The NYT and WSJ have writeups of an apparent deal in principle on the bailout plan:

• Update (12:15AM): In the comments, debrazza thinks I pulled the trigger too fast in believing that equity warrants were a done deal. He's got a point. The language is suspiciously vague and until we actually see something on paper, there's every reason to be suspicious. Without equity warrants, it's hard to envision the deal as anything other than a corporate boondoggle.
• There will be equity warrants. Without equity warrants, the plan would almost certainly be terrible for taxpayers, but with equity warrants, there's a reasonable chance we'll ultimately see a profit. As I understand it, what equity warrants do is create a scenario where if the government purchases a loan, and that loan goes bad, then the government aquires an equity stake in the firm that sold it the loan. That way, if the firm ends up prospering, the government still makes money, even though the loan went bad. This in turn allows the government to justify paying a higher price for the loans. That's important because at current market prices, most firms won't sell their toxic debt -- doing so would generate huge writedowns, sending them into bankruptcy. Because equity warrants allow the government to justify higher prices for the debat, the firms are more likely to sell the loans, clearing the financial system of the toxic debt -- which is the whole point of the bailout.
  
• There will be increased oversight, both from Congress and an independent board.
• There will be caps on excutive pay for companies that participate, though House Republicans are fighting to weaken these provisions
• There will be an insurance program favored by House Republicans, but only as an option -- an option that most expect will not be used by any firms, because it will be extremely expensive.
  
• House Republicans continue to fight against Democratic proposal that 20% of any eventual profits be directed towards homeownership programs.
• It's still possible that there will be changes to bankruptcy rules to allow bankruptcy judges to change the terms of mortgages for owners of a single home.
• There is still discussion of some sort of fee applied to larger financial institutions to help cover the costs of this bailout. It's unclear to me how this would work in the eventuality that the bailout actually made money for the government.

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

I've got a new post up at HuffPost looking at FactCheck.org's fact check of the debate. Bottom line: Both Candidates Made Misstatements, But McCain's Were By A Mile.

I've got no idea who created this video, but it's just so goofy that it's kind of cool. The juxtaposition of this music with McCain is simply marvelous.

(Also posted at HuffPost. h/t: piktor.)

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I went to bed at something like nine in the morning, and now I'm back at it. Here's my behind-the-times look at the political world (I'm sure I'll be embarassed once I realize how much I'm missing):

• It looks like Barack Obama is wining the tracking poll election. kos/R2000 has it at 49-43. Hotline: 48-43. Rasmussen: 50-44. Gallup: 49-44.
• Obama did not skip a beat -- he's back on the trail, focusing on the economy.
• McCain is back in DC, (thankfully) not doing a damn thing about the bailout negotiations.
• I've got a new post up at HuffPost: McCain's Angry Debate Disappoints Morning Joe Panel. And yes, his condecession did backfire.
• 57 million watched the debate.
• Fareed Zakaria says Palin isn't ready, and McCain isn't putting country first.
• Henry Kissinger did say he supported negotiations without preconditions.

I'm thinking about doing some more video work today, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that there's a bunch of stuff that's happened that I've missed. So I think maybe I ought to be doing some reading first...

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

My newest video is up at Huffington Post. The title pretty much says it all: Angry John McCain. Enjoy! (Now I'm going to go catch some sleep...)

Here's another one of my posts over at HuffPost:

John McCain is running a new campaign ad that actually attacks Barack Obama for agreeing with John McCain. This has to be the first time in history that a candidate ever went negative on his opponent for being too agreeable.

If the ad had a lighthearted, funny tone I think it could work. But instead, it is angry and sneering, just like John McCain.

Wow -- over 300 comments in the open thread from the debate tonight, and all of them were informative (except maybe mine!).

So I've got a new post up at HuffPost -- Obama Is Right, McCain Was Wrong. It's video evidence proving Obama's points on his best riff of the evening against McCain. I'll post the video to the vodpod in a couple of minutes.

I'm going to try and pull together a video on McCain's angry/sneering tone during the debate tonight, which hopefully will be ready in the AM.

I think I may have comitted the first gaffe of the debate -- I just set up a new DVR that will allow me to record CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX as well as the three cable networks, and for the longest time, it just wouldn't work.

The problem? It turns out that that I forgot to plug it into the cable jack in the wall.

I'll be updating this post with any posts that I put up at HuffPost during the debate and it's aftermath.

That being said.........go Obama!

