Ground Game Redux

Nate and the boys over at 538 (actually "the boys" = a guy named Sean and maybe his flunky driver who's been carting him all over the land so's he can chronicle the MASSIVE DISPARITY IN ORGANIZATION AND ENTHUSIASM AMONGST THE TWO CAMPAIGNS' VOLUNTEERS!!!) are all over the ground game story again. Probably they are right and we shall soon see. Yay.

JeffCo Makes the Bigshow!

On yesterday afternoon's All Things Considered, the whole dang country was regaled with the sordid tale of Jefferson County, Alabama's sewer woes. Which raises the question: Where's a Filth Licker when you really need one?

This Just In: I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!

All about the New Women's Spirituality. Pull quote:

We're afraid to be ourselves...afraid to be vulnerable even to our closest friends and family members. We want to do the right thing, to be good children, spouses, parents, professionals, but we're not sure how.

Not sure that's an exclusively feminine set of fears. Either that or I am, in fact, all woman. (Which, come to think of it, would explain a lot...) What I really think is that it's not so much a gender thing (in fairness, the link says as much) but a nuance thing. It may or may not be true that women, in general, are more willing to cobble together a spiritual path that acknowledges doubt, paradox, fear, and uncertainty. I think it is almost certainly true that any spiritual path that doesn't do those things is less likely to lead to whatever promised land you're trying to get to.

Why Japan and the U.S. Are Totally Different Countries (and Therefore Fought a Big, Fat War About It One Time)

In the U.S., we call it Scrubbing Bubbles.

In Japan, it's a Filth Licker and it is E-V-I-L.

It's the Debates, Stupid

WaPo's Robert Kaiser thinks this election was won over the course of 270 minutes. Pull quote:

Okay, okay, this is an oversimplification. Lots of things "did it." We could fill today's Post with the details. Nor is this an obvious conclusion that is widely shared. In fact, our pundits appear to have put the debates behind them, hardly mentioning them in the past fortnight. After all, there were no zingers, no blood on the floor, no egregious goofs -- nothing happened!

Well, not exactly. There is now a lot of evidence from polls and focus groups suggesting that Sen. Obama has significantly improved his standing with a great many Americans since the first debate on Sept. 26, exactly five weeks ago. Americans find Obama more empathetic, stronger, better prepared to be president and just more sympathetic a figure than they did before the debates.

The Future of Nerds on the Net

If I've got anything to do with it (and, let's face it, I don't), Nate's gonna win this pending death match amongst the nerdy pollsters in the interwebs. Because Nate is cool.

Lathering Up the Base

...for 2012. Milbank chronicles Gov. Sarah's rally in Leesburg, VA. (WaPo)

Also Richard Cohen pokes fun at the Starburst Crew that unearthed her in the first place...

(Photo: AP)

Nate Silver is a Broken Record

"John McCain is making no progress in his pursuit of the White House." And it just goes downhill from there. Nate. Baby. Don't sugarcoat it. (538)

Epiphany: Life Is Good

It's one of those perfect, crisp, blue-skied October late afternoons in Alabama. I'm listening to Tom Waits (whose music I was totally, completely, absolutely wrong about: I'm pretty dumb for not shelling out the $85 to see him at the Alabama this summer).

Whatever.

It's just one of those perfect, calm Sundays. The windows are open and the crickets are starting to make their cricket noises. There's no Sunday blues whatsoever. And so I have this note-to-self newsflash.

2008 has, so far, been pretty good to me.

Okay. Fine. Go me. But the interesting thing is, just this past week, I've been sort of fishing for it. Couple of rejections from agents who were considering my Great American Novel. Add to that the general feeling of being a little, uh, hermetically sealed off from the rest of the human race, what with my suburban little townHome and my little Toyota Corolla (36 MPG) daily commute and the fact that almost all the people I care about are hundreds of miles away. Then there's all those vocational plates I've got spinning. Plus spitting into this here ether (don't ever get Google Analytics: it tells you just how many people on the planet are NOT paying attention to a frickin' word you say).

So what gives, you ask (all six of you)?

I guess mainly I realized today that I've had the best writing year I've ever had. No Pulitzers or anything -- and I'm perilously close to being ineligible for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, what with me three years removed from no longer being Younger.

