Presidential Counsel

As the Post reports, it's becoming clear that Joe Biden may not necessarily have a portfolio in the new Administration other than the role of a counselor. An excerpt:

…While Mr. Obama has moved quickly to assemble his White House staff and the beginnings of a cabinet, he is lagging behind even the chronically late President Bill Clinton in bringing clarity to the role his vice president will play. So far, Mr. Biden has not been given a defined portfolio, the way Al Gore was given the environment and technology in 1992. And Mr. Obama’s aides say they do not expect Mr. Biden to assume the kind of muscular role that Vice President Dick Cheney has played over the last eight years, although he is expected to put out a number of fires.

“I’m sure that there will be discrete assignments over time,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president-elect. “But I think his fundamental role is as a trusted counselor. I think that when Obama selected him, he selected him to be a counselor and an adviser on a broad range of issues.”

…Mr. Biden seems to be adapting. He is hiring for his office, including a chief of staff, Ron Klain, who has worked with him since he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the 1990s. With Mr. Obama having settled on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, Mr. Biden, whose most recent Senate post was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has privately told people that he recognizes he will not be the point man on foreign policy. Mr. Biden has also interviewed candidates for chief economist, and associates say he is honing his economic credentials.

…Mr. Biden is spending most weekdays in Chicago, where he stays in a hotel and has lunch once a week with Mr. Obama. [He has also] been involved in cabinet and policy decisions, offering advice to the president-elect, aides said.

The lack of specificity stands in contrast to the more clearly defined role of Mr. Gore. Within days of Mr. Clinton’s election in 1992, advisers to the president-elect said Mr. Gore would be in charge of a broad initiative on science and technology, heralding what they promised would be a new era in which the government’s focus on making armaments would shift to fostering new civilian technologies and industries. By early December 1992, even before Mr. Clinton had made any cabinet appointments, Mr. Gore was out in front on the environment, issuing a statement calling for an investigation of a hazardous-waste incinerator and signaling that the administration planned an aggressive approach to enforcing environmental laws. During an interview with Gannett on Dec. 8, 1992, Mr. Clinton said Mr. Gore would have “certain specific responsibilities over and above” a general advisory role, including “lobbying the Congress on our program, especially in the health care area, dealing with issues related to the environment and technology.”

As for the relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, aides to both men insist that the relationship is strong, with each man settling into his role.

Ready to Serve

A Decentralized Iraq

Peter Galbraith, former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, recently sat down with Robert Siegel for an interesting interview with NPR's All Things Considered about the decentralization of Iraq (a concept long-advocated by Joe Biden).

SIEGEL: Well, our guest today has written in support of the partition of Iraq, the idea of splitting the country up into three countries, Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. Peter Galbraith is a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and now senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. And Peter Galbraith, partition, still a good idea?

Mr. PETER GALBRAITH: Well, I don't actually advocate partition. My point is that the country has already broken up, and the United States should not be in the business of putting it back together. We have, in the north, Kurdistan, which is, in all regards, an independent country except it doesn't have international recognition with its own army, its own government.

And now between the Shiites and the Sunnis, there are two separate armies. There's a Shiite army. It's the Iraqi army, but it's dominated by the Shiites. And in the Sunni areas, there's now the Awakening, a hundred-thousand-man-strong militia. And it is because of the Awakening, and not so much the surge of U.S. troops, that there's been this enormous decline in attacks by al-Qaeda. But they remain very hostile to the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi government sees them as a bigger threat than al-Qaeda.

SIEGEL: Are you satisfied by the degree to which the incoming Obama administration - what has been the Obama campaign - sees as the reality of Iraqi politics? Is it close enough to what you see as the reality of Iraqi politics?

Mr. GALBRAITH: Yes. Of course, it's very encouraging to me that Joe Biden is the incoming vice president. He has been the prime proponent of a decentralized Iraq. And although in the campaign Senator McCain described his plan as, I think, a cockamamie idea, it is in fact what the Bush administration has done in part. The Bush administration, in 2007, decided to finance a Sunni army, which is the Awakening. And that's why we've had success. Biden would only take this a next step and encourage the Sunnis to form their own region, which would control that army just as the Kurdistan region controls the Peshmerga, which is the Kurdistan army.

SIEGEL: Iraq has prickly relations with - certainly with two of its neighbors. Turkey is distressed at the possibility of a de facto or truly independent Kurdistan on its border. And the Iranians have, it seems, have been intervening in a variety of ways. Is a decentralized, loosely federalized, some would say partitioned, Iraq, is it capable of actually defending its own interests against bigger neighbors?

Mr. GALBRAITH: Well, Iraq is not, today, defending its interests. The Iranians wield enormous influence because the United States actually paved the way for Iran's allies to become the government of Iraq. With regard to the Kurds, actually there's been a change in attitude on the part of Turkey. There was a time when they thought the idea of an independent Kurdistan, or a de facto independent Kurdistan, was an almost existential threat to Turkey. But increasingly Turks recognize, first, that this is an accomplished fact. It's already happened. And second that there are opportunities. After all, they share in common they're secular, they're pro-Western like the Turks, aspire to be democratic, and they're not Arabs.

SIEGEL: Should the Obama administration, once it takes over, should it have a new diplomatic initiative in Iraq? And is there an occasion for some Iraqi version of the Dayton peace conference that addressed the war in the Balkans some years ago?

Mr. GALBRAITH: Yes. There are two things that the United States can do that would enhance stability in Iraq as it leaves. First, to try and solve the territorial dispute over Kirkuk and other disputed areas between the Kurds and the Arabs, and secondly to work out a modus vivendi between the Iraqi government and the Shiite-led army and the Sunni Awakening as to who will control what territory. And a Dayton-style process, with a tough negotiator like Richard Holbrooke, if he doesn't end up being secretary of state, I think that's exactly what the Obama administration should look at doing.

SIEGEL: So, in that argument, it's not, let's try to do away with this conflict between Shia and Sunni and armed groups, but rather, let's try to negotiate a better, more equitable deal and more stable deal between the two groups that will continue to exist for the near future.

Mr. GALBRAITH: Precisely. And if we can minimize the things that Sunnis and Shiites are going to fight over, it may be, over time, that they will find it in their interest to have much greater cooperation and that voluntarily they'll build a stronger Iraqi state. I think it's unlikely the Kurds would ever join that, but I think it's quite possible as between the Sunnis and Shiites.

SIEGEL: Well, Peter Galbraith, thank you very much for talking with us today.

Mr. GALBRAITH: Well, thank you.

[Galbraith is the author of a new book -- "Unintended Consequences: How War In Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies."]

