Can it be true that the media now don't have Sarah Palin to kick around? At least not Governor Palin. She's officially outta there. Some of her final tweets were ridiculous.

Last state twitter. Thank you Alaska! I love you. God bless Alaska....

So it's, I love you, but it's best that I leave you. That's just like a bad break-up. ("It's not you, Alaska, the problem is me....") And there was this one:

W/ kids in camper...AK is BIG/WILD/GOOD LIFE;feel freedom here

As if Palin had gone Kerouac or Merry Prankster: drop out, work is for suckers.

In any event, it seems doubtful Plain will really be gone--as in silent. As she writes--or oversees the ghostwriting of--her book, she'll certainly make various pronouncements that can fuel cable chat about her and her possible presidential ambitions. She might campaign for GOP candidates, if she can find one or two who will accept her assistance.

I wonder if she will continue to be an anti-media crusader. Bashing the elite press used to have a lot of salience with the world of conservatives and Republicans. Jesse Helms went after CBS News (and Dan Rather) for years. These days, though, the elite media just ain't what they used to be. Can anyone argue with a straight face that the United States will lose the war in Afghanistan because of how CBS reports on the war? (Much of the conservative case against the media in the 1970s and 1980s flowed from the notion that the lilly-liver liberals in the media undermined the US military effort in Vietnam.) But suggesting today that CBS News's reports on Afghanistan will affect the outcome would probably get you laughs in most quarters. (Sorry, Walter Cronkite. RIP.)

The big media has lost power and influence, and it's not the foil it once was. Palin's anti-media rants will win over those conservatives who believe that Fox News is the only accurate depiction of reality. There are millions who fall into this category, but it's not an expanding slice of the population. And it's not likely sizeable enough to support a national political effort.

Meanwhile, there surely are Paliniacs who will stand by her. Look at this message put out by TeamSarah.org:

"Sarah Palin has always been an intensely independent woman-- always true to her faith, her family and call to public service. She has provided women with a new political role model, offering a positive example of grace and poise as she deflected the barrage of baseless personal attacks on her family," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Her entrance onto the public stage has attracted massive numbers of Americans new to the political process. We have every confidence she will have an equal and profound impact in whatever projects she undertakes as a private citizen."

True to her "call to public service." Didn't she just bail on public service? The statement continues:

"Team Sarah members anxiously await Palin's next decision on how she believes she can best serve our nation. Governor Sarah Palin is the real deal. She is smart; she is articulate; she is strong; she is compassionate and she walks the talk. I believe the ongoing personal attacks on both Governor Palin and her family indicate that she remains a real threat to the liberal feminist political establishment," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Jane Abraham. "Despite the criticism, Governor Palin's success will endure. Team Sarah's thousands of members remain as engaged as ever on TeamSarah.org. The Governor has inspired millions, and her audience of enthusiastic support will only grow in the future."

Yes, when the economy is on its knees, the climate is changing, two wars are waging, and the health care system is sick, the most important job for Palin is to destroy "the liberal feminist political establishment." If Palin plays to this political crowd, she'll make a ton of money--books, speeches, the like--but her political career will be deader than it is at the moment.

*****
THE COWBOYS OF KABUL. Reporter Dan Schulman, my colleague at Mother Jones, has a kick-ass story out about two Texan grandparents who went from bankruptcy to raking in millions as contractors in Afghanistan. There was one little problem, though. According to the US government, they did so by fraud, using phony receipts and ghost employees. This is a twisted tale (and a solid piece of journalism) detailing a vivid example of what can happen in the Wild West bonanza of private contracting in Afghanistan. Read it here

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On the run today, but let me point out my favorite mini-meme in political journalism these days: do GOPers want Sarah Palin on their side or not?

AP reports:

New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie has ended speculation that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will campaign for him.

Christie told Millennium Radio 101.5 FM on Thursday that he will not ask Palin to come to New Jersey.

Palin associates say her decision to quit as Alaska governor was partly driven by her wish to help Republican candidates across the country. But Christie says the failed vice presidential candidate would detract from the New Jersey issues he wants to emphasize.

Whoops. There goes that explanation. Only the most die-hard conservative Republican candidate in the most die-hard conservative area and in a tough fight will want to have Palin at his or her side--for wherever she campaigns, she will become the story.

This ain't liberal bashing of Palin. It's recognition of practical politics. The Hill reports:

Republicans facing tough elections in 2010 don't want Sarah Palin campaigning with them.

Though the soon-to-be-former Alaska governor is seen as popular with the conservative grass roots, several Republicans said she'd help them by staying home in Wasilla.

Several of these Republicans hail from districts or states carried in 2008 by President Obama, a frequent target of Palin's criticism. Republicans must keep these districts and win others where Obama is popular if they are to gain seats next year.

GOP Rep. Lee Terry (Neb.), who squeaked out a victory despite his district's overwhelming turnout for Obama, said he'd rather have House colleagues campaign for him than Palin.

"There's others that I would have come in and campaign and most of them would be my colleagues in the House," Terry said.

Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican from Northern Virginia, which is increasingly becoming Democratic territory, offered caution when asked whether he'd welcome a Palin fundraiser.

"I don't generally need people from outside my district to do a fundraiser," Wolf said.

Several other lawmakers indicated a wariness about accepting help from Palin, but did not want to criticize the GOP's vice presidential candidate from last year. They said Palin could hurt them by firing up Democrats.

You betcha. Turns out that if Palin really wanted to help her party comrades, the best thing for her to do would have been to remain as governor and not reinforce her--to be kind--unconventional image. If she quit so she could better assist Republican candidates, she made one big mistake.

Here's a related question: will Palin raise money through her political action committee, SarahPAC, to share with Republican candidates elsewhere? And will these candidates be in states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina?

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In a classic example of newsmagazine overthink, Time profiles Sarah Palin with a cover story that practically celebrates her thin résumé and essentially makes the case that know-nothingism could be good for America. Seriously:

Palin's unconventional step speaks to an ingrained frontier skepticism of authority — even one's own. Given the plunging credibility of institutions and élites, that's a mood that fits the Palin brand. Résumés ain't what they used to be; they count only with people who trust credentials — a dwindling breed. The mathematics Ph.D.s who dreamed up economy-killing derivatives have pretty impressive résumés. The leaders of congressional committees and executive agencies have decades of experience — at wallowing in red ink, mismanaging economic bubbles and botching covert intelligence.

If ever there has been a time to gamble on a flimsy résumé, ever a time for the ultimate outsider, this might be it. "We have so little trust in the character of the people we elected that most of us wouldn't invite them into our homes for dinner, let alone leave our children alone in their care," writes talk-show host Glenn Beck in his book Glenn Beck's Common Sense, a pox-on-all-their-houses fusillade at Washington. Dashed off in a fever of disillusionment with those in power, Beck's book is selling like vampire lit, with more than 1 million copies in print.