Update 1 (5:54 PM):  Updated with new link at 8:06PM. Over at Daily Kos, there's a debate money and volunteer bomb going on for Barack Obama.

Update 2 (6:48 PM): I just posted video of McCain lying about warning us of the impending financial crisis. In November 2007 he had said that he didn't see it coming.

Update 3 (7:22 PM): I just posted video of Barack Obama knocking John McCain on "Bomb, bomb Iran"

Update 4 (8:03PM): Here's video of Obama making the case for his view that negotiating reflects strength -- I thought this was one of Obama's best answer of the night.

Update 5 (8:11 PM): I'm now deciding what type of video to make to recap the debate. I'm thinking focusing on McCain's sneers and anger might work, or possibly looking at the people meter at CNN that carthage referenced. What do you think?

Update 6 (8:42 PM): The soundbite of the debate? Obama to McCain, On Iraq "You Were Wrong"

Update 7 (9:01PM): I uploaded video of the CBS News snap poll showing Barack Obama won. It's in Nico Pitney's "Debate Reviews Go To Obama" post.

Update 8 (9:17PM): I'm uploading video from the Frank Luntz focus group on FOX -- another focus group, another verdict that Obama won the debate. (Update: Nico has added the video into his "Obama Won The Debate" post.)

Update 9 (9:19PM): My basic take on why Obama won the debate is really simple -- I think he showed that he is absolutely ready to become president, that he has the judgment and resolve to do the job. And just as importantly he showed that he cared. In some ways, I think McCain was irrelevant -- his only chance was if Obama fell on his face -- but the fact that he was angry and sneering sure didn't help his cause, not one bit.

I've got a new post up at HuffPost with the full text of the Obama campaign memo framing the debate in terms of Barack Obama's good judgment on foreign policy, versus the bad jugment of John McCain and George Bush.

Also, Robert Gibbs just used the e-word -- erratic -- to describe McCain on a pre-debate interview on Countdown.

I'll be posting the debate open thread soon (just have to take care of a few things with my video recording setup first).

Jeffrey Toobin just nailed it on CNN, laying out the key difference in temperament that will be on display tonight. Man, when Toobin's on fire...he's so damn good. Can't wait to hear him after the debate.

I've posted video over at HuffPost.

Just a quick note to fill you in on my plan for blogging during the debate tonight. Basically, what I think I'll do is set up an open thread a little while before the debate begins. In the open thread post, I'll keep a live update of my posts over at HuffPost, with a link over to that post.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been working on how to seamlessly integrate the type of blogging I've been doing here at The Jed Report with the work that I'm doing at HuffPost. The current plan is that at some point in the next few days, I'll have a blog set up at HuffPost -- basically a TJR at HuffPost.

Once that's set up, I'll be doing all my new posts over there. It will be all the same type of content I post here, just at a new URL. There's some technicaly changes that need to happen before that is ready, so in the meantime, I'll be doing this hybrid thing, and I appreciate you bearing with me during the transition. And by the way, I just have to give a shout out to genevieve who manages to post an amazing amount of relevant links very quickly.

Now, as for actual real content, this was a fun interview between Andrea Mitchell and David Axelrod about John McCain's bailout gambit. I've deleted this video because it was skipping all over the place. (You can try playing it here.)

I'm still working on getting the integrating together. In the meantime:

• Mark Salter is confirming that John McCain spent several hours in debate prep last night. As genevieve said in the comments, that's "unsuspended."
• GOP Minority Whip Roy Blunt is saying that McCain "got the discussion going in the direction that we wanted" on the financial crisis. AMERICAblog also reports that Blunt actually said McCain "stopped the deal."

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

Even if you don't accept the argument that John McCain made things worse with the bailout negotiations yesterday, I don't see how he possibly could claim things are any different.

So based on the standards he set on Wednesday, there's no reason he should be heading to the debate tonight.

It's tempting to say that he blinked, but it's not like he was squaring off against someone and finally gave in. If anything, he was squaring off against himself.

The important point is that for any thinking person, every single moment he stands on that stage tonight will expose his utterly irrational (erratic?) behavior.

And it comes during the debate focused on national security. I just can't imagine a worse scenario for McCain going into the debate.

Though I guess the upside is that it lowers expectations...

Ben Smith makes a good point: as crappy as the last two days have been for John McCain, they'd have been even worse if we'd been talking about Rick Davis and Sarah Palin. Ben also flags the new in-word for describing McCain: erratic.

