America’s body politic is getting worse before it gets better - John McCain’s campaign has adopted hatred as the one and only plank in its case for power over the free world.

I make note of this because I think everyone deserves to put this in the proper context: There has not, for over a century, been a campaign that has resorted to what McCain is now. Nixon, for all his ruthlessness, did not brand Humphrey or McGovern a terrorist. Clinton’s “War Room” did not fire the salvo that George H. W. Bush was not a real American.

They never resorted to galvanizing rage; to whipping up crowds with claims of their opponent collaborating closely with terrorists. They have lost and won with the understanding that such obscenity is not something Americans do - regardless of policy difference.

It is not because they were not able. McGovern shook hands with many radical leaders in the 70s. Bush was involved in Iran-Contra, where secret drug-financed funds fed cash to rebels who performed unspeakable atrocities on innocent civilians. The ground for upset, for rage at wrongdoing, could be laid there. It wasn’t.

It hasn’t been until now. And now, with Obama being called a “traitor“, the “pal” of a “terrorist,” and a “socialist,” it is consuming one side of the electorate. It is more than an aspect of the McCain-Palin campaign. It has become the furious, beating heart of it.

Some people are turning away from it, and rightly so. If anything, the conservative elements should be even quicker to excise the cancer from their party, and many have - of late, Maureen Dowd joined the ranks of Noonan, Will, Frum, Brooks and others.

But what is disturbing is that many have embraced it. People were afraid and agitated even before the financial crisis of the last few weeks, and now have been put into a fever pitch. The conservative economic pillars of deregulation and trickle-down were found to be too extreme, too corrupt in their current incarnation, and collapsed. And so those who supported them found themselves having to choose - re-evaluate and change, or dig in and go down fighting.

It is on that last instinct - the stubborn, the willfully ignorant, the prejudiced - that the McCain campaign has depended on. They have taken people’s fear and hurt, and given it a target - just as the Nazis did with the Jews in Germany, just as the Bolsheviks did with the moderates and nobles in Russia. Rather than let people look inward for soul-searching, McCain, and Palin especially, have encouraged them to rage outward.

The results are alarming.  Watch them.

Rather than be alarmed, or even express concern, the McCain campaign has only encouraged the fortress mentality, the crusader anger, of its followers.

That anyone criticizes them, is grounds for them to attack.

It is an understatement to say that this is not Presidential behavior. It is, in fact, behavior that mirrors the very radicalism it supposed denounces: It brings to mind ghosts of the most violent of the Black Panthers, the fury of the American Nazi Party and the accusations of debauched Joe McCarthy. It is the real darkness in America, made all the worse by its perpetrators passing it off with a smile and a wink.

But it is not humorous, nor mere gamesmanship, nor even remotely responsible. It is, as commentator Barry Yourgren observes, the prelude to bloodshed. For as much as people may try to dismiss it as simply another “tactic,” as if that euphemism salved all political wounds, the fact is that violent political speech is the seed of violent political action.

We are only forty years beyond our last major political assassination. Twenty-six years past the last major attempt. Only twelve years ago, a right-wing Israeli shot “traitor” Prime Minister Rabin before he could seal peace with the Palestinians.

Unless we want to go down that same road, we have to correct our course. Those who are already supporters of Obama can do this only by missives like this, for it is in the control of the conservatives - the GOP - to condemn their champion’s crass and dangerous actions.

Hearteningly, the change has begun. As I noted above and in previous articles, many conservatives are criticizing McCain and shifting their support. And on the basis of Obama’s policy and temperament, and McCain’s lack thereof, many voters are changing sides - from Christian independents here in California to small business owners in Florida. We can only hope it continues.

We can only hope that people see that the person best to lead in the future is the one not working to inspire darkness in the soul of our present.

At last, some answers as to the controversy as to whether Sarah Palin, as Mayor of Wasilla, saw to it that rape victims had to pay $500 to $1,200 for their forensic exams.

They come in the form of a CNN investigation on the subject:

To add some further context, the police chief mentioned in the story is the one Palin appointed after firing the previous chief for “not sharing her vision” - namely, for wanting to close the bars at 2am rather than 5am.

I am glad to find some perspective on this story between the extreme poles of Townhall.com and Daily Kos. I post it here in order to resolve one of the more disturbing controversies of late.

Definitely, definitely check this out. It’s the entirety of the roundtable discussion I mentioned yesterday.