Citing Glenn Beck as proof that many Americans are eager to turn to a pol with little expertise in national policy? But didn't the country just have an election? And didn't a significant majority vote for the guy with two Ivy League degrees who talked about bringing professionalism, science, and expertise back to policymaking in Washington? (Anyone remember Palin's climate change denialism? Not the Time people.)

The Time crew obviously was punching up the subject matter so it could punch up the copy—and sell magazines. One dramatic theme in the piece is that Palin is pure Alaska and that to know her—really know her—you have to know Alaska and the rugged individualism and practical fatalism this far-away land breeds in its denizens:

Palin's breakneck trajectory from rising star to former officeholder — with more twists sure to come — has everything to do with her Alaskan context.

Only to a degree. The sole reason most Americans know anything about Palin is that a fellow from Arizona picked her to be his running mate. Without that, she would still be the answer to a political trivia question. So, obviously, it was the unique and rough-hewn libertarian frontier spirit of the American Southwest, where lone riders settled on arid plains to escape the confining conventions of back-East civilization, that was responsible for Palin's comet-like ascent to public prominence. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was just John McCain's bad judgment.

Without breathlessness and a contrary-for contrary's-sake thesis, Time would not have much to add to all the words spilled and spewed about the Palin pull-out. But give the newsmagazine credit. Through the efforts of five of its talented journalists, Time has managed to craft a more coherent depiction of Palin and her decision to resign than she has herself. So what's her beef with the media?

This was first posted at motherjones.com. You can follow my postings and media appearances via Twitter.

Are Sarah Palin's true-believers crying, "Say it ain't so"? No, abiding by the spin-is-all rule of modern politics, they are praising Palin's decision to quit as yet more evidence of her leadership abilities.

Team Sarah, a group of conservatives who fancy the soon-to-be-ex Alaska governor, released this statement on Friday night:

WASHINGTON, July 3 -- Today Team Sarah commented on the announcement that Sarah Palin will step down as Governor of Alaska on July 25, 2009: "Sarah Palin has always been an intensely independent woman -- always true to her faith, her family and call to public service. She has taken vast numbers of Americans to a new place: politics without cynicism. And she has provided women with a new political role model," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Her entrance onto the public stage has had an immensely positive effect, drawing in massive numbers of Americans new to the political process. We have every confidence she will have an equal and profound impact in whatever projects she undertakes now."

"Team Sarah members anxiously await Palin's next decision on how she believes she can best serve our nation. Since the 2008 Election, the continual presence of personal attacks on both Governor Palin and her family indicate that she remains a threat to the liberal feminist political establishment," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Jane Abraham. "Despite criticism, Governor Palin's success will endure. Team Sarah's thousands of members remain as engaged as ever on TeamSarah.org. The Governor has inspired millions, and her audience of enthusiastic support will only grow in the future."

Team Sarah is a coalition of Americans dedicated to advancing the values that Sarah Palin represents in the political process. Its political networking website, www.teamsarah.org, has grown to over 70,000 activists. Co-Founders of Team Sarah include Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List, and Jane Abraham, the organization's General Chairman.

Perhaps once you've found your dream gal it's hard to let go.

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Look at this illustration that accompanied USA Today's story on a new poll on the Republican Party:

Who's missing? Sarah Palin. When Americans were asked who speaks for the Republican Party, the winner was Rush Limbaugh (13 percent). The next four were Dick Cheney, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush (who was picked by 3 percent). Palin didn't make this list. Responding to this poll, Republican strategist Ed Gillespie told reporter Susan Page, "We cannot be a party of balding white guys." Gillespie, who has a decent crown of hair, ought to check that illustration. Only one of the five is non-balding; only one of five is not white. None are non-male.

In politics, there's always time to fill a vacuum in leadership. Perhaps the more troubling indicator for the GOP is this particular finding in the poll: 33 percent of the GOP respondents said they have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party. When one-third of your own rank-and-file doesn't like you, you're in trouble. (On MSNBC, super-smart analyst Charlie Cook noted that only 4 percent of Democrats are not pleased with their party.)

But does the GOP's disaffected third want the party to go more to the right or to moderate? That's not clear. But two-thirds of the Republicans polled said they yearn for the party to hold the conservative line. (A majority of the wider pool of respondents said the GOP should seek to attract moderates.)

The bottom line: if the POed GOPers crave more conservative red meat, the party can only solidify its base by moving in a direction that will further alienate it from most voters. If those POed GOPers desire a more moderate party, they are at odds with most of their party comrades. Either scenario is bad news for the Republican Party. The party is in a spot where it may not be able to do much on its own to improve its fortunes--other than to wait for economic disaster and/or an overseas crisis that causes voters to become disenchanted with President Obama and Democrats. And that's not a strategy; that's a hope.

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There was plenty of teeth-gnashing over Sarah Palin's no-show-turned-show at the GOP's Monday night gala in Washington, where Newt Gingrich spent an hour delivering a policy-laden speech that reportedly did not electrify the well-groomed crowd of Republican donors and did not send them pouring into the streets in search of pitchforks. Still, Gingrich stole the show from Sarah Palin, who couldn't give an hour-long address on policy without generating accusations of plagiarism.

But this silly episode demonstrated, yet again how the Republicans are in a pickle. Choosing between Gingrich or Palin? Would you rather have hemorrhoids or shingles? In reporting on this mini-controversy, The Hill noted

Sarah Palin has begun to get on the nerves of Republican senators who say the former GOP vice presidential nominee is taking her own White House aspirations entirely too seriously.

Could it be that the GOP is getting some sense? Fortunately for Democrats, the article did report that some Republicans in Washington remain enamored of Palin:

Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels tells GOPers in Washington to stop "whining.".

David Brooks complains that Republicans "are no longer the party of community and order" (as if they were ever the party of community) and that they "talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life."

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney disses Sarah Palin for making Time's list of 100 most influential people: "[W]as that the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people? I'm not sure. If it's the most beautiful, I understand. We're not real cute." (Actually, Romney is kinda cute--certainly more handsome than influential these days.

Supreme Court Justice David Souter announces he's retiring, and Chris Matthews thanks the News Gods--literally. And it's another round of Pundits Gone Wild. I did my bit on Hardball. But the clip below cut off the second topic in this segment: Sarah Palin hanging out with biker-dudes. Too bad, Matthews tried hard to talk about her sex appeal without directly mentioning her sex appeal--while acknowledging that was what he was doing. He walked a fine line. And once again, Palin is the cable news gift that keeps on giving.

