Forget the polls and the media obsession with “momentum.” Forget his [inconceivably stupid] mishandling of the economic crisis. Forget his choice of a running-mate whose experience makes Barack Obama’s look like Al Gore’s. Forget it all. The American people will come to their senses, and John McCain will close the gap and go on to win. Hugh Hewitt, ladies and gentlemen. He’ll be here all week. In all seriousness, when parsed of its charming left-bashing, Hewitt’s point is that if, somehow, the election gets turned around to “war on terror” issues, as happened in ’02 and ’04, rather than “we’re...

The “historic,” “massive”… pick whatever adjective you want… to describe the over $850 billion “financial bailout” package safely passed the House of Representatives and the President signed it almost immediately. As it is, on high job loss numbers and other economic fears, the stock markets declined (the Dow down around 150 points). For good measure, it seems, Californians who have long believed in the Tax Cut Fairy now get their appropriate comeuppance as Gov. Schwarzennegger prepares to ask the Fed for $7 billion in loans to keep the Golden State operating. Deep sighs. Meanwhile, noted NYU economist Nouriel Roubini notes...

21:40: We’re up to foreign policy, now… Palin continues the incoherence on Iraq… Biden, by contrast, makes sense… I have never seen anything quite like Palin’s incoherence at this level. This is truly remarkable. Palin calls Dems “you’re surrendering! you’re surrendering!” Biden looks so damned reasonable by comparison… I know this will be spun as a Palin win… but really… NUCULAR? That should disqualify her as it is. Honestly. Nothing else. And now… Ahmadididjad… this is right out of McCain’s last bit… does this s*** play? Biden correctly reports that Ahmadididjad is not in control of Iran’s security apparatus… come...

Watching Vice-Presidential debate… Gwen Ifill… train wreck. Sarah Palin… train wreck… Joe Biden… ok, but could be better… 21:08 : Palin says folks just need to get together and never get taken advantage of again… train wreck. 21:12: I just didn’t get that tax exchange (“Barack voted to raise taxes 94 times…”) 21:17: Redistribution of wealth… “millions of small businesses.” Government is the problem… Barack will raise taxes (and he’s BLACK!) I’ll take a break… Palin’s incoherence… hurts… hurts…

And so, as we enter this Jewish New Year, (5769) which commenced last evening (when it was also Mrs. TD’s and my 17th wedding anniversary), and as of now (around 13 30 on 30 September 2008), I see the stock markets have rallied a bit to recover around 300 points of the nearly 800 point drop in the Dow yesterday, though inter-bank interest rates have risen somewhat alarmingly… it’s time to take a bit of “stock” (perhaps a poor choice of words!) BTW… via Bruce the Veep, here is a Gallup poll showing most Americans favor a different bailout plan–...

Call it a political self-fulfilling prophesy, or economic reality, or call it macaroni, but today, after the bailout bill failed in the House the major financial markets expressed their concern by promptly collapsing: down 777 points in the Dow, down nearly 9% in the S&P 500, a mainstay of most retirement portfolios (including my own), and over 9% in the NASDAQ index. The problems that led directly to this financial market meltdown were caused by years of shortsightedness by a group of cartoon villains ideologues known as the Republican Party. Today, that party’s House GOP Caucus had little or no...

Somehow, “legend” isn’t enough of a superlative for Newman, who succumbed to cancer at age 83. Perhaps it can best be summarized as that he proved that a great man… can also be a good man.

C/o Bruce the Veep, at least this CNN quick-poll of undecideds shows that although there is a disagreement on whether McCain won the debate on Iraq related points, Obama won the overall debate solidly. Not exactly a “game-changer” when all the other fundamentals show serious “O-mentum” right now.

We’re having a rare moment with the t.v. on here in Casa TD to watch “The Almost Diss to Ole Miss!” First point (21:28 EDT): Lehrer has, as promised, has pretty much dispensed with the “foreign policy” thing and gone all bailout all the time. McCain has seized on [the irrelevance of… oh wait, that’s me] $18 billion in earmarks… why hasn’t Obama pointed out that in a federal budget of nearly $3 trillion (or $3,000 billion)… these earmarks– not all of which “are waste”… are less than one per cent of federal spending? I mean… BIG FREAKING DEAL. THE....

And the games continue… McCain’s campaign has cryptically declined to commit to attending tonight’s debate in Oxford, MS while House Republicans decided to be the sticking point with respect to Bush’s last parting shot in his ongoing effort to destroy this country financial bailout package and said House Republicans refuse to go along with the agreement between the Administration and the (forever caving) Democratic caucus… it seems McCain, who refused to endorse the agreement, even as he “off-the-record” insists he generally agrees with it, insists he must remain in Washington as “Mr. Consensus Builder,” quite a dubious proposition seeing as...