Best Senate Ads

Earlier this week, The Fix listed its favorite ads from this year’s Senate races.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, "Rocking Chairs": Rarely does a single television ad change the direction of a race. This one did. Run by the DSCC independent expenditure arm in early August, the ad, which features two older men sitting on rocking chairs and debating Dole's lack of effectiveness and support of President Bush, framed Dole as changed and out of touch -- the narrative that ultimately beat her. This, to our mind, was the single most effective ad run in any Senate race in the country.

Freedom's Watch, "Peace Bus": The idea of a Department of Peace has long been a pet project of Congressional liberals but had never been used to such devastating effectiveness before this Freedom's Watch ad slamming Rep. Mark Udall for his vote in favor of it. The aging hippie narrator was a nice touch but the piece de resistance was the smoke-filled "peace van."

Tom Udall, "Humbled": The luxury of being a heavy favorite in an open seat race is that you are freed from hammering your opponent and can instead focus on positive accomplishments. This ad, which is told by a disabled Iraq war vet, is an incredibly powerful testament to Udall's work on behalf of returning veterans.

Norm Coleman, "Angry Al": In a race that started nasty and just went downhill from there, this ad stood out for its stirring use of comedian Al Franken's words against him. Franken spent much of the last two years seeking to put controversial statements he had made in this past behind him -- reassuring voters that he was serious about serving in the Senate. This ad put all those doubts about Franken back on the table in a visually compelling way.



Joe Biden, "Kitchen Table": While the national media focused on Biden's vice presidential bid, his own longtime ad guy -- Joe Slade White -- was crafting this terrific black and white ad centered on Biden's daily train trip to and from Washington. "Each night riding home on the train, seeing the lights in the houses, he knows the conversations mothers and father are having around the kitchen table," says the ad's narrator. Powerful stuff.



Jim Inhofe, "One Man in America": There was a time when national Democrats thought they might be able to knock off Inhofe -- a man who even his allies acknowledge is rough around the edges and, at time, hard to like. But, this ad helped take Inhofe's supposed weaknesses -- being stubborn and hard headed -- and turn them into positives, noting that he had accomplished positive things for the state that many people said couldn't be done. And, by the way, Inhofe won reelection with 57 percent.



John Kerry, "Sean Bannon": This ad, run by Kerry in his non-competitive reelection race, shows how much a gifted media consultant can do in the space of 60 seconds. We are introduced to Sean Bannon, a wounded Iraq war vet, who tells the story of meeting Kerry while recovering and asking to receive his Purple Heart at Fenway Park. Cut to the footage of the day when that wish came to pass. A wonderful example of a positive ad designed to remind voters why they sent Kerry to Washington.

American Stories, American Solutions

An Interview with Teddy Roosevelt

Edmund Morris, an award-winning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt, interviews the former president on his 150th birthday. “Due to Roosevelt’s great age, it is difficult to tell how well he hears contemporary questions. But he is as forceful as ever in expressing himself. His statements below are drawn from the historic record and are uncut except when interrupted by his interviewer.”

Q. Happy birthday, Mr. President! Or do you prefer being called Colonel?

ROOSEVELT I’ve had the title of president once — having it twice means nothing except peril to whatever reputation I achieved the first time.

Q. “Colonel,” then. Do you think the Congress elected two years ago as a foil to the Bush administration has fulfilled its mandate?

A. I am heartsick over the delay, the blundering, the fatuous and complacent inefficiency and the effort to substitute glittering rhetoric for action.

Q. Do you blame the House Democratic majority?

A. A goodly number of senators, even of my own party, have shown about as much backbone as so many angleworms.

Q. I hope that doesn’t include the pair running for the presidency! What do you think of Senator John McCain? He often cites you as a role model.

A. He is evidently a man who takes color from his surroundings.

Q. Weren’t you just as unpredictable in your time?

A. (laughing) They say that nothing is as independent as a hog on ice. If he doesn’t want to stand up, he can lie down.

Q. Mr. McCain has always prided himself on his independence. At least, until he began to take direction from chief executives and retired generals —

A. But the signs now are that these advisers have themselves awakened to the fact that they have almost ruined him.

Q. Does his vow to give Joe the Plumber a tax break remind you of Reaganomics?

A. This is merely the plan, already tested and found wanting, of giving prosperity to the big men on top, and trusting to their mercy to let something leak through to the mass of their countrymen below — which, in effect, means that there shall be no attempt to regulate the ferocious scramble in which greed and cunning reap the largest rewards.

Q. In Washington today, Colonel, you’re increasingly seen as the father of centralized, executive, regulatory control.

A. Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.

Q. Especially now that we’ve seen the end of another age of laissez-faire economics?

A. These new conditions make it necessary to shackle cunning, as in the past we have shackled force. The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations of capital —

Q. Even vaster in your day! John D. Rockefeller was richer than Bill Gates, dollar for dollar.

A. Quite right. (He dislikes being interrupted.) And please, let this now be as much of a monologue as possible.

Q. Excuse me, you were saying that vast combinations of capital...

A. ... create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of the state and the nation toward the rules regulating the acquisition and untrammeled business use of property.

Q. So you approve of the federal bailout?

A. I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

Q. Should we condone the huge severance packages paid to executives of rescued corporations?

A. There is need in business, as in most other forms of human activity, of the great guiding intelligences. Their places cannot be supplied by any number of lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should have ample recognition, ample reward. But we must not transfer our admiration to the reward instead of to the deed rewarded; and if what should be the reward exists without the service having been rendered, then admiration will come only from those who are mean of soul.

Q. So we should withhold our envy of Richard Fuld, the chairman of Lehman Brothers, for taking home half a billion before his company went down?

A. Envy and arrogance are the two opposite sides of the same black crystal.

Q. Extraordinary image, Colonel. What’s your impression of Barack Obama?

A. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the people have made up their mind that they wish some new instrument.

Q. You’re not afraid that he’s primarily a man of words? Like Woodrow Wilson, whom you once called a “Byzantine logothete”?

A. It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in a democracy should be able to state his views clearly and convincingly.

Q. Not Mr. McCain’s strong point!

A. Some excellent public servants have not the gift at all, and must rely upon their deeds to speak for them; and unless the oratory does represent genuine conviction, based on good common sense and able to be translated into efficient performance, then the better the oratory the greater the damage to the public it deceives.

Q. Mr. McCain might argue that his life of service and suffering is eloquence enough. Have you read his autobiography?

A. I should like to have it circulated as a tract among an immense multitude of philanthropists, congressmen, newspaper editors, publicists, softheaded mothers and other people of sorts who think that life ought to consist of perpetual shrinking from effort, danger and pain.

Q. Has Mr. Obama not suffered too? Not at the heroic level of Mr. McCain, but in transcending centuries of race prejudice to become a viable presidential candidate — only to be nearly stopped by Hillary Clinton!