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At a recent speech in Alaska before a Republican crowd, Governor Sarah Palin complained that during the presidential race last year she had no one on the McCain campaign with whom she could pray at a crucial moment. (And in a big shocker, she slammed the media for treating her unfairly.) Then there's GOP chairman Michael Steele, who says he might consider running for president--that is, if God gives him a sign. What's with all this God-talk from GOPers with less-than-impressive track records as political leaders? On Thursday night, we hashed it out on Hardball:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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I've been busy with a piece on Sarah Palin we at Mother Jones posted on Thursday afternoon. Bottom line: Palin, who ran as a scourge of earmarks, sought and received earmarks that are in the omnibus spending bill just passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on Wednesday. Yes, you're shocked by her hypocrisy. On the campaign, she vowed that if she were elected veep she would go after Congress' abuse of the corrupt practice of slipping earmarks into spending bills--echoing John McCain's crusade against earmarks. And GOPers--including McCain--have howled about the earmarks in this bill.

Yet Palin's chief spokesperson told us that this spending legislation does contain earmarks she requested. He just wouldn't say which earmarks are hers or how many she obtained. By the way, Alaska will receive more money, per capita, from the bill's earmarks than any other state.

You can read the full piece here.

OBAMA OVERLOAD? On Wednesday, I posted my latest Bloggingheads.tv face-off with Jim Pinkerton, in which he advanced the latest GOP talking point: Barack Obama is doing too much and not focusing sufficiently on the economy. This is an attack-line that has been picked up within the media. When the White House held a health care reform summit last week, several MSM reporters in the press room grilled Robert Gibbs on whether Obama was ill-serving the nation by both working to fix the economy and by taking on the big task of remaking the health care system. Gibbs has batted down that meme by noting that health care is a big piece of our in-crisis economy. Still, Pinkerton pressed the case against overtime for Obama.

My pal Matt Cooper has weighed in. And he's cast several good points into this supposed debate:

First, distraction is a two-way street. Congress is constantly deviating from the economic emergency to deal with other stuff. I watched a fulsome debate on the transportation of chimpanzees and other primates the other day on C-SPAN. The House was taking up a bill in the wake of that chimp attack. It's not reasonable to focus just on one branch of government.

Second, Obama is talking about a lot of things but he's not sending up a torrent of legislation. There was the stimulus bill but everyone agreed there needed to be some kind of stimulus. He's encouraged Congress to come up with a health care plan but he hasn't forced a bill on them to consider. And besides is health care really a distraction? The facts show that you can't get entitlement reform or any control over future red ink without it. Why wait?

Third, Congress is a much bigger institution than it was in 1933 or even 1977....Staffs are bigger, there's more capacity to deal with more issues. If we have more of a logjam these days, it's owing to the partisan redrawing of districts, the culture of lobbying and so on but not an innate inability of Congress to handle more than a few things at a time.

As I said originally, if Obama suddenly decides to immerse himself in an obscure border dispute or something truly far afield, he ought to be called out on it. But green energy, health care, education, and other things he's pursuing all seem germane to the economy. You can disagree with them individually but it's hard to chide their relevance to the crisis at hand.

How reasonable.

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Where's Sarah Palin?

The Alaskan governor apparently will not be appearing in person at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of rightwing gurus and grassroots activists. She's going to phone it in--that is, speak by video to the hundreds or thousands (are there still thousands of conservative activists?) assembling later this week in a Washington, DC, hotel.

CPAC is a traditional weigh station for Republican presidential wannabes eager to suck up to the base. They try to wow (or appease) the activists and hobnob with the leaders of the national conservative movement. Last year, John McCain, on his way to bagging the GOP presidential nomination, was compelled to attend the meeting and make nice with the wing of the party that has tended to despise him. And CPAC is ground zero for the GOP's cultural war generals and foot-soldiers. Where else can Phyllis Schlafly get a standing ovation?

So it would seem a natural stop for Palin. But she's taking a pass.

There are at least two plausible explanations:

What's wrong with Sarah Palin's political advisers?

Two days ago, she published an op-edin the Minneapolis Star Tribune calling for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

This was his first stab at being a serious policy person since her unsuccessful vice-presidential bid. And it was swing and a big miss--for multiple reasons.

1. No offense to the Star Tribune, but couldn't she get published on a more notable op-ed page. The New York Times? The Washington Post? The Wall Street Journal? The Star Tribune is not quite as prominent a launching pad. Was this op-ed rejected by any other paper? Can't she play in the big leagues?

2. An Alaska governor calling for oil drilling is nothing new. She led the GOP at its national convention in chanting, "Drill, baby, drill." Her challenge these days is to show that she knows, reads, and thinks about serious stuff. Dashing off an op-ed on this particular issue tells people nothing new about Palin. Hey, does she have anything smart to say about Afghanistan? (Can she see it from the top of Mount McKinley?)

It happened. Here's what I posted at MotherJones.com....

So who's a real American now?

With his decisive triumph over Senator John McCain, Senate Barack Obama made obvious history: he is the first black (or biracial) man to win the presidency. But the meaning of his victory--in which Obama splashed blue across previously red states--extends far beyond its racial significance. Obama, a former community organizer and law professor, won the White House as one of the most progressive (or liberal) nominees in the Democratic Party's recent history. Mounting one of the best run presidential bids in decades, Obama tied his support for progressive positions (taxing the wealthy to pay for tax cuts for working Americans, addressing global warming, expanding affordable health insurance, withdrawing troops from Iraq) to calls for cleaning up Washington and for crafting a new type of politics. Charismatic, steady, and confident, he melded substance and style into a winning mix that could be summed up in simple and basic terms: hope and change.

After nearly eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, Obama was the non-Bush: intelligent, curious, thoughtful, deliberate, and competent. His personal narrative--he was the product of an unconventional family and worked his way into the nation's governing class--fueled his campaign narrative. His story was the American Dream v2.0. He was change, at least at skin level. But he also championed the end of Bushism. He had opposed the Iraq war. He had opposed Bush's tax cuts for the rich. He was no advocate of let-'er-rip, free market capitalism or American unilateralism. In policy terms, Obama represents a serious course correction.

And more. In the general election campaign, McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, turned the fight for the presidency into a culture clash. They accused Obama of being a socialist. They assailed him for having associated with William Ayers, a former, bomb-throwing Weather Underground radical,who has since become an education expert. Palin indirectly referred to Obama's relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who once preached fiery sermons denouncing the United States government for certain policies. On the campaign trail, Palin suggested there were "real" parts of America and fake parts. At campaign events, she promoted a combative, black-helicopter version of conservatism: if you're for government expansion, you're against freedom. During her one debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, she hinted that if her opponents won the White House there might come a day when kids would ask their grandparents what it had been like to live in a free country. At McCain-Palin rallies, supporters shouted out, "Communist!" and "terrorist!" and "Muslim!" when the Republican candidates referred to Obama. And McCain and Palin hurled the standard charges at Obama: he will raise your taxes and he is weak on national security.