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

I've got three new posts up at The Huffington Post:

• A new video taking a look at John McCain's disaster of a Thursday, "When John McCain Came To The Rescue (He Just Made Things Worse)". It's worth watching if only for Barney Frank's line about John McCain ("Senator McCain said he was here to help us...God save us from such help!"). The video is also currently up on the politics home page.
• Believe it or, John McCain is actually claiming that "we've made progress" on negotiations for a deal on the financial crisis -- and he seems to want credit for it. M'kay.
• Also on NBC News last night, John McCain made it official, saying about his debate drama: "I am a betting man."

Also, as I mentioned earlier, I'm working putting in place a way to allow me to more seamlessly integrate the type of blogging I do here and the stuff that I am doing at The Huffington Post. Ideally, there will be just one place for all things "Jed." I'm hoping to figure out more of the details tomorrow (Friday), but one possibility (which I think makes the most sense) is to move my main blogging presence over to HuffPost (with a dedicated page).

Anyway, I'm sure the suspense is killing you (or, more likely, not), but my goal is to find a way to bring together the stuff I've been doing at HuffPost and the stuff I've been doing here into one spot. Thanks for bearing with me as I work it through!

Nico Pitney and Sam Stein have a detailed rundown of the White House meeting including this nugget:

Towards the end, McCain finally spoke up, mentioning a counter-proposal that had been offered by some conservative House Republicans, which would suspend the capital gains tax for two years and provide tax incentives to encourage firms that buy up bad debt. McCain did not discuss specifics of the plan, though, and was non-committal about supporting it.

CBS reports that McCain also seeks more deregulation.

He's on FOX & MSNBC now -- the epitome of cool, calm, and collected.

Update: An understatement: "What I've found, and what I think was confirmed today, is that when you inject presidential politics into delicate negotiatons, it's not necessarily as helpful as it needs to be."

He's also standing by his decision to have the debate proceed tomorrow. Interestingly, he indicated that he felt the debate ought to focus on the economy. Edit: To be clear, he didn't propose a format change. He probably thinks that "national security" includes "economic security."

Here's McCain on ABC, hanging his hat on the procedurally irrelevant John Boehner:

GIBSON: But this afternoon, the chairman of the House Banking Committee, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, walked out and said "we have an agreement on principles." And indeed even Senator Bennett from your party said, "I now expect we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate, be signed by the president and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis that is still roiling the market." What happened between one o'clock this afternoon and four o'clock, when you went into the meeting with the President?

MCCAIN: Well I believe that immediately after that, Congressman Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, came out and said there was not a deal.

GIBSON: Just one final question. Can you describe the meeting for me? When was the moment when you realized, we're not going to get an agreement in this meeting?

MCCAIN: The one at the White House? Well, I knew going in because I'd been over on the House side with my House Republican colleagues. There never was a deal, but I do believe the meeting was important to move the process along.

The good news is that most folks in the media seem to be laughing at McCain's obvious partisan gamesmanship.

So John McCain's first meeting was with John Boehner, the House GOP leader. (Edit: I had meant to add -- When McCain arrived, a deal had already been reached.)

Boehner now says "no deal." Of course, House Republicans are largely procedurally irrelevant, but politically they are relevant (because McCain has made them relevant). It's obvious they are doing the work of John McCain to muck this process up.

That's fine. We can survive a few more days without a bill. Make Boehner and McCain put a plan on the table. Call their bluff. They are now the obstacles.

McCain isn't suspending his campaign. Not at all.

I've been working on a video so I'm not totally up to speed on the state of play on the deal, but I did want to flag this Bill Kristol post (h/t: Jonathan Martin).

Basically, Kristol is claiming that McCain will support the deal now, but if/when he becomes president, he'll revisit the deal and change it. Now if Kristol is serious, no matter what you think about the deal, that seems like a horrible idea. The point of the deal is in part to create certainty. So why in the world would Kristol want to introduce uncertainty?

Basically, Kristol's smart enough to know that given the current state of play, Barack Obama is certain to win this election. Because of that, uncertainty benefits McCain, no matter its impact on the economy or country. Fortunately for him, I can't think of anyone better suited to act a bit crazy and introduce uncertainty into a situation that demands stability than John McCain.