A. I think that he has learned some bitter lessons, and that independently of outside pressure he will try to act with greater firmness, and to look at things more from the standpoint of the interests of the people, and less from that of a technical lawyer —

Q. “Technical,” Colonel? He took his law degree straight onto the streets of Chicago and applied it to social problems.

A. He may and probably will turn out to be a perfectly respectable president, whose achievements will be disheartening compared with what we had expected, but who nevertheless will have done well enough to justify us in renominating him — for you must remember that to renominate him would be a very serious thing, only to be justified by really strong reasons.

Q. He doesn’t have Mr. McCain’s foreign policy experience. As president, how would he personify us around the world?

A. It always pays for a nation to be a gentleman.

Q. There’ll be Joe Biden to counsel him, of course. Assuming Mr. Obama can keep track of what he’s saying.

A. (laughing) You can’t nail marmalade against a wall.

Q. Talking of foreign policy, what do you think of Mr. McCain’s choice of a female running mate?

A. Times have changed (sigh). It is entirely inexcusable, however, to try to combine the unready hand with the unbridled tongue.

Q. How will you feel if Sarah Palin is elected?

A. I shall feel exactly the way a very small frog looks when it swallows a beetle the size of itself, with extremely stiff legs.

Q. What’s your impression of President Bush these days?

A. (suddenly serious) He looks like Judas, but unlike that gentleman has no capacity for remorse.

Q. Is that the best you can say of him?

A. I wish him well, but I wish him well at a good distance from me.

Q. One last question, Colonel. If you were campaigning now, would you still call yourself a Republican?

A. (after a long pause) No.

Biden v. Media Empty-Suits

"Are you joking? Is this a joke? Or is that a real question?"

Biden Grilled in Florida

On a recent campaign stop in Florida, Joe Biden was grilled yet again by the so-called liberal media. This time, the culprit was Damon Weaver, an aspiring reporter and investigative journalist. For the record, Damon is a fifth-grader who eventually pronounces Biden his "homeboy." This interview is great (Damon is hilarious) and it shows that, unlike Sarah Palin, Joe Biden apparently knows a bit about the Constitution and the role of the Vice President.

Barack Obama for President

The New York Times endorsement of Barack Obama.

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.

The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.

As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.

Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.

In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.

Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain’s campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong. But there is a greater value in looking closely at the facts of life in America today and at the prescriptions the candidates offer. The differences are profound. Mr. McCain offers more of the Republican every-man-for-himself ideology, now lying in shards on Wall Street and in Americans’ bank accounts. Mr. Obama has another vision of government’s role and responsibilities.

In his convention speech in Denver, Mr. Obama said, “Government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.” Since the financial crisis, he has correctly identified the abject failure of government regulation that has brought the markets to the brink of collapse.

The Economy

The American financial system is the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies. Those ideas have been proved wrong at an unfathomable price, but Mr. McCain — a self-proclaimed “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” — is still a believer. Mr. Obama sees that far-reaching reforms will be needed to protect Americans and American business.

Mr. McCain talks about reform a lot, but his vision is pinched. His answer to any economic question is to eliminate pork-barrel spending — about $18 billion in a $3 trillion budget — cut taxes and wait for unfettered markets to solve the problem.

Mr. Obama is clear that the nation’s tax structure must be changed to make it fairer. That means the well-off Americans who have benefited disproportionately from Mr. Bush’s tax cuts will have to pay some more. Working Americans, who have seen their standard of living fall and their children’s options narrow, will benefit. Mr. Obama wants to raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation, restore a climate in which workers are able to organize unions if they wish and expand educational opportunities.

Mr. McCain, who once opposed President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy as fiscally irresponsible, now wants to make them permanent. And while he talks about keeping taxes low for everyone, his proposed cuts would overwhelmingly benefit the top 1 percent of Americans while digging the country into a deeper fiscal hole.

National Security

The American military — its people and equipment — is dangerously overstretched. Mr. Bush has neglected the necessary war in Afghanistan, which now threatens to spiral into defeat. The unnecessary and staggeringly costly war in Iraq must be ended as quickly and responsibly as possible.

While Iraq’s leaders insist on a swift drawdown of American troops and a deadline for the end of the occupation, Mr. McCain is still talking about some ill-defined “victory.” As a result, he has offered no real plan for extracting American troops and limiting any further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.

Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, has only belatedly focused on Afghanistan’s dangerous unraveling and the threat that neighboring Pakistan may quickly follow.

Mr. Obama would have a learning curve on foreign affairs, but he has already showed sounder judgment than his opponent on these critical issues. His choice of Senator Joseph Biden — who has deep foreign-policy expertise — as his running mate is another sign of that sound judgment. Mr. McCain’s long interest in foreign policy and the many dangers this country now faces make his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska more irresponsible.

Both presidential candidates talk about strengthening alliances in Europe and Asia, including NATO, and strongly support Israel. Both candidates talk about repairing America’s image in the world. But it seems clear to us that Mr. Obama is far more likely to do that — and not just because the first black president would present a new American face to the world.

Mr. Obama wants to reform the United Nations, while Mr. McCain wants to create a new entity, the League of Democracies — a move that would incite even fiercer anti-American furies around the world.

Unfortunately, Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, sees the world as divided into friends (like Georgia) and adversaries (like Russia). He proposed kicking Russia out of the Group of 8 industrialized nations even before the invasion of Georgia. We have no sympathy for Moscow’s bullying, but we also have no desire to replay the cold war. The United States must find a way to constrain the Russians’ worst impulses, while preserving the ability to work with them on arms control and other vital initiatives.

Both candidates talk tough on terrorism, and neither has ruled out military action to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But Mr. Obama has called for a serious effort to try to wean Tehran from its nuclear ambitions with more credible diplomatic overtures and tougher sanctions. Mr. McCain’s willingness to joke about bombing Iran was frightening.

The Constitution and the Rule of Law

Under Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the justice system and the separation of powers have come under relentless attack. Mr. Bush chose to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the moment in which he looked like the president of a unified nation, to try to place himself above the law.

Mr. Bush has arrogated the power to imprison men without charges and browbeat Congress into granting an unfettered authority to spy on Americans. He has created untold numbers of “black” programs, including secret prisons and outsourced torture. The president has issued hundreds, if not thousands, of secret orders. We fear it will take years of forensic research to discover how many basic rights have been violated.

Both candidates have renounced torture and are committed to closing the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But Mr. Obama has gone beyond that, promising to identify and correct Mr. Bush’s attacks on the democratic system. Mr. McCain has been silent on the subject.