Put it all together and the message was clear: there are two types of Americans. Those who are true Americans--who love their nation and cherish freedom--and those who are not. The other Americans do not put their country first; they blame it first. The other Americans do not believe in opportunity; they want to take what you have and give it to someone else. The other Americans do not care about Joe the Plumber; they are out-of-touch elitists who look down on (and laugh at) hard-working, church-going folks. The other Americans do not get the idea of America. They are not patriots. And it just so happens that the other America is full of blacks, Latinos, gays, lesbians, and non-Christians.

McCain, Palin and their compatriots did what they could to depict Obama as the rebel chief of this other un-American America. (Hillary Clinton helped set up their effort during the primaries by beating the Ayers drum.) Remember the stories of Obama's supposed refusal to wear a flag pin or place his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance? The emails about Obama being a secret Muslim? The goal was to delegitimize Obama, as well as the Americans who were moved by his biography, his rhetoric, and his ideas. It was back to the 1960s--drawing a harsh line between the squares (the real Americans) and the freaks (those redistribution-loving, terrorist-coddling faux Americans).

It didn't work.

This time it's personal.

Then again, it was personal in 2004.

In September 2003, I published a book immoderately titled, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. Its contention was a simple one: that Bush had gone beyond the normal boundaries of presidential spin in using falsehoods and misrepresentations to skew the public discourse on many fronts: stems cells, global warming, tax policy, and, above all, the invasion of Iraq.

At the time, this was not--in certain circles--a well-received argument. Conservative pundits, pointing to my book and others that came out at the time (Al Franken's Lying Liars, Molly Ivins' Bushwhacked, written with Lou Dubose, and Joe Conason's Big Lies), declared a new phenomenon was at hand: rabid, irrational Bush hatred. MSM commentators, ever looking to reside within the comfortable, above-it-all middle, observed that the left was now mirroring the extreme rhetoric of the Limbaugh-crazy, Coulter-loving right. I noted some examples of this dismissive reax in a recent Mother Jones essay. The New York Times' Matt Bai, citing my book, wrote, "the new leftist screeds seem to solidify a rising political culture of incivility and overstatement." Conservative columnist David Brooks proclaimed that "the core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the haters themselves." (Yes, I was more dangerous than George W. Bush.) What few of these commentators of the center and right bothered to do was to evaluate the case I (and the others) had put forward. That is, to confront the facts I had presented. Their aim was to discredit the very idea of anyone going so far as to call the president of the United States a liar. And National Review editor Rich Lowry opined, "I don't think the public is going to buy the idea that [Bush is] a liar."

Lowry got it wrong. By Election Day 2004, polls showed that a slight majority believed that Bush was not honest and trustworthy. Still, Bush managed to best John Kerry in an election that was something of a referendum on Bush's first term. But that election came too early. Had it been held a year later--post-Katrina--any Dem would have thrashed Bush and Cheney at the polls. And now about seven out of ten disapprove of his presidency, and most of the public agrees with the premise that Bush deliberately misled American citizens about WMDs and the threat supposedly posed by Iraq. Bush is heading toward the door widely regarded as a failure: Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown. He has become the vanishing president. Hardly seen. Barely relevant.

Bush's style of politics, his policies, his political party--it's all been discredited. Whatever happens in the presidential race, the GOP is poised to take a beating in congressional races. He has led his party to ruin. The battle over the W. story has been won by his critics--at least in the short run. The view that Bush has been a dishonest president and bad for the United States has become the majority position in the United States. If McCain somehow manages to win, it will be in spite of Bush.

Many presidents are elected as reactions to the previous president. George W. Bush's (faux) victory in 2000 was a reaction to the Bill Clinton soap opera. And a Barack Obama triumph would be the natural reaction to the W. years. Obama is the most progressive (or liberal) Democratic nominee since FDR ran for reelection. He is black (or biracial). He is an intellectual. He is no child of privilege. To sum up: he is the opposite of George W. Bush. Not only has Bush started two wars he couldn't finish, presided over a government that lost a major American city, and did little as a financial tsunami hit the nation; he has (I am guessing) created a yearning among many Americans for a non-Bush. And within the realm of conventional U.S. politics, Obama is about as non-Bush as it gets. No wonder Obama has a strong chance of becoming president. He spoke (endlessly) of change; he is an antidote to the Bush presidency.

Sarah Palin calls Barack Obama a socialist. John McCain equates Obama's appearance at a dinner for a Palestinian scholar with hanging out with neo-Nazis. At McCain-Palin campaign rallies, members of the audience call Obama a communist, a Muslim and a terrorist. Is there no doubt that the GOP ticket has the edge on extremism? Do you hear Obama referring to McCain as a war-monger? Do his supporters scream out "fascist" when Obama mentions his opponents?

And the McCain-Palin attacks are particularly hypocritical. McCain is board chair for the International Republican Institute, and the IRI gave nearly $500,000 to a group co-founded by the abovementioned Palestinian scholar, Khalid Rashidi. And Palin spreads the wealth of Alaska by sharing with every state citizen a slice of the state's oil revenue.

But for McCain and Palin, facts--as Ronald Reagan once said--are stupid things.

This has been a rough and tough campaign, but the dirtiest plays have come from the McCain side. On MSNBC this week [correction: it was CNN], McCain aide Michael Goldfarb pointed to Obama's association with Rashidi to claim Obama pals around with anti-Semites. (Rashidi is no anti-Semite.) This was a low moment of the campaign, but because it came late in the game, amid so much last-week hurly-burly, it received not much attention. But it was a good indicator of the McCain strategy: throw mud, see what sticks.

The McCain camp has shown a disregard for facts that extends beyond the S.O.P. of political campaigns. It has tried to deligitimize Obama and his supporters. Palin notes that only certain parts of the country contain "real Americans." A top McCain aide dismissed northern Virginia--where Obama is strong--as not being "real" Virginia.

McCain and his gang have tried to whip up fear and division and exploit both. If he gets whipped on Tuesday, it will be bad news for others who would practice the politics of hate.

I've listened to Sarah Palin several times in the past few days. (It's my job--what I get the big bucks to do.) And as she whips up the crowds that come to her rallies, her biggest argument against Barack Obama is that he WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. Did you get that? Oh, you missed the nuance. HE WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. And her case is built on two facts. But they are not facts--or not full facts. And though these attacks have been debunked repeatedly by mainstream media factcheckers, Palin and John McCain keep using them. Call me naive, but I still find it surprising that they believe they can get away with such serial misrepresenting (or lying). So for the last time--I hope--let's look at these two claims.

Claim 1: Obama voted to raise taxes on people making as less as $42,000.