But.

I just found out I won another chapbook contest. And I've had a few other things published, poems and stories. What's more, all the things I published this year didn't suck -- which hasn't always been the case. Plus I went to that crazy Bread Loaf thing, and I came away confirmed in thinking I'm not the suckiest writer on the planet. Robert Boswell and Rebecca Brown proved to be gurus who arrived right on time. Also (to borrow a verbal tic from the lovely and talented Sarah Palin) my friend Keith got a novel published for eleventy gazillion dollars and I helped him edit it. Also.

On a personal note, I did a proverbial crapload of traveling, even out to Seattle which has been a Great White Whale since I developed my man crush on Eddie Vedder in the early 90s.

Said far-flung friends are a source of sustenance, and I've done a better job about staying in touch with those people in my life I truly feel a connection with. Even if they are hundreds of miles away or married with (or without) kids or whatever other New Millenium obstacles there are to such connections.

Etc.

So.

I have decided that for the rest of the year, I am simply going to breathe and clean my house (literally and figuratively) and, in the words of Dan Bern, give interviews, take stock of what I have done. Eat vegetables and whole grains and, sometimes, a really beautiful steak or something. Maybe drink some green tea every now and again. Listen to more Tom Waits. You know. Whatever.

Should be fun. But don't worry: we're on a roll here on Ye Olde Blog, so you'll have a front row seat to all this glorious stock taking.

Also let's elect us a black guy on Nov 4. That'll make it a banner year. No joke.

Don't Be Sad, Mr. Brooks

David Brooks has a sad. He wishes John McCain hadn't screwed everything up because he -- McCain -- was all set to be a Teddy Roosevelt Progressive Conservative and make things all better again by governing from the radical center. Here's the secret David Brooks doesn't want to tell anybody. He has a sneaking suspicion that Barack Obama is going to do exactly that. (So do I.) And now Brooks is worried he's gonna have to figure out how to tailor his punditry to covertly agree with a Democratic president for the next eight years. D'oh! (NYT)

Hope

"Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more -- food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilisation as long as civilisation is our main object. We must learn to want something else more." -- C.S. Lewis from "Hope" in Mere Christianity.

For Lewis, that something-else-more meant "a continual looking forward to the eternal world." A.K.A. Heaven. But Heaven is just one kind of transcendence. And even Lewis admits this "looking forward" can be seen at work in other matters.

Methinks that maybe -- just maybe -- we're in the process, as a country and a world, of figuring out just what our collective something-else-more is. I, for one, am scared and daunted by that challenge, but more than that: I am hopeful.

Just spent 90-minutes or so in a bookstore reading some of Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. Christian memoir thingy. (Hence the foray back into Lewis for something a little more seminal.) Miller's way more into the doctrine than I am -- I can't really even call myself a Christian, though matters of faith (as they are so-called) do indeed have a good bit of my attention in this life.

Whatever.

I mention Miller because he did offer a good metaphor for God-fear. Once at the Grand Canyon, he got all wobble-kneed at the immensity and beauty of it all. He had an impulse to leap out into it, and that impulse scared him to death. God-fear, says Miller, is just like that.

As a collective organism, we here on Planet Earth, stand puny at the precipice of something larger than we can know. It's scary and daunting and our knees wobble. But it also brings us face-to-face with a grand and limitless sky -- the best invitation we'll ever get at transcendence.

That's what I'm talking about. You heard it here first.*

_____

(*Okay: you heard it here most recently. And isn't that what blogs are all about?)

Sen. Smalley (D-Min.)

He's good enough, he's smart enough, and doggone it...people like him!

'Entitlement' Ain't Just a River In Egypt

Quite possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard. (Via Wonkette)

Update: Looks like Joe's gonna have to change that voicemail message.

Three Words

Witness. Relocation. Program.

Seriously -- for the love of God! -- can somebody get the dude on the left a sandwich?!

Don't Mess with Santa

Christmas is back on!

Separation Anxiety

Gene Robinson doesn't want it to end. "It" being the reality-TV uber-drama that is Election '08. Plus he gets all literary -- what with Pynchon references and everything.

One Word

Goosebumps. (Via The Dish)

(Yeah, I guess it's official: Pass the Kool-Aid.)