Mr. McCain improved protections for detainees. But then he helped the White House push through the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees the right to a hearing in a real court and put Washington in conflict with the Geneva Conventions, greatly increasing the risk to American troops. The next president will have the chance to appoint one or more justices to a Supreme Court that is on the brink of being dominated by a radical right wing. Mr. Obama may appoint less liberal judges than some of his followers might like, but Mr. McCain is certain to pick rigid ideologues. He has said he would never appoint a judge who believes in women’s reproductive rights.

The Candidates

It will be an enormous challenge just to get the nation back to where it was before Mr. Bush, to begin to mend its image in the world and to restore its self-confidence and its self-respect. Doing all of that, and leading America forward, will require strength of will, character and intellect, sober judgment and a cool, steady hand.

Mr. Obama has those qualities in abundance. Watching him being tested in the campaign has long since erased the reservations that led us to endorse Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries. He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility.

Mr. McCain, whom we chose as the best Republican nominee in the primaries, has spent the last coins of his reputation for principle and sound judgment to placate the limitless demands and narrow vision of the far-right wing. His righteous fury at being driven out of the 2000 primaries on a racist tide aimed at his adopted daughter has been replaced by a zealous embrace of those same win-at-all-costs tactics and tacticians.

He surrendered his standing as an independent thinker in his rush to embrace Mr. Bush’s misbegotten tax policies and to abandon his leadership position on climate change and immigration reform. Mr. McCain could have seized the high ground on energy and the environment. Earlier in his career, he offered the first plausible bill to control America’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Now his positions are a caricature of that record: think Ms. Palin leading chants of “drill, baby, drill.”

Mr. Obama has endorsed some offshore drilling, but as part of a comprehensive strategy including big investments in new, clean technologies.

Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate. He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country. Ms. Palin has also questioned millions of Americans’ patriotism, calling Republican-leaning states “pro-America.”

This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr. Bush drive Mr. McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency.

The nation’s problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities.

A Closer Look at the Powell Endorsement

The Latest Newspaper Endorsements

Boston.Com provides excerpts from recent newspaper endorsements of Barack Obama.

In endorsing Obama, the Detroit Free Press says "at a time when America clearly needs some changes, Obama is not only proposing better ones but is also better suited to the job of getting them done." In endorsing McCain, the Las Vegas Review-Journal says the candidate "vows to veto any bill that includes earmarks and says he will freeze spending in many areas of the budget. That would represent real change."

The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: John McCain likes to say that he has been tested. In this campaign, he has been. And he has come up short. He has sounded like a bitter, jealous old man who considers himself entitled to the presidency. Washington can break optimism the way dry farmland can break plows, but Barack Obama still sounds like the candidate who talked about change when he began his campaign. He was right then. He's right now. That's why he's the right choice for America.

The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: As the primary season began, the candidate who seemed best qualified to be that leader was Republican John McCain. But Mr. McCain then was a different candidate from the one before us now. He has abandoned positions we admired. He has reacted inconsistently, even haphazardly, to events. In making the most important decision of his campaign, he showed shockingly poor judgment.

In contrast to Mr. McCain, Democrat Barack Obama has exceeded our expectations during this campaign. He has demonstrated sound judgment and grace under pressure. Because we are now more confident in his ability to steer America through the rough waters ahead, the Orlando Sentinel is endorsing Barack Obama for president.

The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: There is a crisis of spirit, and Barack Obama knows it. He has spoken to it with a call for change. His vision is not obscure, and not out of reach. And there is meaning in his words, from his pledge to realize universal health care to his promise to get the United States out of the mire of Iraq honorably, to his plan to restore economic stability and opportunity. His would be a government of thought before deed and of strength given by the people, not just exercised from above.

The New Haven (Conn.) Register endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: There is too much truth to be ignored in the Democrats' charge that electing McCain would mean, in effect, a third term for the failed policies of the Bush administration. McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate is confirmation of that fear. The governor of Alaska is utterly unqualified to be next in line as president of the United States. Her selection was a purely political choice, without regard to the national interest.

The Record-Journal of Meriden (Conn.) endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: Obama's express train for the advancement of needed change left the station long ago, even as McCain waited at the station of Bush's one-track route to nowhere. Examples of the disparity between Obama's calm, secure and well-reasoned approach to answering questions while treating his opponent in a non-condescending, respectful manner and McCain's eye-twitching, angst-driven, superficial "my friends"-pandering rhetoric and delivery style have been painfully obvious during all three debates.

The Bryan-College Station (Texas) Eagle endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: Every 20 or 30 years or so, a leader comes along who understands that change is necessary if the country is to survive and thrive. Teddy Roosevelt at the turn of the 20th century and his cousin Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan -- these leaders have inspired us to rise to our better nature, to reach out to be the country we can be and, more important, must be. Barack Obama is such a leader. He doesn't have all the answers, to be sure, but at least he is asking the right questions. While we would like more specificity on his plans as president, we are confident that he can lead us ever forward, casting aside the doubts and fears of recent years.

The Houston Chronicle endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: Obama appears to possess the tools to confront our myriad and daunting problems. He's thoughtful and analytical. He has met his opponents' attacks with calm and reasoned responses. Viewers of the debates saw a poised, well-prepared, plausible president with well-articulated positions on the bread-and-butter issues that poll after poll indicate are the true concerns of voters. While Arizona Sen. John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have struck an increasingly personal and negative tone in their speeches, Obama has continued to talk about issues of substance.

The Salt Lake Tribune endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: By necessity, the country's next commander in chief must also be its mender in chief, capable of inspiring his angry and divided constituents to join together in a recovery project to restore the peace, prosperity and self-confidence we once knew. We fear that a lesser effort may be insufficient to reverse America's slide toward economic, political and societal chaos. The times require dramatic and comprehensive change....

The Asbury Park Press of Neptune (N.J.) endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: Obama has the intellect needed to comprehend the complexities of the times and the ability to articulate his positions clearly and eloquently. He can inspire, and we believe he will be able to bring out the best in the American people at a time when our best will be needed. He also offers the best hope for building coalitions and winning back the support of our friends abroad, which he recognizes is critical, not only to help win the war on terrorism but to restore order in the world financial markets.

The Detroit Free Press endorsed Obama on Oct. 18: At a time when America clearly needs some changes, Obama is not only proposing better ones but is also better suited to the job of getting them done. The Free Press endorses Democrat Barack
Obama for president. Despite his relatively short time in public office, Obama, 47, has over the course of the general election campaign steadily articulated a progressive, pragmatic vision for this country, keyed to opportunities for the middle class, and demonstrated time and again that his approach to things is grounded in deliberation and reflection. He's a man clearly open to ideas and willing to search for the right answer to a problem rather than pursuing the expedient one.