Want to see bipartisanship? Check out George Will and Donna Brazille agreeing vehemently.

Welcome to my world, you two.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5849844

McCain has, since mid-summer, used fear as his leading campaign strategy: Fear of Obama teaching sex-ed to kindergartners, fear of Obama being inexperienced, fear of Obama’s otherness, fear that borders on the obscene in some cases.

Now fear seems to be turning against McCain, as the economy struggles and McCain’s reaction is panicked - from saying he would fire the old-hand SEC Chairman, flailing between announcing fundamental economic strength and crisis, and of late portraying himself as a pro-regulation populist, at the very moment an article in which he suggests deregulating the health care industry like we have the finance industry is hitting the shelves.

This was capably discussed on ‘This Week’ by ABC’s round table panel. None on the panel was as precise in depicting the problem as the conservative party stalwart, George Will.

Take my advice - especially if your values are conservative:

WATCH THIS VIDEO.

I could not embed it, given that ABC carefully guards its Web content. Even YouTube did not have the full, in-context segment yet. But click the link and see. It is well worth a watching.

It underscores what is lately becoming the verdict on the McCain campaign by all quarters: That despite reflexive assumptions about his experience, McCain is not the candidate who reacts calmly, with integrity, to crisis.

The article I cited earlier by Wick Allison, the National Review publisher and protege of William F. Buckley, brilliantly asserts the difference between the two candidates and why those with conservative fundamentals have a solid choice in Barack Obama.

If you have not yet read Allison’s essay, here it is again. Definitely read it.

It explains why, in the words of George Will, John McCain has provided ample evidence to make “some of us” - particularly those on the right - “fearful.”

I have often said that losing this election will be the best thing that happened to the Republican Party in the last 50 years. It would be like an addict “hitting bottom” - the fear-mongering, patriotism-baiting, sound byte slinging, demagoguery dependent, hysteria-feeding, monolithic thinking, avaricious forces that have increasingly poisoned the GOP would be shown no longer to work.

They would have to be purged. An accounting of morals and priorities would take place. Actual values and philosophies would replace the unthinking commercialization of those terms.

We may be seeing its beginnings now, as increasing numbers of conservatives shove aside the mind-numbing, red meat baggage that calculating smear merchants have piled on Obama’s character. They’re ignoring the media branding, going to the facts and using that virtue they so famously hallow - independence. And despite the Reverend Wright distortions, the Muslim knee-jerk terror and the endless, topsy-turvy drivel about Obama being an elitist - despite all the calculated and cold-hearted slander for political purposes - this group of late converts is listening to the man.

Some are liking what they’re hearing. Former Congressman and actual maverick, Wayne Gilchrest, is among them, as he cross the aisle to endorse Obama. A former National Review publisher and William F. Buckley disciple has followed the footsteps of Susan Eisenhower and done this as well.

Others are long-time supporters, like Hagel and Lugar, who have taken up a recent cause: Reacting to John McCain’s seemingly limitless, morally disgusting lies.

Hagel and Lugar both had to defend truth, decency and Obama today when McCain began to spread the lie that the Illinois Senator had a secret meeting with Iraqis to prolong and worsen the war. They informed the media that there was nothing secret about the meeting - a number of US officials, such as ambassador Crocker, were there, and there was nothing insidious or contrary to US policy happening either. Temperatures have since been running hot.

And it is this constant lying that has conservative commentators beginning to protest. So far, it is happening in small numbers, but significant ones nevertheless. Outside the hate-based slop on talk radio, right-wing pundits are beginning to feel the truth is being bent too much for them to support the man appointed to champion their policies.

The Wall Street Journal hit McCain for his assault on the SEC and mischaracterization of it. FOX objected to McCain distorting the words of one of their journalists and threatened action.

Ross Douthat at The Atlantic takes particular issue with the McCain camp’s winging about how Palin needs to be protected from the media. But it is Richard Cohen, a former ardent supporter of McCain like myself, that has the most emphatic and eloquent reaction to McCain’s distortions:

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains — his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that’s all — but just as honorably. No more, though.

“No more” is right. And many on the Right are coming to feel that. It is a hard thing to admit one’s appointed champion is not worthy of one’s values; to denounce him.

But it is necessary for the survival of those values.

Lies.

It’s said every politician commits them. Its said that’s to be expected. It is, therefore, assumed that it balances out.