Here's how Factcheck.org evaluated that charge:

So Sarah Palin is a "brainiac." That's what Elaine Lafferty proclaims. And the reason her proclamation is the least bit interesting is that Lafferty is a Democrat and the former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, the feminist journal. In a piece she posted yesterday, she notes she has "worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin's nomination" and has traveled with Palin on her "cramped" campaign plane.

I have no idea how a onetime feminist activist, a former journalist, and a present Democrat came to be working for an antiabortion, media-blasting Republican vice presidential candidate. But Lafferty wants us to know that Palin possesses "a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernible pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had."

This is troubling. Why? Because I had assumed that some of the idiotic and false statements Palin had made on the campaign trail were due to a certain amount of ignorance on her part. If she is as smart as Lafferty says, then she would be more dangerous if elected. No intelligent person would say some of the following things, unless she was purposefully trying to fool people.

* To boost her foreign policy cred, Palin said "you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska," and she maintained that she had experience dealing with trade delegations, presumably those from Russia. But according to her calendars, she never met with a Russian official and rarely met with any foreign officials to discuss trade or anything else.

* Palin repeatedly said she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere--even though many news organizations reported she had been a supporter of the project before Congress soured on the project. Why would an intelligent person keep repeating the same mistake?

* Palin said Barack Obama has been "palling around with terrorists"--using the present tense and the plural to hype Obama's past casual association with just one ex-radical. Her intelligence certainly did not motivate her to be precise.

This is rich. Today, while campaigning in Florida, John McCain declared that Barack will say "anything to get elected."

I read this as a cry for help. A quick run-down of McCain self-contradictions and say-anything moments:

* McCain initially opposed the George W. Bush tax cuts, claiming they gave too much to the rich. Now, when Obama wants to reverse those tax cuts, the McCain campaign brands it socialism.

* McCain attacked robocall attacks in 2000. Now he perpetuates them.

* McCain said he doesn't care about a "washed-up terrorist"--meaning Bill Ayers--but he still makes Obama's past association with Ayers a key part of is campaign. (See the robocalls.) And Sarah Palin accused Obama of palling around with terrorists, using the plural form of the word. Putting Ayers aside, name another one.

* In an interview NBC is promoting today, McCain dismisses the elites who hang out at Georgetown cocktail parties. McCain has been a participant in many such gatherings over his decades in Washington.

* McCain stood by a campaign ad saying that Barack Obama pushed for teaching "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners Obama did not.

* The McCain campaign claimed that Obama's use of the old lipstick-on-a-pig cliche was a direct, misogynistic swipe at Palin. It was not.

* McCain has insisted that Obama, if elected, would push everyone into a government-run health care system. That ain't true.

* McCain said he would skip the first debate unless a Wall Street bailout deal was reached. You know how that turned out.

You know that old joke: there are two types of people in the world--those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don't. Well, in previous weeks, I've been dividing Republicans and conservatives I know between two types: those willing to acknowledge (even if only privately) that Sarah Palin was not--shall we say--the best pick John McCain could have made, and those who claim she is indeed qualified and will be a fine veep and a capable (should it come to that) president. My rough survey of the Rs and conservatives I have encountered on the street, at political events, and in green rooms at TV studios is that about one half to two-thirds will admit they believe is that Palin is either a misguided error on McCain's part that can be overcome or an act of blatant misjudgment that has led to a freakin' disaster.

When McCain announced her selection it did seem possible the choice would help his campaign. And his campaign did not appear to mind all the attention she drew. But in my recollection, I cannot recall a veep candidate who has so dominated the post-convention story of the election. Not even Dan Quayle. And in Palin's case, the news keeps getting worse. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 55 percent of registered voters believe she's not qualified to serve as president. That's up 5 percent from its last poll--suggesting that the more people see of Palin the less they are impressed. And her negative approval rating for the first time exceeds her positive approval rating, 47 percent versus 38 percent. Moreover, voters told these pollsters that McCain's selection of Palin was their top concern about McCain's candidacy.

The latest neocon to turn tail on John McCain is Kenneth Adelman, a former foreign policy official in the Reagan administration. Adelman is most famous--or infamous--for having predicted in February 2002, 13 months before the invasion of Iraq, that "demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Explaining his decision to vote for Obama, Adelman recently told The New Yorker:

"When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I've concluded that that's no way a president can act under pressure."

And he said of the Sarah Palin pick:

"That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office -- I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain's main two, and best two, themes for his campaign -- Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick."

He sounds so reasonable, right? But I remember the days when Adelman sounded more like the mad McCainiacs I recently encountered at a McCain rally. In fact, I once wrote about Adelman's use of extremist rhetoric, and that kept him from obtaining a spot on the board of a prominent Washington advocacy group.

From a Nation magazine column (not on-line) I penned in 1988:

Crunch time for McCain? Perhaps--for on Wednesday night at his final debate with Barack Obama, John McCain has a do-or-die decision to make. To Atwater or not to Atwater--that is the question. (If you're too young to get the Atwater reference, look it up.) And whatever his answer is, McCain is poised to disappoint--perhaps alienate--one of two crucial blocs of voters.

The Republican party's base wants blood. They cannot believe that a former community activist (read: Socialist!) with barely a moment's experience in Washington who is a secret Muslim and quasi-Black Panther is close to the presidency. For them, the association game--tying Obama to former, bomb-throwing radical Bill Ayers and extreme-rhetoric-hurling Jeremiah Wright--ought to be a fundamental part of the McCain campaign, for these connections reveal the real Obama. Obama, they contend, is fooling the voting public by coming across as a mainstream, composed, confident politician who reasonably talks of consensus-building and change. In their view, he is both the embodiment of the evils of the 1960s and Islamofascism. A sleeper agent. A Manchurian candidate from Mecca. But he is so skilled at keeping his true loyalties covert, he can only be exposed via his ties to Ayers and Wright. This is not guilt by association or the petty politics of personal destruction. It's the key to decoding Obama. Its what must be done so the Republic does not fall into the hands of an internal enemy.

And it was only a few days ago that McCain and Sarah Palin were on the Ayers trail. She accused Obama of "palling" around with domestic terrorists. (She used the plural.) McCain promised a supporter he would raise this connection at the final debate.

But recent polling has indicated that McCain's attacks on Obama have lost him support among voters. More voters see McCain as the more negative of the two candidates and less concerned with issues than Obama. McCain's assaults are simply not working--especially when tethered to McCain's erratic moves regarding the economic crisis. So if he goes all Ayers (or Wright) on Obama, he faces a real risk: pissing off indie and uncommitted voters. But, then, if he holds his fire on this front, he will anger the die-hard conservatives who want to see him pummel Obama and expose the true Obama to the entire world.