Barry: A Primer

Joe Klein's recent article and the full interview that fueled it.

Then Michele Norris of All Things Considered in a long story about Obama cutting his teeth in Chicago's political meat grinder. (How's that for a mixed metaphor?)

Just about everything you need to know about the Democratic nominee. Required reading/listening.

Shout Out for the Anchorage Daily News

Like this idea: hyperlocal really does percolate outward. Also the so-called provinces are replete with smart, competent people. (Via The Dish)

Closing the Barn Door...

...after the cows are long gone: Greenspan acknowledges the obvious. I guess it's better than denying it.

You Know You're In an Economic Cataclysm...

...when Santa gets a pink slip. (WaPo)

Reverse Bradley

This flagged by Beitel-blog's intrepid Washington Bureau chief, Mike H: here's Kathleen Parker pretty much saying she's voting for Obama. But -- shh! -- don't tell anybody. (WaPo)

Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Chris Buckley?

Never. (NYT)

BREAKING NEWS: Barack Obama is the Spitting Image of...His Grandfather!

Andrew Sullivan (a full-throated Obamabot if there ever was one) is going to great lengths today to point out just how uncanny genetics can be. I have to say this -- the not-so-subtle "See, he's not so black" message -- makes me cringe. I think Andy's heart is in the right place (and it is a cute picture), so I guess I'll give him a pass.

Update: And here's another Sullivan post on the subject, from another reader. Poignant stuff, yes, but the undercurrent in the whole thing is that Obama's mixed-race heritage is somehow crucially important. Echoes of the Muslim thing -- as Powell said, the right answer is he's not a Muslim, but the really right answer is "So what what if he is?" Here, the "right" answer is his mom was white and his dad was black, but the really right answer is "So what?" I know that's hopelessly naive. And, of course, I'm one who thinks his so-called "Otherness" is one of his chief selling points.

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

Nate Silver on why you can't always trust Wikipedia.

Fair and (Too) Balanced

I wholeheartedly agree with the Wonkette Emeritus in this Swampland blog post. It was, after all, the NYT that re-inserted Ayres into the campaign echo chamber earlier this month with this article full of sound and fury--and a sotto voce "But they're not really friends and rumors of their close association are a bunch of crap"). In the tank!

Tampa v. Philly

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

An Event That Dictates

And some reactions, for what they're worth:

Nate Silver
Andrew Sullivan
Marc Ambinder
James Fallows
Ta-Nehisi Coates (who's particularly right about "the Muslim answer")
Chris Cillizza
Mark Halperin
Mike Murphy
John McCain

Sunday Review of Links

News
...The rumor turns out to be true: Colin Powell hates Bill Kristol (though he grudgingly admits When Harry Met Sally was a pretty cute movie). (Courtesy CNN.com)
...Thomas Friedman fondly eulogizes Iceland then launches into his whole one-world-order schtick without even once mentioning the Anti-Christ. (NYT)
...Ben Bernanke is...the Son of Jor-El! (Courtesy Newsweek.com)

Sports
...Anybody wanna bet against the Red Sox? (Courtesy ESPN.com)

Books
...Ideas suck! So do books! All they do is make you a hand-wringing sad-sack. Everybody knows this. (NYT Review of Books)
...The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Communist Snitch. (Courtesy Time.com)

Alabamiana
...Pastor Jim conjures up his inner FDR -- with a little Son-o-Man thrown in, of course. (Courtesy Annistonstar.com)
...Pitchers! (Courtesy Thicket)
...Judge U. W. Clemon, Alabama's first black federal judge, is stepping down after nearly thirty years on the bench -- and he's got some choice words for the Roberts SCOTUS on his way out the door. (Courtesy al.com)

Watch This!
...Karen Armstrong says religion is not now and never was supposed to be about belief. What, then, is it about? Two words: Golden Rule. (Courtesy TED.com)

Michael Ondaatje Is a Witch!

How else to explain this uncanny insight into your humble Beitelblogger's very soul:

"And yet he keeps far away from her what else he is. As though he wishes in some way to remain a stranger. Why does that happen...with such an otherwise generous man? These men with art, like nineteenth-century botanists who, though wise and obsessive, claim only professional affection for the world around them."