I reject this at least in part - the part that finds a moral equivalence between all untruths. The term “little white lie” can be dismissed by a truth-stickler as just an excuse, but the premise that there are degrees of dishonesty is no excuse.

If someone lies about whether they returned your call, it’s one thing. If they lie about you having molested or murdered children, it’s another.

If your President lies about his sex life, it’s one thing. If they lie about an imminent nuclear threat that needs to be countered by vast, heart-wrenching sacrifice by hundreds of thousands, it’s another.

So here I have decided to do a thorough vetting of lies told by both sides - all four candidates on the major tickets. I do this in the interest of research - so that you can tell your friends that you are abreast of the issues; you know what’s going on.

So that you can decide which lies matter most to you, and which suggest a sin of omission as opposed to deliberate and cynical treachery.

And so that you can do an audit of your own feelings about honesty, about how much of a premium you put on it, and why. Mind you, I will not be including accusations of “lies” that were exposed as lies themselves. I will, however, be noting blatant flip-flops. If you say your position is something, then specifically oppose it three hours later without noting that you changed your position, that is a lie.

You can review them in alphabetical order, below or in linked articles, by last name.

Biden

McCain

Obama

Palin

Conclusion

Joe Biden

* The Veep Lie: Joe Biden said a few days before he was announced as Obama’s running mate that, “I’m not the guy.” He is the guy.

I mention this given that a huge number of “conservative” commentary on the internet is devoted to how this “malicious lie” shows you can’t trust Biden about anything.

* The Accident: Biden has made the claim that alcohol was allegedly involved in the truck collision that killed his family. He admits to having not looked into the involvement of alcohol. Legal investigations do not support the involvement of alcohol.

* The Kinnock Plagiarism: In the 1988 Presidential race, Biden often quoted British Labor leader Neil Kinnock’s speeches in his speeches, giving him credit. One time, he didn’t credit him. His Democratic colleague-opponents dismembered him for it.

That’s all for Biden. Good show, Joe.

John McCain:

* Economic Expertise: McCain claimed he had never said he didn’t know much of the economy. He did. Then he admitted to this. Then he lied about it again and stuck by the lie.

* The Pig Lie: McCain aired a multi-market ad campaign claiming Obama had called Sarah Palin a pig, stating he “approved” the message. When asked if it was true, or even if he thought that was what Obama meant, he said, “No.”

* Sex With Children Lie: McCain claimed Obama wanted to teach kindergartners “comprehensive sex education,” which I guess implies about everything from anal to abortions. The bill he refers to was intended to protect children from sexual predators. He has stuck by this lie.

* Lying About Obama Having Lied: Rumors and lies about Sarah Palin abound on the internet, and a recent campaign ad from John McCain claims they come from Obama. It cites sources, and I now cite those sources saying that John McCain is lying about them.

* Obama-Cheney Energy Bill: McCain claims in a series of ads that Obama “gave billions to big oil.” The bill he cites, even including the perks in it, raised taxes on oil companies overall.

* Iran Tiny Threat Lie: McCain claimed Obama said Iran was a tiny threat. Obama was comparing it to the U.S.S.R., but McCain took the word out of context to make Obama look like a moron or feeb.

* Baby-Killer Lie: One of my personal favorites, this lie indicates that Obama supported post-birth abortions. Yes, he “approved a message” that flatly says Obama wanted to kill babies after they were born. Of course, the bill Obama blocked actually was to give fetuses or their relations the right to sue in the event that an abortion failed and the child wasn’t given full medical aid, and has been widely criticized for being poorly written, besides.

* Obama Tax: McCain claims Obama wants to raise your taxes. For 90% of Americans, this is a lie. The same goes for Small Business Owners. McCain claims that Obama wants to harm “23 million small business owners,” and this is a bald-faced lie. Especially when most small business owners would benefit more under Obama’s plan than McCain’s.

* Renewable Energy Lie: McCain ran an ad touting his renewable energy plans, but very little in his plans have to do with renewable energy.

* The Rezko Lie: One of the most enduring lies, McCain need merely show Rezko’s picture or mention his name, and people think Obama was involved in criminal dealings with him. This is a lie. Rezko is, indeed, a convicted criminal, but he was also a real estate owner, and his deals with Obama were limited to Obama buying a house at market value, having Rezko’s wife buy the lot next door, and then Rezko’s wife selling the lot at a profit. McCain, however, claims through ads some “$14 million in land deals.” This is a total lie.