I've got a couple of new posts at HuffPost:

• McCain Aide Claims Credit For Deal, Says "We're Going Into A Debate"
• Palin Dodges On Ted Stevens Question, But In July Said "I Have Great Respect For Him...His Voice Needs To Be Heard"

I'm working on a way to make the integration a bit more seamless, so that all my stuff appears in one spot -- hopefully that will be up and running in the next two. Thansk for bearing with me until then.

How in the world did he pick Sarah Palin? Nico Pitney and Sam Stein have more, including a transcript...complete with all the ellipses you could dream of.

I've got a new post up at HuffPost, including video of John McCain CBS News last night attacking Obama...literally seconds after saying he was going to stop playing politics. The video should be in the vodpod momentarily.

Too bad he's going to miss a great one tomorrow if he bails on the debate.

Update: Apparently, there already is a deal on the bailout legislation. Kind of makes McCain's stunt pointless, and means it would be really strange if he didn't show up for the debate.

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Here's my newest video for The Huffington Post, currently on the site's home page. (Update: It is now in this Sam Stein post on McCain's "time out timeline.") It shows just how empty McCain's words were yesterday: on Tuesday, he had contradicted just about everything he said on Wednesday.

McCain personifies herky jerky. Our guy personifies cool, calm, and collected. Plus, our guy is about 10x smarter than McPalin, combined.

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Obama: "The debate is more important than ever."

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Asked in a January debate what made him qualified to manage the nation's economy, John McCain had not a single world to say about the economy.

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OMFG. She couldn't even win American Idol. (Update: Just to be clear, I actually like American Idol. I think it's a fun show, and I've got a ton of respect for a lot -- thought not all -- of the contestants.)

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It just gets funnier and funnier. The McCain campaign proposes rescheduling the presidential debate to October 2...which would require postponing the VP debate, scheduled for the very same day.

Barack Obama calls John McCain at 8:30AM this morning to work out a joint statement on the financial crisis. McCain doesn't take the call and waits six hours before returning it. Among the things he did in those six hours? He met with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, the Clinton supporting baraness who is now for McCain.

This can't be heartwarming news for McCain: Just 10% of Americans agree with his bizarre plan to cancel the debates.

John McCain suddenly decides that he wants to postpone the debates and stop the campaign to deal with the bailout package.

Hmmm. Think he might be trying to step on Palin's Great Depression gaffe?

Update: I mean, think about it. He's gone from the economy is strong to stop the campaign in like 10 days!

Update 2 (12:58PM): I've posted more thoughts over at HuffPost:

The Drama Queen's Big Gamble

What we are witnessing right now is what a McCain presidency would be like -- herky jerky, bouncing from crisis to crisis, overreacting at every step.

It's taken him exactly ten days to go from the economy is strong to we're heading into the Great Depression and must stop the campaign.

But nothing has changed other than the polls, and that's why it's impossible to take this gamble seriously.

McCain can see that he cannot win the presidency unless the campaign narrative changes dramatically, so he's decided to roll the dice.

After all his talk of bipartisanship, John McCain has decided to make an intensely political move. He does not have a plan, but he's willing to drag the country through his personal drama, no matter the cost, just so that he might win the presidency.

McCain wants to demonstrate his leadership skills, but instead he's demonstrating beyond any doubt that he is temperamentally unfit to be president.

Update 3: You can digg the HuffPost version of this post here.

Update 4: Obama is speaking now, making the point that (a) he's been on top of this situation since the start, in other words -- he's been able to multitask, as a president must; and (b) he reached out to McCain this morning to issue a joint statement, and that McCain had agreed.

Obama is also taking questions at the press conference, and says that we need the debates, and that this is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who will be responsible for this mess.

Obama also channels barath, who says that presidents need to be able to handle more than one thing at once.

He's just saying:

Whatever the merits of the whole Edwards love child story, are we really supposed to believe that one of America's most famous trial lawyers wouldn't sue a publication that printed defamatory and slanderous lies about him?

Also, it's worth pointing out that while the Enquirer may or may not be scrupulous in its choice of stories -- that's in the eye of the beholder -- it is pretty scrupulous about its facts. They win lawsuits. They've broken a host of stories the MSM guys couldn't.

President Bush speaking on behalf of it tonight? Almost makes you wonder if he really wants it pass.

Here's my newest video for Huffington Post on John McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal. It's got some archival footage you might not have seen before...including Andrea Mitchell (!) reporting on the affair nearly twenty years ago.

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This is a political analysis, not a policy analysis.

I'm starting from the assumption that Barack Obama wants to support the bailout, and probably will vote for it.