Villain! I've got my eye on you, Ondaatje. You and your loud-mouthed witchy ways...

What We Talk About When We Talk About Publishing

Interesting interview with Famous(ish) Editor Person Chuck Adams of Algonquin. Or at least it's interesting if you -- like me! -- have delusions of publishing grandeur. (Courtesy Nathan Bransford [whose blog is indispensable to all us said delusionoids])

Flip-Flop!

Sorry -- had to break my No-More-08-Election posts rule and link to this from 538.com (the GREATEST ELECTION SITE EVER OF ALL TIMES!!!). If for no other reason than the canvassing anecdote to start off the article. Amazing what a little economic cataclysm can do for Ye Olde Body Politick.

Is "Conservative" the New "Liberal"?

That is to say, an epithet and/or hopelessly flawed brand? Dunno. But it's interesting to see the internecine warfare that's been a-happening with righties here of late. Most interesting to me is how the conservative intellectuals are just sorta fed up. Case in point: Chris Buckley, who's dad is/was the patron saint of the modern conservative movement. Anyway, long story short, Buckley's cashing in his conservative chips and lots of party regulars have made him into a pariah. Here's a good article by Kathleen Parker about the whole dust up.

PS...Appropos of nothing: Reagan sucked.

So You Say You Wanna Be a Monk?

Cool! You don't even have to wear a hairshirt anymore...

A New World Order

Prime Minister (for now) of the UK, Gordy Brown, says it's time to make lemonade with all these global financial meltdown lemons we don't know what to do with.

Blogging: A Rationale

(Photo credit: Trey Ratcliffe)

Andy Sullivan on why he blogs. (Also there's the fact that he makes oodles of money at it.)

The Last Election '08 Post...

Unless events dictate. Here are the results from a right-leaning focus group in Colorado. Pretty much says it all. (Courtesy Time/Swampland)

Landslide?

Nate Silver sums up last night's debate. These debates have provided still more proof that it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Simply put, more people like Barack Obama and Joe Biden than like John McCain and Sarah Palin. Tough to name a successful presidential candidate in my lifetime who wasn't deemed more "likeable" than his opponent, at least the first time around.

Sunday Review of Links

Election 2008

...Guess ye olde Rolling Stone won't be endorsing John McCain.
...Sarah Palin neither. (Ibid.)
...Obama stumping in the Virginia hill country. (New Yorker)

Sports

...Tough not to root for Joe Torre. (NYT.)
...Why don't more boys take up competitive swimming? The speedos (duh). (WaPo)

Books

...Short stories? They still write those? Ha ha. (Courtesy NYT Sunday Book Review)

Alabamiana

...Alabama's Obama. (Courtesy Thicket.com)
...Preach it, Pastor Jim! (Courtesy annistonstar.com)

Watch This!

...Wisdom. (Courtesy outloud)

Where in the World Is TJ Beitelman?

Here. Doing this.

Osama v. Obama

FYI: Richard Clarke thinks al Qaeda might be up to something between now and Nov 4. (Courtesy USNews/Matt Yglesias)

"Moral Hazard" Update

Marc Ambinder follows up on McCain's proposal to buy back mortgages and give homeowners lower interest rates. Sounds complicated and that may be why David Axelrod stammered his way through a rebuttal this morning on NPR. With that said, here's Ambinder quoting an "Obama advisor" who has finally figured out how to respond:

"This is a big gift to financial institutions, and the more irresponsible you've been, the more money you'll get from it. It's a bad way to help homeowners, a bad way to recapitalize banks, and it totally ignores the principle I thought McCain and Obama agreed to about protecting taxpayers."

Much better.

Barry Wants It More

Wonkette is always risque, usually right on the substance, and never takes itself too seriously. That's what makes it one of the best political blogs around. Here they drop the schtick and point to something that is subtle but telling: the Obamas energetic post-debate room-working in Nashville, as captured by C-SPAN. Where are the McCains? Hightailed it outta there in less than a minute. Ladies and Gentleman, the GOP has left the building...