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer endorsed Obama on Oct. 18: Trust is essential to the presidency. Americans want to believe that the chief executive understands their lives, will protect their interests and will not compromise their safety. They want a president who represents what America can be, not what it has been. Electing any president involves a leap of faith -- a risk. Such is the power of the office. For a country in need of a new direction and a new tone, Barack Obama is a risk worth taking.

The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: Each of the two major presidential candidates fill the air with different words that all say "change," but only Sen. Barack Obama defines change clearly and positively. It is a
time of peril, both at home and abroad, and the nation needs the focused, energetic leadership Obama has projected and delivered since he announced his presidential candidacy in early 2007.

The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, W.Va., endorsed Barack Obama on Oct. 18: Obama has been offering concrete programs and ideas. Most of McCain's efforts lately have focused on offering reasons why Obama is not a good choice. In other words, Obama has been looking forward while McCain has gone negative. ... Yes, Obama is untested when compared with McCain. But given the choice between John McCain or Barack Obama, the question is who would be best for America. Most of the editorial board members felt the best choice is Barack Obama.

The Las Vegas Sun endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: As Americans consider who should be the next president, it is clear that we are at a crossroads. Americans are looking for someone who not only has a steady hand and is a consensus builder, but who also is a strong leader and who has faith in the greatness of what our nation has to offer even in these most trying of times. We believe that man is Barack Obama.

The Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader endorsed Obama on Oct. 19: Even if this country were not in dire need of a new direction, Sen. Barack Obama would make a better president than Sen. John McCain. McCain's one advantage, experience, is of little use without judgment and temperament. On both counts, Obama has shown himself to be better qualified. Obama has been composed, consistent and honorable through a long and tricky campaign, which he has led almost flawlessly.

Editor and Publisher: "The Obama-Biden ticket maintains its strong lead in the race for daily newspaper endorsements, by 105 to 33, a better than 3-1 margin, picking up 50 or more papers in the past day. Obama's lopsided margin, including most of the major papers that have decided so far, is in stark contrast to John Kerry barely edging George W. Bush in endorsements in 2004 by 213 to 205."

Obama v. McCain, Round III

As reported on the Trail:

Barack Obama completed a three-debate sweep on Wednesday night, at least according to snap polls by CBS News and CNN. CBS's poll of previously uncommitted voters showed Obama the overall winner, and the one who was more convincing on health care. Obama also came out on top on "sharing your values." Obama also beat John McCain in CNN's poll of debate watchers -- more Democrats than Republicans tuned in -- by a large, nearly 2 to 1 margin.

Most striking in the CNN data is the progress Obama has made from debate to debate. Fifty-one percent of debate watchers thought he won the first showdown, that ticked up to 54 percent last time and to 58 percent in the final contest. The senator from Illinois also had increasingly strong ratings as the more likable of the two presidential hopefuls, the one who expressed his views more clearly and as the "stronger leader." McCain only progressed on the question of who spent more time on the attack -- not necessarily a positive development for the GOP nominee.

The NY Times:

Wednesday night’s debate was another chance for Mr. McCain to prove that he is ready to lead this country out of its deep economic crisis. But he had one answer to almost every economic question: cut taxes and government spending. Unfortunately, what Mr. McCain means is to cut taxes for the richest Americans and, inevitably, to reduce the kinds of government services that working Americans need more than ever.

Mr. McCain also stuck to his campaign’s nasty tone. He could not let go of the “Joe the Plumber” parable, saying his opponent’s plan was “to take Joe’s money, give it to Senator Obama and let him spread the wealth around.” Mr. McCain then accused Barack Obama of engaging in the sort of “class warfare” that has, in fact, been a focus of his own campaign.

In another astonishing exchange, Mr. McCain acted as though he was the truly aggrieved party, insisting that he had repudiated all of the attacks on Mr. Obama by surrogates and “some fringe people” at rallies. He didn’t mention that his running mate, Sarah Palin, is one of the loudest attackers, and he certainly didn’t repudiate her absurd, repeated charge that Mr. Obama has been “palling around with terrorists.” Quite the opposite. Mr. McCain again raised Mr. Obama’s old and meaningless acquaintance with William Ayers, a violent, 1960s radical who served with Mr. Obama on charitable foundations. Mr. McCain ended up seeming angry and desperate.

Mr. McCain’s biggest problem is that he has no big ideas for fixing the country’s problems. His speech on the economy this week was replete with seriously bad ones, starting with cutting the already very low capital gains tax in half. That won’t rescue the economy. What it will do is dig the government further into debt while making the current tax structure that rewards the rich even more unfair.

…As for how Mr. McCain would create jobs, his big idea in Tuesday’s speech — surprise, surprise — was that “the most effective way a president can do this” is to use “tax cuts that are directed specifically to create jobs.” After the last eight years, that pinched view of government ought to sound depressingly familiar to the millions of Americans who are still waiting for that downward trickle of prosperity.

EJ Dionne:

The moment of truth in last night's debate came when Bob Schieffer asked the candidates if they would be willing to repeat, face to face, some of the personal charges they have made against each other in their ads and on the trail. At first, John McCain flinched. Instead of answering directly, he suggested, remarkably, that it was Barack Obama who was running the more negative campaign. Polls show that this is certainly not the impression of voters. They see McCain as the negative guy.

But eventually McCain launched the attack everyone was waiting for, referring to Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, the '60s radical with whom Obama served on a Chicago education board that also included Republican members. Obama calmly noted that his relationship with Ayers was limited and that Ayers would play no role in an Obama administration.

But McCain was wound up, and before he was done, he made the astonishing claim that some fraudulent voter registrations obtained by ACORN -- that's the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- constituted "one of the greatest frauds in voter history" and were "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Gosh, I didn't know our democratic fabric was so frail.

Ayers, ACORN and Joe the Plumber were the stars of McCain's desperate effort in the third and final presidential debate to revive a candidacy that has been on the skids ever since the economic crisis hit. (Joe, whose last name is Wurzelbacher and who runs a plumbing business in Ohio, confronted Obama recently at a campaign stop because he didn't like the idea that Obama would raise his taxes. He's become a hero on some conservative Web sites.)

This trio of attacks almost certainly did McCain good among those whose votes he already has: very conservative Republicans who share Joe's view that Obama is some kind of socialist. But it's unlikely that McCain helped himself much with the moderate and middle-class voters who have drifted away from him. He failed to rattle the ever-calm Obama. And it's hard to see that anything McCain said last night repaired the damage done to his campaign by the economic crisis and his own handling of it.