I'm also starting from the assumption that John McCain (even though he has said he supports the bailout) wants to oppose the bailout because he thinks it will give him a chance to separate himself from the Bush administration.

The political risk here is obvious: the bailout isn't very popular, and those who are most passionate about it are against it. So politically, the easy answer is to just say no.

But Obama believes there are substantive reasons to move forward, so he should. But he needs to make sure he does so in a politically responsible way, and that means he needs to insist that the bailout plan deliver something tangible for Main Street, something big enough and easy enough to understand that John McCain just can't say no.

On The Daily Show tonight, Bill Clinton proposed one such solution: conditioning the bailout on a moratorium on home foreclosures. There might be other solutions. (Update: Josh Orton discusses Clinton's ideas at length in a post from earlier, based on a meeting with Clinton and other bloggers.)

But whatever it is, Obama needs to insist on something in the bailout package that people will want, and will be angry at John McCain if he he opposes. If he doesn't, and he makes it easy for McCain to say no, he will be taking a huge political risk.

Newsweek and New York Times report that John McCain has been caught lying about his campaign manager's lobbying on behalf of Fannie Mae.

McCain said that Rick Davis had long ago severed ties with Fannie Mae. Not true. His lobbying firm has received $15,000 per month each month until...last month.

Update: Here's video of McCain lying in an interview on Sunday. Rachel Maddow did a segment on this which I'll post when MSNBC does.

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So this is why he hasn't had a press conference in so long...

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I'm not an expert by any stretch on the mortgage market, but there is an element of surreality to the debate coming from the GOP and even from the media to some extent.

In all this talk about Fannie and Freddie, people are forgeting that the root of the problem was bad loans made in the non-conforming (jumbo, exploding, stated income, zero down, etc.) market -- loans that when they were originated had nothing to do with Fannie and Freddie. Those bad loans helped drive the economy for a number of years, but it was always the case that at some point things would pop.

Another way of saying this is that even if Fannie and Freddie had never existed, we'd still be in the mess we're in today. Some might even argue it could be worse, because at least Fannie and Freddie established a more highly regulated conforming loan market (no jumbo loans, strict 20% down or 10% + PMI requirements).

It's also worth pointing out that when John McCain talks about how he wanted to regulate Fannie and Freddie as if they were banks, what he's really talking about is deregulating the conforming loan market. We'll never know if that would have made things worse, but it's hard to see how it could possibly have made things any better.

My bottom-line is that the root of the problem was bad loans and lending practices. And the blame for that rests squarely in the hands of those who deregulated the financial industry and encouraged these bads loans as a way of growing the economy. In other words, Bush, McCain, and the GOP.

I've got a new post over at HuffPost on McCain's press conference today in which McCain completely dropped any pretense of offering economic assistance to average American families. Asked by a reporter whether or not he'd back a stimulus package, McCain refused to answer, instead talking about spending and tax cuts. McCain is also copying Obama's approach to taxpayer protections in the bailout package.

McCain also had a hilarious moment in which he badly mangled his words, saying that he'd "grow this government...not grow this economy." Video coming soon.

I've got a new post up at HuffPost on an excellent interview Howard Dean gave earlier in the day on MSNBC. Dean said that McCain is "hot-headed" and "irascible" in contrast with Obama's "calm...thoughtful" temperament. Dean also knocked McCain for his Keating 5 involvement with the last financial crisis, the S&L scandal.

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...right at the same time as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak at the UN.

Now it seems as if McCain is running late. I guess he doesn't want to interrupt Ahmadinejad?

Update: Obama introduced a some new ideas, including his most explicit taxpayer protection language yet. He said that taxpayers need to be treated as if they were investors in this plan and floated the idea of imposing a fee on financial services firms after the market recovers to help pay for the bailout. He also suggested helping keep people in their homes by allowing the government to directly puchases mortgages instead of limiting it to mortgage-backed securities. Obama also explicitly delinked the stimulus plan from the bailout, but repeated his call for a stimulus plan.

###

Original post: Here's the full text of Obama's remarks at today's press conference:

So as I watch Barack Obama give a press conference on his approach and plans for the financial crisis and economy at large, out comes the news that John McCain will give his first press conference in six weeks later this afternoon. Meanwhile, even some reporters at FOX News think McCain-land has pushed things too far. Shushannah Walshe, a producer at FOX, said the access restrictions on Sarah Palin were "unprecedented." I've written it up at HuffPost and will post the video to the vodpod.