David, uh, um...uh Axelrod on NPR's Morning Edition

Listen to Obama campaign manager David Axelrod make a mash of Steve Inskeep's question re: McCain's proposal to make everybody's mortgage payment lower. Basically gets the answer right--not a new proposal, it's expensive and not a first step, but all options are on the table--but he sure does stumble, bumble, and fumble his way there. As this was McCain's clearest new tactic (not strategy!) to bolster his shaky economic platform, you'd think Team Chicago would've had a better response revved up and ready to go. It was pretty early in the a.m., so maybe Dave hadn't had his second cup o' joe yet.

Round 2 Reaction

Looking a lot like it did in Clinton's two scrums with old guys. Takeaway: the race has solidified and it will take something very big to forestall a comfortable Obama victory on Nov 4.

Why Ayres Won't Stick and Keating Might

David Brooks, in his imminently professorial way, lectures about the test the world is facing regarding global markets, and he chides the two candidates for talking about Bill Ayres and Charles Keating instead of engaging in more meaningful debate. Okay. But I think Brooks is smart enough to know that Ayres and Keating aren't the same kind of boogeyman. Even if the claims are equally legitimate (they're not), there's the question of relevance. That is to say: one is relevant to the current crisis and the other isn't. As pure political theater, the irrefutable one about banking not only has more potential to do damage, it's actually something people care to know in this context.

The Old Dominion: In the Tank?

Here's some indication that Virginia is listing big-time in Barry's direction. And then there's this more anecdotal evidence: talked to Sis last night--who's about as apolitical as they come. She rarely votes. Not only has she made sure her registration is current, she's done the same for her significant other. Both of them have had reservations about Obama until the financial debacle came full force. "McCain lost me at 'the fundamentals are strong'," she says. But that's not all. My irascible septuagenarian uncle, veteran of foreign wars and far from a multiculturalist (that would be a euphemism, for those of you scoring at home), is also voting for Obama, telling my cousin, "I need all the help I can get." All of these people live in Virginia and they're not in a "red-state" sort of mood.

Sic semper tyrannis, indeed.

Sunday Review of Links

Election 2008

...The Economist is out with an exhaustive analysis of the two candidates on just about every conceivable issue. And by exhaustive, I mean exhaustive. No wonder Sarah Palin's a loyal reader.

...The battle for the hearts and minds of the working poor in Michigan. (Courtesy WaPo)

...Game on for the Obamacons in...Nebraska! (Courtesy 538.com)

Books

...Good news: John Barth is still alive! Who knew? (Courtesy NYTimes.com)

Sports

...One word: Cubbies. (Courtesy ESPN.com)

...Another word: Manny. (Ibid.)

Alabamiana

...Pastor Jim Evans on why a church's tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right. (Courtesy annistonstar.com)

...Evangelizing the electorate in the AME church. (Courtesy al.com)

...Jefferson County creeps toward the largest public bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. (Ibid.)

Watch This!

...Patrick Awuah on why a broad and deep education is a prerequisite to good leadership. (Courtesy ted.com)

Can We Really? God I Hope So.

I'm not going to get this right, and it probably doesn't matter if I do. But last night I had a conversation that has stuck with me, that will stick with me to Nov 4 and probably beyond.

First, in the spirit of full disclosure, here is a sampling of what I've had to say about Sen. Obama in the past. Here's where I said he jumped the shark back in 2007. Here's where I said he maybe-kinda-sorta should be considered as a potential Clinton running mate (only if Bill Richardson and Mark Warner weren't available). Not my sagest moments, for sure. What the hell do I know, really.

But then there's the very first blog post I wrote about him. Maybe I should've quit there because, unlike the other two posts, I think some of it holds up. Nearabouts, anyhow.

What holds up the most is the sentiment that we're in a "giant, multifarious crisis" (this was before we decided to have a Depression), and that pragmatic, competent leadership is the chief commodity we need to turn things around. Not hope. Not potential. Not a good narrative.

That is truer now than it was then.

Something else is also truer now than it was then: Sen. Obama has proven (to me, at least) that his greatest strength is his pragmatism. To wit:

1. He talks about "bottom up" movements so much, I think he's probably read Steven Johnson. Or somebody has. Whether he's read the high falutin' cultural theory or not, Sen. Obama's been ahead of the curve on putting it into practice. As Nate Silver suggests, the Obama ground game could very well be the untold story of this election, and a good ground game has everything to do with rolled up sleeves and nuts-and-bolts pragmatism. That's always been true. That he and his staff have been able to put that old fashioned elbow grease into the context of a 21st C. society speaks well of him/them. Very well.

