr. O’Donnell now needs to “undo” much of her previous debate prep, which has resulted in occasional “rote” responses, one adviser said.
• The moves follow several shaky performances by Gov. Palin last week.
• in recent days, Gov. Palin flubbed quasi-mock debates in New York City and Philadelphia, some operatives said. Finger-pointing began, and then intensified after her faltering interview with CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric.
• Last week, nearly half the respondents in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said Sarah Palin is unqualified to be president

Read the entire article at … http://wsj.com/article/SB122265784614384667.html

 

 

* Newsweek: McCain swoops and veers; Obama remains unruffled

Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas write in NEWSWEEK …

• McCain may have figured he had nothing to lose by plunging in. As Sarah Palin mangled her canned answers to Katie Couric and showed up on YouTube submitting to anti-witchcraft ministrations from a Pentecostal pastor, McCain was rapidly losing his post-convention bounce.
• Watching McCain swoop and veer over the past two weeks has been enough to induce vertigo, even among his admirers.
• Obama kept his statements about the crisis measured, citing principles that should be taken into account in any bailout package but not offering a grand explanation for why one was needed. Throughout, he was quietly talking to Hank Paulson on a daily basis and grew to like Bush’s Treasury secretary so much that he told CNBC he was thinking of keeping him on for at least a transition period.
• McCain took no position at the (White House) meeting.
• Obama peppered Paulson with questions.
• In the Friday-night debate, Obama was cool but to the point and unruffled when McCain condescended to him as naive and callow. McCain was more emotional and personal, but his jokes fell flat.
• The candidates were encouraged to address each other directly, but only Obama did, and the effect was to make McCain look like the standoffish one.

 

Read the entire article at … http://www.newsweek.com/id/161325