…What's striking about the past month is that the great American middle has shifted Obama's way. Recent polls by The Post and ABC News, Gallup, and the Pew Research Center suggest that Obama's gains since mid-September have been especially large among whites, particularly white men, and also among independents and moderates. At this crucial juncture, the contours of the 2008 contest are remarkably similar to those of the 2006 midterm elections that ended with a Democratic victory. Strikingly -- and no doubt unintentionally -- McCain echoed the Democrats' 2006 campaign theme when he said that voters want the country to move in "a new direction." That's McCain's problem.

McCain tried hard last night to paint Obama as a big-spending liberal who hangs around with radicals. But ideology may matter less to voters this year than temperament, and in this downturn, conservatism may be even more suspect than liberalism. In assailing Obama from the right, McCain may only have deepened the problems he already has.

The LA Times:

John McCain came into the third and final presidential debate needing to somehow wrestle the campaign out of Barack Obama's arms. He did not do it. There was no single moment that was likely to reverberate in the minds of American voters and change the course of an election that has moved dramatically toward Obama in the
last several weeks. But the 90-minute debate was a perfect distillation of McCain's general election campaign, with all of its inconsistent messages.

…McCain needed to focus with laser-like intensity on middle-class fears over the faltering economy, the universal concern of undecided voters. Initially, he did that. He spoke repeatedly about "Joe the Plumber" -- so repeatedly that by mid-debate Obama too was addressing the man who first surfaced this week at an Obama event to question the candidate about taxes. But soon the Republican was off-topic and into the swamp of cultural issues that voters have said are not important as their retirement savings dwindle and their homes and livelihoods are threatened.

In a race in which millions of dollars have been spent for the votes of American women, McCain managed in a two-question segment to mock laws protecting a woman's right to sue for being paid less than a man, and the notion that late-term abortions should be allowed in cases where a mother's health is threatened. "That's the extreme pro-abortion position -- quote, health," McCain said.

On Swampland, TIME's Amy Sullivan reports how undecideds were “laughing at, not with, McCain.”

In politics it is generally not considered a good sign when voters are laughing at you, not with you. And by the end of the third and last presidential debate, the undecided voters who had gathered in Denver for Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg’s focus group were “audibly snickering” at John McCain’s grimaces, eye-bulging, and repeated references to “Joe the Plumber.”

The group of 50 uncommitted voters should have at least been receptive to McCain—Republicans and Independents outnumbered Democrats in the group by almost 4 to 1, and they started the evening with much warmer responses to McCain than to his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. But by the time it was all over, so few of them had declared their support for McCain that there weren’t enough for Greenberg to separate them into a post-debate focus group. Meanwhile, the Obama supporters had to assemble in two different rooms to keep their discussion groups manageable.

Half of the voters thought that Obama “won” the debate, with 24% giving McCain the victory and 26% seeing no clear winner. As with previous debates, however, the divergent personal reactions to the candidates were most striking. And those ultimately may end up defining the campaign for McCain. He emerged from the Republican field as the candidate who was least associated with the damaged GOP brand, the one least able to be tied to George W. Bush, and he has largely maintained that image: a large plurality (40%) see McCain as a maverick, and over the course of the evening there was a 52-point shift on the question of whether McCain offered a different path than Bush.

Yet if McCain has proved resistant to the Obama campaign’s mantra that he would be “More of the Same,” the results of focus groups over the past month seem to show that he has hurt his own chances of winning the White House by misreading the emotional mood of the country. Once again, the focus group dials dove whenever McCain went on the attack, particularly when he talked about Bill Ayers and ACORN in what turned out to be the longest segment of the evening. The audience that started out giving McCain a 54/24 favorability rating (and, incidentally, liked Sarah Palin a lot more than Joe Biden, with +6 and -20 splits) ended up almost evenly divided between warm and cool feelings toward him (50/48).

Obama started off with a lower, and divided, favorability rating (42/42) that climbed to 72/22 after 90 minutes. “Boring” and “zzzzz” were popular reviews of Obama’s performance from blogosphere pundits, but apparently the people have had enough excitement watching the market plummet and are in the mood for some mellowness.

McCain’s strongest area of the night was the issue of energy independence. The dial responses were highest for his comments in that area, and McCain eliminated Obama’s 18-point advantage on the issue by the end of the debate. He also continues to hold strong advantages as the candidate most trusted to handle national security and foreign policy issues, even though the final debate was mostly focused on domestic questions. And McCain is still the candidate voters are most likely to see as a “strong leader,” although his 36-point lead on that issue shrank to 22 over the course of the evening.

One of the most significant factors in the campaign may end up being Obama’s fundraising, which he has used to run ads across the country criticizing McCain’s health care plan. The undecided voters started the evening preferring Obama’s approach 54 to 4. McCain won over an additional 14% of them in the debate while Obama’s number remained unchanged, but the 40-point gap on a key issue is still hurting the Republican candidate.

As for Obama, he continued to win over undecided voters on critical questions: Does he have what it takes to be president? A 38/50 split flipped to 56/34. Can voters trust him to make the right decisions? Obama rose from 30/50 to 48/40. Is he best equipped to handle the economic crisis? Voters split evenly between the two candidates at the start preferred Obama by 30 points by the end of the night.

Perhaps most significant was Obama’s success in reassuring voters that he understands who they are and what matters to them. He went from a 16-point to a 24-point advantage on “Is he on your side?” and made similar gains on the question of whether he would “bring the right kind of change,” from a 18 to 38-point advantage. And while the two candidates were even on the question of “who shares your values?” at the beginning of the debate, Obama held a 24-point lead by the end.
The “values” undecided voters seem to have in mind this year seem a long way from the focus on abortion and gay marriage in the 2004 campaign. Voters reacted most positively to Obama’s remarks during the segment on education that parents needed to take personal responsibility to improve their children’s learning environments—Greenberg noted that the dials went up to 80, the highest score of the night. Similarly, women reacted particularly well to his comments on abortion, but it was his suggestion that there could be common ground in supporting policies to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies that really spiked the dials in CNN’s focus group of undecided Ohio voters.

Soon enough we’ll have election results instead of focus group responses to tell us which candidate will move into the White House in January. The number of voters who remain uncommitted dwindles by the day. John McCain’s challenge in the last three weeks of the campaign is to make sure that they don’t break the way these Denver voters did. He’d better hope that Joe the Plumber has a lot of friends.

On the Fix, Chris Cillizza offers some of his initial thoughts:

"Joe the Plumber." The McCain campaign clearly saw an opening from the widely circulated You Tube clip of Obama talking to -- obviously -- a plumber named Joe. Time and again throughout the debate, McCain name-checked Joe as a stand-in for small business owners who, he argued, would be badly hurt by Obama's tax plan. McCain needed to find a way to connect on the economy and his campaign clearly believed it found it in Joe. Maybe. But, as we said in the runup to tonight's debate, McCain's problems as a messenger on the economy can't be fixed in a night. If Joe the Plumber is where he is going to go in the next 20 days, he needs to hammer on it day and night to try and change voter perceptions before Nov. 4.