Here's my new video for Huffington Post. Bottom-line: until he faced a political crisis last week, whenever John McCain talked about regulation, all he wanted was less of it:

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It looks like The No Talk Express thing is breaking through: a reporter today directly asked McCain if his bus had become the "No Talk Express."

Also, Kate Snow reports on the wranglings between McCain-land and the media on gaining access to Palin's UN meetings.

Here's video of the "No Talk Express" exchange:

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The New York Times has an interesting video preview of the Obama and McCain debate styles. On the print page:

• Obama Carries Uneven Record as Debater to First Contest With McCain
• A Scrappy Fighter, McCain Honed His Debating Style in and Out of Politic

As far as expectations go, that seems to be pretty good for Obama -- people get that McCain has a stronger track-record as a debater. The only problem will be is if Obama fulfills those expectations.

Hopefully, Obama will not only manage to repeat the fact that Iraq is costing us $10 billion a month over and over and over (he should do it ad nauseum, and then again) but also poke a few barbs at McCain to keep him off balance.

If Obama can keep McCain from developing a rhythm, perhaps by challenging his honesty and honor, it will be hard for McCain to outright win, and given that Obama will enter the debate with a lead over McCain in the state of the race, for McCain, a tie is basically a loss.

One important thing is that when (if) Obama challenges McCain's honor, he shouldn't make it sound like he's frustrated or exasperated with McCain lying about his record. Rather, Obama needs to make it clear that his problem with McCain's lies is that this is what we've spent the last eight years going through -- we can't afford more of the same.

The issue isn't just that McCain is trying to gain an unfair advantage, rather the issue is that McCain is lying to the American public -- and we've already had enough of that.

I've got a few related things I was planning on saying, so I'll just shoehorn them all in here:

First: I thought you might find it interesting to get some perspective on how both the economic news and political news is playing on local TV in a swing state, so here's video from the top of the 11PM broadcast of the Las Vegas CBS affiliate. On balance, I think it was very positive for Obama and Democrats in general (with one caveat, below). It's a pretty clear demonstration that when Democrats decide to put up a fight, the world doesn't collapse around them -- in fact they look and sound stronger and more trustworthy.

Second: The one thing in the news coverage that I think worked well for McCain was his totally false claim that Obama does not have a plan. Now I know and you know that Obama does have a plan (and so does CNN, in a video I posted in the vodpod and at HuffPost), but there are probably a lot of undecided voters who don't. My gut tells me that Obama should respond forcefully to McCain's misrepresentation, perhaps throwing it back in his face with Austan Goolsbee's Fruit Loops joke (that the list of ingredients on Fruit Loops box is longer than McCain's plan).

Third: This is related to the second point. Not only does McCain not have much of (if any) plan on the financial crisis, but his plan is totally all over the map. He endorsed the bailout when it first came out, but now he's trying to run away from it. We shouldn't let him get away with that. Attacking someone as a flip-flopper isn't the strongest argument in the world, but this isn't about flip-flopping -- this is about McCain's herky jerky, shoot-from-the-hip style. He jumps up on a moments notice, starts pounding his fist about how we must do "A" and then the next day he says he was for "B" all along. This is not the temperament we want in a president.

Fourth (and almost finally): My first edited video with Huffington Post should be published sometime this morning, probably while I am asleep. I'll post it here when I wake up (assuming that it's already up there), but if you want to look for it over there the current working title is "John McCain: The Fundamental Deregulator." It basically is a video montage of McCain talking (over the last seven months) about his support for deregulation. Also, unlike the "breaking news" clips at HuffPost, this one will be on a new YouTube channel to make it easier to share.

Okay, this is my last thought, I promise: I know the "Stuff I should have blogged" is out-of-date. I'll have it back up-to-date soon, hopefully in the morning. The issue is simply that I'm adjusting to new routines now that I'm doing the HuffPost gig.

Nearly one month later, she wants to ask the media a few questions? What a total jopke. (That's a bit of poker humor right there. Anyone get the reference without using the Google or following the link?)

Update: Doh. She was in Media, PA. Har, har. My initial response arguably meets the literal definition of jopke.

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George Will really doesn't like John McCain. His opening graph:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

And if there ever was something such as a "backhanded attack," Will's final paragraph was definitely a backhanded attack on Barack Obama, because Will is basically saying that McCain would be worse:

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

I don't know if that's an endorsement of Obama, but Will sure isn't voting for John McCain.