The other day a Republican strategist shared an intriguing anecdote with me. Several years ago, he said, he was talking to Steve Schmidt, who now is the day-to-day manager of John McCain's campaign, and Schmidt said that he hated McCain to such an extent that he would vote for Hillary Clinton instead of McCain if such a choice ever presented itself. "He really said that?" I asked my source. "Beer was involved," this source replied.

These days, Schmidt, who was a senior operative for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, is responsible for getting McCain elected to the White House. No wonder there are problems in McCainland. I'm not suggesting that Schmidt is sabotaging the McCain campaign from the inside. He's a fierce political pro who cares mightily about getting another notch. He doesn't want to be burdened with a loss. But this tale underscores a fundamental reason for McCain's up-to-now failure. His campaign is being run by traditional Republican ops who are using the traditional Republican playbook which relies on the good ol' political tradition of hate-mongering. Which is not how McCain ran for the presidency in 2000.

Many of the folks in charge of the McCain campaign don't really care that much for him. Worse, they are treating McCain as a generic Republican candidate--smothering whatever once was special about him. And McCain has allowed this to happen. He has emasculated himself.

Look at those recent McCain rallies. His supporters are shouting "terrorist" when McCain mentions his opponent. And does McCain chastise them for doing so? No. In fact, he has been pushing the Obama-hangs-with-terrorists theme. Sarah Palin did so explicitly a few days ago by accusing Obama of "paling" around with terrorists--note the plural--a reference to Obama's past association with William Ayers, a former Weather Underground member who became a much-respected education expert. And on Thursday, McCain promised an angry supporter at a rally that he would bring up the Ayers link at the next debate. (Kudos to Joe Biden who, at a Thursday rally, slammed McCain for not having the guts to have done so to Obama's face at Tuesday nights' night. Nice touch: Biden took off his coat as he challenged McCain, noting that in Biden's old neighborhood if you had something to say about a guy, you said it straight to him. It looked as if Biden was preparing for a street brawl.)

My take on the second debate, first posted at MotherJones.com....

Last Thursday, during a McCain campaign town hall meeting in Denver, one participant stood up and challenged the GOP presidential candidate: "When are you going to take the gloves off?" His fellow McCain supporters in the downtown hotel roared with approval. "How about Tuesday night?" John McCain replied, referring to his second debate with Obama.

How about not? The McCain campaign in recent days has pumped up its effort to delegitimize Barack Obama, with its top strategist apparently calculating that McCain cannot vanquish Obama if the election is about issues. At a recent rally in a California suburb, GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin declared "Our opponent...is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." (This was a reference to Obama's past association with Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground radical who became an education expert). And on Monday, McCain delivered a blistering attack on Obama that was loaded with inaccuracies and distortions. So one expectation among the politerati was that McCain would continue swinging--or thrashing--at the second debate. Work in Bill Ayers. Refer to Jeremiah Wright. Depict Obama as shifty and untrustworthy.

That did not happen. McCain, trailing Obama in the polls, mainly trained his fire on policy matters. He did continue to hurl misrepresentations at Obama. (As the debate proceeded, I received 40 emails from the Obama campaign making this point.) For instance, McCain once again claimed that Obama has voted 94 times to raise taxes, a charge that has been widely debunked by various factchecking outfits. But there was no frontal assault on Obama's character--and only one or two slight digs on his qualifications. The debate was more high-minded than anticipated. But it demonstrated a tough reality for McCain: he is out of sync with his own campaign. He cannot pull the trigger, when his advisers seem to believe a machine gun blast is needed.

Obama and his campaign are fully integrated. He calls for a break from the past eight years on both domestic and foreign fronts and famously urges fundamental change. As a new face--and a black man--he sure does represent change. He is his message. And his campaign for over a year and a half has not had to go through any strategic lurches or had to reconfigure either its candidate or its core pitch. That's not true on the McCain side. His campaign has been nothing but lurches. And the most recent one--a turn toward even more negative campaigning--undercuts his old and now practically worn-out reputation as a straight-talking maverick. So come Debate II, McCain was confronting a tough choice: damned if he does (go negative) and stalled if he doesn't.

Deciding to forego the nasty stuff, McCain relied on policy differences to hammer Obama. The problem: Obama's policy prescriptions are not unpopular.

How uninformed is Sarah Palin? I don't mean to suggest she is dumb in the sense of intelligence ability--though she may be. But despite the fact she has good campaign skills--which could be on display during her debate with Joe Biden--Palin is dumb in the sense of don't-know-much-about-history or anything else. Ignorance, you might call it. Sure, she must know plenty about Alaska issues, but she seems to be awfully unfamiliar with anything beyond that.

Take the latest clip from her interterview with Katie Couric. What drew the most attention was her inability to name any other Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade. It may be elitist to say this, but she looked the fool, trying to answer the question ("What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?") without citing any specific decision. (Dred Scott, anyone?) The subsequent chortling among commentators and bloggers was warranted.

But what struck me was this exchange:

Couric: Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.

Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.

Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.

As my colleague at MotherJones.com, Kevin Drum, pointed out, many conservatives do not accept that the Constitution contains a right to privacy and argue that it's judicial activism to see such a right in that grand ol' document. Is Palin breaking with this traditional conservative position?

I doubt it. She probably didn't know better. But her convoluted explanation of her position demonstrates she doesn't understand the basics of the Constitution. First she says there is an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution, then she adds that this right is dependent on what "different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see."

A federal right is not dependent on the "will ushered" in the 50 different states. Otherwise, what good are any of the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights? Sometimes a state may act in a way that is seen by some as a restriction on a constitutional right--say, imposing gun control measures--but then the matter goes to the federal courts for resolution. In the United States, a right guaranteed in the Constitution is not open to 50 different interpretations.

Palin is running for a position in which, if she wins, she will have to take a vow to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" (per Article II, Section I of the Constitution). Is it too much to expect her to understand that document and its history?

My favorite campaign spin of recent days comes from conservatives who fancy Sarah Palin. Much of the reality-based world--which even includes a few conservative commentators, such as George Will, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, and David Frum--has rendered a verdict on Palin: she's not up to the job. Many voters seem to agree. McCain's post-Palin bounce is gone. Her approval rating in Alaska has dropped.

Blame Palin's fall on Katie Couric--if not Palin herself? No, declares a group of Palin fans on the right: blame it on the Bushies. That is, McCain campaign operatives--most of whom are veterans of the past Bush campaigns--who supposedly are not letting Sarah be Sarah. Here's Bill Kristol:

McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her -- aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House. McCain picked Sarah Palin in part because she's a talented politician and communicator. He needs to free her to use her political talents and to communicate in her own voice.

I'm told McCain recently expressed unhappiness with his staff's handling of Palin. On Sunday he dispatched his top aides Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis to join Palin in Philadelphia. They're supposed to liberate Palin to go on the offensive as a combative conservative in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday.