2. He has thus far navigated the longest, most intense election cycle IN HUMAN HISTORY better than all other comers. Better, even, than the greatest politician on earth. As proof, we need look no further than Gov. Palin's uneven (at best) six weeks as a veep candidate to put Obama's accomplishment in full relief. Contrary to popular opinion, Palin isn't dumb. A 44-year-old mother of five doesn't get where she is without being extremely shrewd. But she's untested and unready, and that is blatantly obvious for anybody to see.

In contrast, there's Sen. Obama. The aforementionted greatest pol (Bill Clinton, in case you need it spelled out) said it best when he told Tom Brokaw:

"I think Senator Obama has shown a remarkable ability to learn and grow in this campaign...I think what you want in a president in a time like this is somebody with good instincts who generally starts in the right position and then just keeps getting better, and that's what he's done."

3. He surrounds himself with smart, strong people. From choosing a spouse to choosing a running mate--and at all points in between--he's shown he's got an eye for talent and a talent for knowing just what complements (indeed not compliments) he needs.

4. And then, of course, there's the fact that Sen. Obama is a black man, which makes the navigational aplomb cited in #2 above all that much more impressive. He's just had more to navigate. And that leads back to the conversation I had last night.

I was at a favored local watering hole just shooting the breeze with a few of my favorite people, two of whom happen to be black men. One in his 70s, the other in his late 30s or early 40s. Both are extremely accomplished men who hold or have held leadership positions in their respective fields. Both are native to Birmingham.

The man in his 70s, whose background is in politics, is convinced Obama will lose, no matter what, because he's black. The younger man is convinced Obama will win, citing the natural ebb-and-flow of election cycles: it's the Dems' turn.

While that divide was fascinating to me and I'm still noodling over it--the generational, historical, and cultural roots of it--I'm simply not equipped to make any broader social commentary about it.

But I will say this: come Nov 5, one of them will be proved correct because the facts are plain. The metrics are all in his favor. As Clinton himself has recently said, "It's not close, folks."

So if Sen. Obama loses, I will be utterly demoralized. The only plausible explanation will be bigotry--either in its unblanched form ("I won't vote for the black guy"/"He's a secret Muslim") or under the guise of other, more "acceptable" reservations (namely inexperience, which ceased to be a legitimate reservation when Gov. Palin entered the picture).

I'm not naive enough to say that bigotry doesn't exist; I know it does. But I am naive enough to say that I believe there are enough reasonable people in this country to elect Barack Obama on Nov 4. Maybe by a comfortable margin.

If that turns out not to be the case, it would not only force me to confront said bigotry in a new way, it would also force me to admit that I don't know as much as I think I do. And as a know-it-all from way back, I hate to admit I'm wrong.

But--fittingly enough--I have hope. Sen. Obama and his campaign have forced me to admit as much already. In a big way.

Dude, Did Chuck Just Concede?

Methinks he did:

"Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president."

I agree, mostly.

Excepting that if you think a fella pairs an impeccable intellect with an equally impeccable temperament (and it certainly looks like Chuck's got that part right), doesn't that go a long way toward assuaging any concerns over such "deeply troubling associations" with so-called radicals and affirmed sleazebags? If not, why not?

And, I don't know, said intellect and temperament aren't bad in the way of self-definition, especially if'n somebody's trying to be president. It's sort of odd to compare somebody to Reagan (Krauthammer's Platonic ideal of a prez) and FDR (everybody else's), and then get all pyrrhic with the dismount: "Yeah, well, I mean, I guess that'll be enough."

But what's a Chuck to do, really? Flat-out endorse the guy?

Just When You Thought Slick Willy Was, Once and For All, Politically Irrelevant

...he comes up with this pitch-perfect Palin zinger on the eve of the Veep debate. Weird how he lurches from damning Obama with faint praise to being--as he was at the convention and as he is here--(arguably) the most rational and compelling Obama surrogate. Or actually it's not weird at all. Dude's been rasslin' such demons since Hector was a pup. (Courtesy YouTube/TPM)