Here's another one of my posts from HuffPost: CNN exposes Sarah Palin's $26 million pork barrel "Road To Nowhere," the three mile road that was supposed to lead to the "Bridge To Nowhere" -- until Congress killed the earmark funding for the bridge in 2005.

Also, I've got two other posts up at HuffPost, both on short video clips. First, CNN's Ed Henry says McCain is playing politics on bailout. Second, CNN's Tom Foreman calls out another McCain campaign lie. In fact, Barack Obama does have a plan for the financial crisis. I'll get those videos into the vodpod soon, but here's the "Road To Nowhere" one.

Keith Olbermann shows how McCain is all over the map on the bailout, simultaneously saying that now is the time for action, and that he's deeply uncomfortable about what's taking place. This is vintage McCain: he's the politician's politician. Paul Krugman joins in a discussion on McCain's herky jerky hypocrisy.

I just posted a short piece over at Huffington Post with video of CNN's Campbell Brown and Ed Henry noting the obvious: that John McCain is playing politics with the bailout, considering that while he now says he's uncomfortable with it, when it first came out, he actually supported it.

Meanwhile, John McCain's tax cuts for the wealthy would explode the federal deficit.

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Sorry about the light posting today -- I've been busy at work on a video that should be coming out tomorrow morning. But piktor posted this video in the comments of the previous thread and it's worth seeing.

Colin Powell basically takes McCain to the woodshed for being a drama queen on the Georgia-Russia conflict. If he'd been this honest and rationale in 2002 we never would have gone to war with Iraq.

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John McCain on the housing crisis just under six months ago:

Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.

What a hypocrite. By the way, I collected this video as part of a larger project I'm working on for HuffPost which should be up later today.

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Ben Smith reviews Steve Schmidt's unhinged attack on the media. "Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family's already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama's embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter's over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when -- in each case -- the truth would have been damaging enough."

The straight talk? McCain political director Mike Duhaime can't say whether or not his boss will support the bailout, even though McCain told 60 Minutes that he would support the bailout.

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Wow. Bail me out, please.

I've got a new post up at Huffington Post with video of John McCain flat-out lying to Detroit's WXYZ-TV about his fleet of thirteen cars.

McCain claimed to the TV station that "I've bought American literally all my life" (a total lie) and that "Cindy and I own an automobile that's American-made" (technically true, but misleading as all get out).

Today, John McCain said he's "deeply uncomfortable" about the bailout plan. But on Thursday, after Hank Paulson briefed Congress, he told 60 Minutes that he supported it. So what gives?

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Well this is an unusual a typical way to begin the morning...Steve Schmidt, John McCain's co-campaign manager, lied today about Joe Biden's son. Schmidt said Biden's son "is a lobbyist for the credit card and banking industry." Only one problem. That's not true. It's never been true.

They want to to talk about anything but what's actually happening in the real world. They've got no plans, no solutions, no truth.

This ad is just...totally...brutal. Devastating. It takes on John McCain over his plan to do to the health care industry what he did with the banking industry, and it takes no prisoners.

My only question is how many "free" plays it gets on cable throughout the day? If the past is prologue, not nearly as many as it should.

If you're interested in some more information on McCain's radical plans for the health care system, I took a look at them in early July. His basic idea: scrap employer-based health care altogether and replace it with individually purchased health care plans. Every person for him or herself.

Alright, I admit -- I'm totally confused. (Must be talking about McCain.)

• On Sunday, Ben Smith reports: "John McCain will distance himself from Hank Paulson's bailout plan" on Monday.
• On Saturday, Jonathan Martin reports: McCain "isn't yet offering his support to the administration's expensive plan to buy up the bad debt that threatens to choke credit markets."
• But in a 60 Minutes interview taped on Thursday, McCain seemed to endorse the bailout plan, which was pitched to Congress on Thursday and announced to the public on Friday. Update: According to AP, McCain did in fact endorse the bailout.
  

In other news, the top of the GOP ticket (that'd be Sarah Palin) continues to upstage John McCain, this time drawing a crowd of 60,000 in The Villages, Florida. I travel to that part of Florida each year to visit my grandpa and step-grandma, and I may never look at the area the same way again.

Update (3:31AM): I am officially an idiot. Palin did not draw 60K. Maybe 25K is more like it. And as noted in the commonets, Palin went to one of the easiest places in Florida for a Republican to generate a crowd. Obama meanwhile went into GOP country in Florida and still drew over 20K.