Apparently Kristol believes that Palin's "political talents" can trump--or distract voters from--her lack of experience and knowledge (as she demonstrated with Couric). Shouldn't he loose his Official Public Intellectual Card for putting rhetoric ahead of substance?

Then there's Richard Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com and a longtime strategist for the conservative movement. He's released a statement chiding McCain:

He must free Sarah Palin to go after Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats, or he will almost certainly lose.

The McCain campaign has put this 'pit bull with lipstick' on a leash. The campaign has surrounded her with people from the Bush administration. And as we can see from the wreckage of the Bush presidencies, these folks don't have the slightest clue how to make a case to the American people.

McCain has to get rid of these Bush people around Palin, along with the lobbyists and the folks from the Washington PR firms, and replace them with principled conservatives who have experience making the case for conservatism.

If only more conservatives would lobby the McCain camp to set Sarah free. And if only the McCain camp would listen. I'd like to see an unhandled Palin. (So would Tina Fey.)

No doubt, Palin is a talented campaigner. That's been proven in the past few weeks when she appears at rallies. But she cannot handle basic questions. This no surprise--especially since she cannot name a single magazine or newspaper she reads regularly. (Not the Weekly Standard?) Palin has not spent much time in her life pondering such matters as foreign policy or economic national policy. That's the reality, and a month's worth of cramming is not going to change that and get her up to speed. The public witnessed the real Palin in the Couric interview.

Kristol and Viguerie seem to think that Palin can hide her ignorance behind slashing attacks on Democrats and liberals. But it may be too late for such a strategy of obfuscation.

Once McCain said game on, I posted this item:

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved," John McCain said on Wednesday, explaining his decision to suspend his campaign and not participate in the first presidential debate. A McCain aide told Reuters, "If the package is reached and the country is saved, there will be a debate. But if there's no deal, how can you get on a plane...for a debate?"

On Friday morning, McCain's campaign released this statement:

"He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon."

Note the adjustment in standards. First, the McCain camp said deal or no debate. Two days later, the position was, negotiations are under way so let's debate. Was this change an act of decisive leadership or a necessary political flip-flop? Maybe Jim Lehrer, the moderator of Friday night's debate, can ask him that."

What's kinda amazing--okay, it's not really amazing--is that the McCain camp thinks it can get away with this. Or with
this. Or with its falsehood-ridden attack ads. Or with McCain's new Osama-like stance toward holding press conferences. Or with its claims that Sarah Palin is ready-to-go on Day One. The John McCain of 2000 used to deride the usual BS of politics: spin, stunts, and sleaze. Now he bathes in it. There seems no bottom yet to his descent into situational politics. Forget the debates, I want to see him back on The View defending himself and the campaign he heads.

Much chatter on the Internet about John McCain's appearance on The View on Friday morning. This guy won't do a press conference, but he'll do daytime talk. Nevertheless, it was quite instructive, for McCain lied to the ladies.

He told them that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his running mate, did not accept federal earmark funds. But Barbara Walters and Joy Behar had it correct when they declared she had. As the Anchorage Daily News has reported, Palin in 2007 sought "52 earmarks valued at $256 million in Palin's first year. This year, the governor's office asked the delegation to help them land 31 earmarks valued at $197 million." (When I appeared on NPR's Diane Rehm Show on Friday morning, even conservative writer Stephen Hayes had to acknowledge that Palin is exaggerating when she claims she opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere.)

Palin's earmark record has been widely reported. Is McCain clueless? Maybe he's out of the loop because he does not know how to use the Internet on his own. Or is he deceitful?

In a way, the View gals let him off easy. Referring to two recent McCain ads--one falsely accusing Barack Obama of sexism by using the "lipstick on the pig" phrase, the other falsely accusing Obama of having supported teaching "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners--Joy Behar said to McCain, "Now we know that those two ads are untrue, they are lies. And yet, you at the end of it say you approve these messages. Do you really approve these?"

McCain replied, "Actually they are not lies. And if you see some of the ads running against me." He then hammered on the "lipstick" point, saying that Obama should not have used that old expression. (See the exchange here.)

The "lipstick" battle is an easy one for McCain to win--or play to a disingenuous draw. He looks as if he is defending the honor of his running mate, even if there is no truth to the fundamental charge that Obama was maligning Palin. But the sex ed ad is utterly indefensible. Behar missed her chance. She ought to have said to McCain, "Can you prove that Obama advocated teaching comprehensive sex-ed to kindergartners? I will donate $10,000 to your favorite charity, if you can. If not, you will have to come back on this show and admit your campaign lied. Deal or no deal, Senator?"

Behar was so close to what colud have been a game changer. At least, a media game changer. (Real life is another thing.)

But United States democracy ought not to depend on Joy Behar pressing John McCain. The bigfoots of the news media should be prepping to give McCain this sort of treatment. It's no wonder McCain has been ducking press conferences of late. He cannot back up what he and his campaign have been saying about either Obama or Palin. But eventually McCain will have to come out of his cave and face some reporters somewhere. And they ought to be ready with tough questions. If this does not come to pass, then the moderators of the debates should step in and serve up the difficult queries. It shouldn't take a stand-up comic to get a presidential candidate running a dishonorable campaign to face the music.

Meanwhile, an advocacy group has taken on McCain regarding his campaign's phony sex-ed ad, noting that McCain was actually denouncing Obama for supporting a bill that sought to protect children from sexual predators. Any parent of small kids ought to cheer the group's effort...and remember how McCain has crassly exploited the issue of sexual abuse for political gain.

Imagine if Barack Obama ran an ad touting his vice president pick like this:

And Joe Biden was against the war in Iraq

.

There would be far-and-wide condemnation because such a statement would be a lie. (Biden voted for the blank-check Iraq war resolution in 2002 after trying mightily--but failing--to win approval for a more restrictive alternative he crafted with two Republican senators.) But look at McCain's latest ad, which celebrates McCain and running-mate Sarah Palin:

The original mavericks. He fights pork barrel spending. She stopped the Bridge to Nowhere.

Okay, how many times does it have to be pointed out? Governor Sarah Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere at first. This is how the Anchorage Daily News put it:

When John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded budget-cutter was front and center.

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge.

But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere."

...In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town's prosperity.

She said she could feel the town's pain at being derided as a "nowhere" by prominent politicians, noting that her home town, Wasilla, had recently been insulted by the state Senate president, Ben Stevens. "OK, you've got Valley trash standing here in the middle of nowhere," Palin said, according to an account in the Ketchikan Daily News. "I think we're going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project."

One year later, Ketchikan's Republican leaders said they were blindsided by Palin's decision to pull the plug.

That is, she flip-flopped on the Bridge to Nowhere.

