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- Sarah Palin's interview with ABC's Charles Gibson revealed a candidate able to cram for a quiz and pull out a C performance while mastering the political art of substantive answer evasion (and eye remoisturization). This doesn't excuse her casual approach to threatening large countries with sizable nuclear arsenals and not bothering to develop an opinion on or even an interest in foreign policy doctrines. But that's OK, Andy McCarthy writes at The Corner, you see, because even Wikipedia is confused about the Bush Doctrine. I suppose it's also no big deal that Palin thinks Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks either, despite even the Bush administration's rejection of that rationale (after it had served their purposes for taking the country to war). She reminds me of the cocky and ignorant former Texas governor whose current job she might have in four months and that, my friends, is truly chilling.
- Promising a more aggressive campaign against John McCain, the Obama camp released two videos this morning, "real change" and "still," with the latter hitting McCain for being out of touch, including his inability to use a computer. Pretty weak stuff if you ask me. Much better is this line from an Obama spokesman: "McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election."
- Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic adviser, says the next president has to raise taxes in order to keep up with entitlement spending, but for Republicans this is especially difficult because tax-cutting is "the brand, and you don't dilute the brand."
- McCain appeared on "The View" this morning and came out of the gate with a world-class lie and and challenge. I've got to admit, it takes guts to claim on TV that Sarah Palin has never taken earmarks in Alaska, but even more bold is McCain's assertion that "nobody" can name an issue he's flip-flopped on. ThinkProgress has the definitive list, and looking over it, one wonders how this shallow politician, who apparently believes in nothing unless for political gain, ever earned his independent reputation.
- Quote of the day, from John Sidney McCain: "[I'm] divorced with the day-to-day challenges people have." Hey, he didn't lie for a change! Bonus McCain quote, from last year's Republican primary debates: "I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time."
- Demonstrating once again how little Republicans value their evangelical base, McCain and Palin can't even be bothered to show up at this weekend's Value Voters Summit. You'd think these voters would be pretty fed up by the quadrennial jerking around they get and, I don't know, stop voting Republican, but I guess their fear of godless liberalism is stronger than their principles.
- Political science to the rescue? Emory's Alan Abramowitz has correctly predicted the popular vote percentages in every presidential election since 1988 within a couple points and claims his model predicts Obama will win 54.3 percent to McCain's 45.7. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't see that happening.
- Voter disenfranchisement shenanigans, Wisconsin edition: "A lawsuit filed by the state attorney general Wednesday has the potential to slow down voting lines in what promises to be a staggering turnout for the Nov. 4 election, local voting officials said. "It will disenfranchise voters. That's what we're concerned about," City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said.
- Polls: Hoffman has Obama up over McCain in Oregon, 46-39, Rasmussen has McCain over Obama in Missouri, 51-46, the University of Cincinnati [PDF] has McCain leading in Ohio, 48-44, Rasmussen gives Obama a two point lead in Washington, 49-47, and Insider Advantage [PDF] shows a tight race in Nevada, 46-45 in McCain's favor.
- And finally, Obama is set to appear on Saturday Night Live this weekend, his second appearance. For reference, non-celebrity John McCain has also been on SNL twice.
--Mori Dinauer