Obama's Cool. Obama has learned one key lesson during the 9,000 debates in this campaign -- don't lose your cool. McCain, on several occasions, mocked Obama (laughs, smirks etc.) and interrupted him to try and correct the record. Obama largely ignored these verbal (and nonverbal) jabs, knowing that the one way he would surely lose the debate -- and jeopardize his place in the race -- was to lose his temper. Obama was steady but not spectacular tonight; come to think of it, that phrase could describe his performance in all three debates.

McCain's Scatter-Shot Approach. The key in any political campaign is to latch on to one really powerful argument against your opponent and stick to it. It's why the "celebrity" attack by McCain on Obama worked earlier this summer; the McCain came up with it and repeated it endlessly. Tonight, McCain couldn't seem to decide which line of attack he wanted to focus on. He did break the Ayers seal but also threw in ACORN, negotiating with rogue leaders, taxes, and a lack of international experience among other issues. For the average viewers, that scatter-shot approach makes it VERY hard to know what exactly to focus on in McCain's case against Obama.

Abortion, Really? Roughly ten minutes -- one-ninth -- of the debate was focused on abortion. The truth is that while many people feel passionately on both sides of the issue, their minds are almost completely made up. McCain may have stayed on abortion longer than many GOP strategists would have liked in hopes of courting those white, working class voters who tend to be conservative on social issues but it's hard to imagine many undecided voters making up their minds based on the candidates' stance on abortion.

The "Split Screen Smirk/Smile." Both Obama and McCain seemed to have decided that the best way to nonverbally dismiss their opponent's attacks was to smile. It didn't work for either candidate. McCain's facial expressions seemed contrived, Obama's vaguely arrogant. Just a steady look into the camera will do nicely. Did no one learn from Al Gore's debate sighs in 2000?

Schieffer Shines. Anyone who has ever met Bob Schieffer (and The Fix has had the honor -- albeit just once) knows that he is the ultimate class act -- and a great journalist to boot. Man, did he show it tonight. Schieffer kept the debate moving, asked probing questions and wasn't afraid to interrupt one of the candidates when they veered wildly off topic. Well done.

The Conservative Case for Obama

The growing list of right-wing mainstays who have endorsed Barack Obama recently gained two more prominent (and unexpected) names: Christopher Buckley and Christopher Hitchens.

Buckley, an author and son of the conservative icon, William F. Buckley (who once said he spent his “entire life time separating the Right from the kooks”), announced his endorsement in a recent blog. In retaliation, he was “effectively fatwahed by the conservative movement,” an act consisting of angry, hateful and very personal comments directed toward him, and ultimately culminating in his resignation from the National Review, the political journal founded by his father over 50 years ago. Invoking the words of Ronald Reagan, Buckley said, “I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.”

In his endorsement, Buckley lays out the conservative case for Obama. An excerpt:

I have known John McCain personally since 1982. I wrote a well-received speech for him. Earlier this year, I wrote in The New York Times—I’m beginning to sound like Paul Krugman, who cannot begin a column without saying, “As I warned the world in my last column...”—a highly favorable Op-Ed about McCain, taking Rush Limbaugh and the others in the Right Wing Sanhedrin to task for going after McCain for being insufficiently conservative. I don’t—still—doubt that McCain’s instincts remain fundamentally conservative. But the problem is otherwise.

McCain rose to power on his personality and biography. He was authentic. He spoke truth to power. He told the media they were “jerks” (a sure sign of authenticity, to say nothing of good taste; we are jerks). He was real. He was unconventional. He embraced former anti-war leaders. He brought resolution to the awful missing-POW business. He brought about normalization with Vietnam—his former torturers! Yes, he erred in accepting plane rides and vacations from Charles Keating, but then, having been cleared on technicalities, groveled in apology before the nation. He told me across a lunch table, “The Keating business was much worse than my five and a half years in Hanoi, because I at least walked away from that with my honor.” Your heart went out to the guy. I thought at the time, God, this guy should be president someday.

A year ago, when everyone, including the man I’m about to endorse, was caterwauling to get out of Iraq on the next available flight, John McCain, practically alone, said no, no—bad move. Surge. It seemed a suicidal position to take, an act of political bravery of the kind you don’t see a whole lot of anymore. But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic.

A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking? All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble
bust.

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for. So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

Meanwhile, Hitchens is voting for Obama because “McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.” More:

On "the issues" in these closing weeks, there really isn't a very sharp or highly noticeable distinction to be made between the two nominees, and their "debates" have been cramped and boring affairs as a result. But the difference in character and temperament has become plainer by the day, and there is no decent way of avoiding the fact. Last week's so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience.

McCain occasionally remembers to stress matters like honor and to disown innuendoes and slanders, but this only makes him look both more senile and more cynical, since it cannot (can it?) be other than his wish and design that he has engaged a deputy who does the innuendoes and slanders for him.

I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds.

I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.

The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: "What does he take me for?" Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.

False Ads Won't Solve Our Problems

A Closer Look at Barack and Michelle

To help answer the question, "Who is Barack Obama?", the campaign just released a behind-the-scenes look at the Obamas during the Democratic Convention. And guess what? The unpatriotic, dangerous "pal" of terrorists is actually a a normal guy, a loving father and a caring husband with a good sense of humor. In his spare time, he's an inspirational leader who offers hope to millions that a brighter future lies over the horizon.

Over the Line, Continued...

On Kos, a reader discusses why the hateful and divisive rhetoric from John McCain and Sarah Palin goes over the top and needs to stop.

There's something happening here, and what it is, is all too clear. McCain - Palin rallies over the last few days have disintegrated into festivals of hate, and the two candidates at the center of this are encouraging it.

There were shouts of "Nobama" and "Socialist" at the mention of the Democratic presidential nominee. There were boos, middle fingers turned up and thumbs turned down as a media caravan moved through the crowd Thursday for a midday town hall gathering featuring John McCain and Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a campaign that embraced the mantra of "Country First" but is flagging in the polls and scrambling for a way to close the gap as the nation's economy slides into shambles has found itself at the center of an outpouring of raw emotion rare in a presidential race.

...Standing at the center of the crowd, McCain and Palin drew on the crowd's energy as they repeatedly trained their fire on Obama. McCain and Palin are soaking in the crowd's anger, amplifying it, and feeding it back.

"Senator Obama has a clear radical, far-left, pro-abortion record," McCain said after being asked about the issue.