Do "original mavericks" rely on outrageous spin? Apparently so. It used to be that McCain--to a degree--was the sort of politician who would snort at such political shenanigans. Now he relies on them.

SARAH PALIN'S SECRET EMAILS.The Palin administration won't release about 1100 emails from her governor's office--many written or sent by Governor Palin or CC'ed to her--claiming these communications cover confidential policy matters. Then why do the subject lines for some of these emails refer to a political foe, a journalist, and non-policy topics? And how can the governor's office claim many of the withheld emails are covered by "executive" privilege when some were CC'ed to her husband Todd Palin (a.k.a. the First Dude), who is a private citizen? See my new and exclusive report on Palin's secret emails here.

Sarah Palin's speech deserved rave reviews (for her performance) and scathing rebuttals (for her mugging of facts). Regarding the latter, see AP's brutal run-down and the Anchorage Daily News's fact-checking of her speech.

Her speech was laden with falsehoods. Still, the Hypocrite of the Night award has to go to Rudy Giuliani. He preceded Palin and fired off a slash-and-burn assault on Barack Obama. He blasted Obama as inexperienced and the candidate of Hollywood celebrities and the "left-wing media." He derided Obama for having once been a community organizer, as if that's not a real job. (The GOP delegates, most of them looking rather well-heeled, laughed along.) Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, also slammed Obama for supposedly thinking that Palin's hometown is "not cosmopolitan enough."

Whoa. Giuliani, the onetime wife-cheater, slapping anyone else for being "cosmopolitan" was absurd. After all, Giuliani used to live with a gay couple in a fancy Upper East Side apartment while he was in the middle of a divorce. It don't get much more "cosmopolitan" than that. He also has dressed in drag more than your average failed presidential candidate.

Giuliani's speech was the pander of the night and a hateful exercise in faux populism. But he sure got into it. Perhaps he wants to be Palin's veep running-mate in 2012.

Here's a review of Sarah Palin's speech I posted at MotherJones.com.

The speech was the easy part. But she did it well.

Delivering the most anticipated vice presidential acceptance speech in modern political history, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accomplished the mission. She talked family, biography, policy, and John McCain. Especially John McCain the POW. And--Democrats beware--she demonstrated she's handy with a rhetorical stiletto and can slice Barack Obama and Joe Biden, while flashing a stylish smile.

The 44-year-old Palin did not wipe out questions about her experience. She did address allegations she had abused her office while serving as a small-town mayor and as a governor. She did not defend her more extreme social positions, such as her support for teaching creationism. But in politics, performance counts for much. And for a little-known politician who had been hunkered down for days, as negative stories and rumors flew about, she had a helluva opening night. Next, Palin will have to face the media--one of the targets of her speech--fielding presumably tough queries about her actions (and life) in Alaska and her foreign policy experience (or lack thereof). But for the night, she held her own--and showed that she has the potential to be a fierce and effective critic of the Obama-Biden ticket.

Palin came on right after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had trash-talked Obama, and she began with an obligatory maneuver: praising John McCain as a hero, and doing so multiple times. She quickly dealt with the, uh, family issue, noting that "No family ever seems typical...our family has the same ups and downs of any other." Not quite. But it sounded good.

After comparing herself to Harry S Truman and hailing small-town Americans (like herself), she lit into Obama. "A small-town mayor," she said, "is sort of like a community organizer except that you have actual responsibilities." (When Giuliani earlier referred to Obama's days as a community organizer, he drew laughs and hoots from the delegates.) Palin claimed that Obama had written memoirs but not laws, that he has given speeches on the Iraq war but has never used the word "victory"--except when "talking about his own campaign." Obama, she said, was more worried about the rights of terrorists than defeating terrorists. And what will Obama do once he has finished "turning back the waters and healing the waters"? Raise taxes, reduce the strength of America, and do nothing to increase drilling. (The delegates repeated their favorite chant of the evening: "Drill, Baby, Drill"). "The American presidency," Palin said, in another dig at Obama, "is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery." She grinned the grin of a smooth put-down artist.

Palin, a self-described "hockey mom," laid on the populism--the Republican version of populism--noting how she had confronted entrenched interests in Juneau (she got rid of the governor's jet and chef), praising factory workers and small farmers, citing her husband's membership in the steelworkers' union, bashing the elite Eastern media, and denouncing the "permanent political establishment" of Washington, many of whom were in the hall as McCain supporters, donors, and aides. (After the speech, Republican pollster Frank Luntz said he believed Palin has the potential to connect with working-class voters.)

Decrying the Democrats as tax-hikers and national security weaklings, while blasting Washington, is the usual fare for Republicans. But Palin read her lines with flair and confidence. And--can we be frank?--she looked darn good doing so. She was with the program: this election is not as much about change, hope, or issues as it is about the measure of one man. "Biden and Obama," she said toward the end of her speech, "say they are fighting for you....There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you...in places where winning means survival and where defeat means death." He is, she continued, "the kind of fellow whose names you will find on war memorials in small towns across America--except he came home." And, she noted, he possess "the special confidence of those who have seen evil and have seen how evil is overcome....That is the kind of man America needs." It's some ticket: a made-in-small-town-America working mom and the man who goes off to war to protect her way of life.

Palin's case for McCain was as effective a pitch for the GOP candidate as any made at the convention. And her attack on Obama was drenched with panache. After she was done, her family--including her pregnant teenage daughter's fiancé--joined her on the stage, and then McCain walked out. "Don't you think we made the right choice for the next vice president of the Untied States?" McCain exclaimed with glee. McCain and his aides were entitled to conclude that Palin had been misunderestimated by her critics and foes.

They also were entitled to believe that Palin would be something of a babe-magnet for the party's base. Days ago, Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, told me that by picking Palin, McCain had electrified social conservatives, who had not been jazzed by the prospect of voting for McCain in November. But at his church, this past Sunday, DeLay's parishioners told him they now were excited about the ticket. Palin's performance on Wednesday night can be expected to reinforce and boost social conservatives' enthusiasm for the McCain-Palin ticket. The social cons have a new champion.

Political experts say that veep picks ultimately do not determine outcomes in presidential elections. And that's probably true. Yet on Wednesday night, Palin displayed plenty of potential. (Joe Biden had reason to say to himself, "This debate's gonna be a challenge.") Though rumors still swirl and unanswered questions about her official actions in Alaska remain, Palin might end up an asset, not a liability, for McCain. She has to meet the press and withstand the ongoing and intense media scrutiny that only began a few days ago. She has to handle that debate with Biden. She has to prove her mettle on the harsh campaign trail. But while pundits before the speech were pondering how the McCain campaign could put lipstick on this (seemingly) pig of a choice, after the speech was over, it was clear, for at least the moment, that with Palin there's more lipstick than pig.