McCain: "I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy."

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John Aravosis catches a remarkable NYT story:

Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

As John says:

There should be a campaign to demand that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, give every penny back to the American people.

Pathological hypocrites, every last one of them.

Ostensibly, Friday's debate is going to focus on foreign policy. But I think everybody knows that even though John McCain would like to talk about his war in Iraq, what people are actually going to take away from the debate is going to have a lot more to do with the economy.

To that end, yesterday davidfromsandiego pointed out that the most explicit connection between foreign policy and the economy is the $10+ billion dollars we are spending each and every month in Iraq.

On a substantive level, I don't think Barack Obama can repeat that fact often enough. It's a great way to keep the focus on the economy while stressing how his superior judgment on Iraq at the same time.

In fact, I'll make this wager: if Obama can manage to state that fact at least five times, there's no way he'll lose the debate.

::: :::

On a completely different note, it occurs to me that a great way to "respectfully" mock John McCain during the debate (thereby getting under his skin) would be for Barack Obama to make reference to McCain's comment that he knows how to find Osama bin Laden. As Keith Olbermann said during his special comment, either McCain is lying and doesn't know how to catch bin Laden or he's telling the truth and he's holding it out as a ransom for the presidency. Either way, McCain's position is absurd, and is ripe for some serious ribbing. And something tells me that John McCain is not going to be in any mood to be the target of ridicule.

The campaign seems to be coming down to the the debate over the two most basic economic questions confronting America today: what do we do now to avert a financial collapse, and what do we do over the long-run to fundamentally strengthen our economy?

On both of those questions, Barack Obama and John McCain have taken very different approaches. While Obama has offered a plan for both the short- and long-term, the only plan offered by John McCain is no plan at all. While Obama has been specific about what he wants to do and signaled his willingness to put aside partisan politics, the only specifics McCain has offered is what he's against and who he's against.

Given the extent of this country's economic problems, Barack Obama's constructive, can-do approach will win every time over John McCain's negative, do-nothing philosophy.

The Seahawks have lead (which is about to shrink), so I stole myself away from the game to point out a new post over at Huffington Post, "Even Fox News Admits McCain's Missteps."

Aside from the headline, there are two things worth noting:

1. Even Bill Kristol admitted McCain had a bad week last week -- but Kristol being Kristol, he spun up the idea that McCain would have a good week this week. His notion? That McCain will oppose Paulson's bailout plan. That may have some superficial mavericky appeal, but it won't deal with the fact that this crisis is a direct result of the economic ideology that McCain supports. Moreover, if McCain says "no" to this, it's not like he's going to have a plan for Main Street. So he's just Hoover all over again.
2. If you look at the byline, you might notice a familiar name. That's right, I wrote the post. I'll have more to say later, but at least through November, I'm going to be writing and video editing for HuffPost as well as TJR. It won't have a huge impact on TJR, though because of my responsibilities to HuffPost, I may have to cut back on some of my more ho-hum posts here, which isn't the end of the earth. Anytime I post something over there, I'll also flag it over here. Probably the coolest part of the arrangement is that my edited videos will be exposed to a broader audience. (Don't worry, I'll be able to post them here as well.)

I'll write a bit more about the HuffPost stuff later (I have to get back to the football game), but I wanted to give everybody here a heads up first. I'm very excited to be able to work with them, and the opportunity would not have come up if it weren't for TJR readers and their support -- so thank you.

Barack Obama, earlier today in Charlotte, NC:

Now I'm off to go watch my Seahawks play some football...

Here's the full text of Barack Obama's statement of principles for the Treasury proposal:

HuffPost's Sam Stein documents the carnage. Here's video:

(Note: The digg link affiliated with this post is connected to The Huffington Post story.)

 26 years in Congress, 13 cars, and at least 7 homes.

Obama gets big welcome in Republican Country

JACKSONVILLE -- To an amped and overflowing crowd in a Republican stronghold, Democrat Barack Obama stepped up his attacks on John McCain, saying Saturday that the Republican in these tough economic times "wants to do for healthcare what Washington did for banking."

According to firstcoastnews.com, 8,000 of the more than 20,000 who showed up were turned away. Many of those turned away were able to listen to the rally from outside the venue's gates. Kos diarist Arculi attended the event and posted some pictures taken at the scene.

When McCain spoke at the same spot on Monday, 3,000 showed up.