The answer prompted a shower of boos from the crowd members. They booed again when he mentioned William Ayers, who bombed U.S. facilities to protest the Vietnam War as part of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground. They booed again at the mention of Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal from Massachusetts.

And McCain is promising more than anger. He's promising that he will name names. He's promising a new economic black list for Wall Street -- and for Capitol Hill.

"Will you assure us," one woman asked, "that, as president, you will take immediate action to investigate, prosecute and name the names of the people actually responsible?"

"I will," McCain answered. "The same people that are now claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators in causing this problem that it is," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. "You know their names. You will know more of their names."

Just look at that statement for a moment. Two weeks ago, John McCain suspended his campaign and trotted back to Washington, claiming he had to help shepherd in the bailout agreement. Two days ago he was bragging about it. Yet here he is saying that the people "claiming credit" for this agreement need to be prosecuted.

The language McCain and Palin are using: "radical," "palling around with terrorists," "willing co-conspirators" is growing more heated by the day. It's language that's compounded by the "dangerous" commercials McCain is running across the country.
It's the kind of language that you use in describing an enemy in wartime. It's the kind of language that not only excuses violence, but encourages it. More and more it sounds as if McCain has inhaled the ghost of Joseph McCarthy and is exhaling the fevered rancor of Charles Coughlin.

The "Straight Talk Express" long ago left the station. "Country First" is the last thing on their minds. Nothing remains of John McCain's campaign but a tight little ball of festering hate. Considering the volatile nature of the country at the moment, and the fear so many are facing as they watch their life savings evaporate, that hate is all too easy to spread. There are millions of Americans looking for someone to blame for this disaster, and McCain is desperate to give them a target. He's said many times that he wants to reach across the aisle, and he's doing that, but he's holding a knife in his hand.

Maybe it's guilt over McCain's decades of voting for and evangelizing for the deregulation that brought on the crisis. Maybe he's desperate that the mob not look at his own record for the source of their troubles. Maybe he's simply angry because he sees his chance slipping away. Whatever it is, it's ugly. And getting uglier. Any decent candidate -- any decent human being -- would be working now to tamp down that ire, not raise it.

What John McCain is doing is no more responsible than tossing lighted matches into a tinder dry forest. Someone is going to get burned.

Even some in the McCain campaign have finally realized they may be going too far, and it will be interesting to see what comes of this internal debate within their campaign, if anything. Judging the folks like Salter and Schmidt who have been employing these tactics and making the decisions thus far, there's doesn't appear to be much hope at the end of the day.

Some McCain campaign officials are becoming concerned about the hostility that attacks against Sen. Obama are whipping up among Republican supporters. During an internal conference call Thursday, campaign officials discussed how the tenor of the crowds has turned on the media and on Sen. Obama.

Someone yelled "Off with his head" at a rally Wednesday for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin in Pennsylvania. Later that day in Ohio, a man stood outside a rally holding a sign that said "Obama, Osama." At a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, someone in the crowd wore a T-shirt depicting Sen. Obama wearing a devil mask.

The Obama campaign, with widening leads in several national polls, dismissed the attacks. "Sen. McCain's campaign has admitted that if he talks about the economy, he'll lose, so we fully expect him to continue his angry, personal attacks," Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "Barack Obama will continue to talk about his plans to strengthen our economy and create jobs because that's what American families care about."

Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser, says Sen. McCain is "happy" with the campaign. "We believe we can turn this around and fight our way back," Mr. Salter said.

A couple points: The first is that this is clearly not something John McCain is comfortable with. Aides have attested that his crankiness and short-fuse (even shorter than usual) may be a result of him agreeing to pursue a course he knows is destructive and dishonorable. Nevertheless, he is panicking and acting in desperation. As he’s done on several occasions in recent months, politics trumps principles - not exactly the tact that initially attracted millions of Americans to this once-Maverick candidate. As former Michigan Governor, William Milliken (R), recently said as he backed away from his support of McCain -- "He is not the McCain I endorsed."

It’s also interesting how McCain has travelled across the country boldly attacking the character and decency of Obama. He was quick to tell crowds that he was going to “take the gloves off” for that second presidential debate and really stick it to Obama. But when he had that opportunity, when he was face to face with Obama, he didn’t have the courage or the decency to say anything of the sort. Maybe he realized it wouldn't play well with voters who were watching their investments and livlihoods go up in flames. Maybe he realized how ridiculous, petty and divisive his attacks truly are. But regardless of the reasons for his silence, Joe Biden put it well when he said, “In my neighborhood, when you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him."

Talking Points Memo dives more into the “Cowardice Issue:”

The image is coming into focus. Even McCain's confidants are now suggesting that it was his anger and frustration with Obama that led him to embrace Steve Schmidt's Willie Horton-on-Steroids campaign for the White House. And whether it's the appearance before the Des Moines Register Editorial board or his tense refusal to make eye contact during the first presidential debate, I don't think many people would deny at this point that McCain's hostility and contempt for Obama -- what even Wolf Blitzer calls his "disdain" -- is palpable.

After the first debate many people wondered aloud whether it was hostility and contempt or fear and intimidation that kept McCain from looking Obama in the face even once. But with two weeks and more evidence to consider, it is clear that it was both: Hostility that is magnified by the person's mortifying inability to face the person who inspires it. That's the kind of unchanneled, clogged up anger that makes you unsteady, that makes you make mistakes.

McCain's moral cowardice has been one of the subtexts of this campaign ever since he wound up the nomination and turned his attention to Barack Obama. But I did not realize it would reveal itself in such a physical dimension.

The tell came this week as McCain unearthed the Ayers story which, for whatever its merits, was fully aired months ago and has no clear relation to the particulars of October other than McCain's collapsing poll numbers. He's on it. Palin's on it. He's releasing slashing new TV ads like this one. Both of them are ginning their crowds up into spiraling gyres of right-wing delirium -- a ready-made Lord of the Flies (and let's admit that's a gentle allusion, given the tone of these barnburners) if Obama happened into one of the auditoriums at the wrong moment.

He ever swaggered on for a couple days about how he was going to 'take the gloves off' when he met up with Obama in Nashville. But when the two of them were there in each others physical presence ... nothing. By a myriad of gestures and reactions Obama owned him. Nor is it a matter of shifting off the tactics, because as soon as McCain made his hasty retreat from the stage at Debate #2 he was right back at it. In every other aspect of life, high and low, refined and unlovely, we have a word for that kind of behavior: cowardice.

And now Obama can lightly taunt McCain with that very cowardice, his inability to just say it to his face. And if my take on the inner workings of McCain's mind at the moment is right that should simply unhinge him even more.