* Pro-Life Lie: McCain claimed in speeches, forums and to the press that he has a 25-year pro-life record. Er, well, considering that one of the reasons I found him appealing in 2000 was his quote that, “I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations,” I think it is tough to say what his position is, besides thoroughly inconsistent.

Alright, that’s all of August and September for McCain. For lies like linking Obama to Castro, Obama to HAMAS, Obama snubbing our troops, Obama not voting to support the war, Obama raising taxes on electricity, Obama hating immigrants, Obama’s opposition to the gas tax holiday causing prices to remain high and Obama having no alternative energy plan - all lies that McCain paid much money to proliferate and never recounted - see this link.

Barack Obama:

* McCain Hates Education Lie: Obama ran an ad that claimed McCain voted to cut educational funding, when in truth McCain voted against additional funding for education that had been requested. So it wasn’t really a cut, rather than a limitation of the needed growth - the same goes for his proposed education funding in his plan. McCain has favored abolishing the Department of Education, though.

* Auto Loan Lie: McCain refused to support loan guarantees for the auto industry, as an Obama ad notes. However, he since changed his position in the last months, and so the ad cited his old position, not his new one.

* Ohio Job Loss Lie: Obama claimed in a limited Ohio ad that McCain and his campaign manager played instrumental roles in a DHL deal that cost Ohio 8,200 jobs. In truth, it was more like 6,000. And in all honesty, McCain and Teamsters interests thought the deal would lead to jobs.

* Nuke Waste Lie: John McCain supports Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a dump site, and an Obama ad in limited markets suggested he didn’t want such a thing for Arizona. In full truth, McCain did go on to say that transportation of the waste through Arizona could, potentially, and should be made safe.

* Big Oil Lie: John McCain didn’t get $2 million from the oil industry, as the widely played Obama ad claimed. Yet. He got $1.3 million at the time of the ad.

* Working Hard For The Money Lie: Obama, in an ad, said he worked his way through college. He only worked through college - summer jobs and selling subscriptions.

That does it through to June.

And yes, I am aware of the Ralph Reed ad “lie” - that Reed, an Abramoff pal, is raising money from McCain - but I didn’t include the “debunk” given that Reed is raising money from McCain; McCain just said he doesn’t want Reed’s money, even though he takes it and spends it.

If you say you don’t want someone’s help, and then you take it, that’s a lie.

I was going to write something nasty.

Topical, yes. Pithy, doubtless. But nasty.

Obama, in the following ad, inspired me to a better post. In this post, we specify the solutions of today. We focus on the future. We work together, rather than stagnate in a process of corruption, divided.

I post this, with any more comment. Obama says enough in two minutes.

No attacks on Palin’s family; no attacks on his opponent’s patriotism; no mention of shady business dealings, insane preachers, criminal associations. Just a simple, inferred choice:

Do you want more Bush-era solutions, or do you want better than how things have been heading?

He sticks to the solutions. Lists each. Reaches out.

Next article, we’ll cover how the other campaign has been handling their message.

Not more than a month after The Economist wrote of an American rebound for the dollar and investments, the economy has suffered another severe shock.

Goldman-Sachs, lauded in that very aforementioned issue, is taking a beating that would make Rocky Balboa tap out, with 71% losses. Lehman Brothers has exploded and is being scraped off the floor. And this all follows on the heels - not coincidentally, I should note - of the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac collapse.

In the midst of this, McCain has acted with characteristic integrity, which is to say like a spastic chameleon.

First, in order to slop some gravy to his high finance friends and throw cake from Versailles to the unwashed masses, he stood in the whirlwind of Black Monday and said “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.”

In the same breath, he condemned the “fat cats” of Wall Street. Only in the drive-thru intellect of the modern American era could such an argument be other than laughable and repulsive.

Both counts are due to the fact that McCain will adopt any stance, spew any platitude, to win the brass ring of power. If that isn’t the very incarnation of cynical self-interest, I don’t know what is. The lack of integrity, of course, comes from the fact that according to McCain’s own Web site, the “fat cats” have in store for them a cleansing of the regulations that might have them on a leash:

Corporate tax cut by 10%. Dividends and estate taxes vanishing. McCain’s plan throws table scraps to small businesses and the little guy, but feeds any creature in the high six figures as if it were a goose destined for pate’.

It is that very perversion of the conservative party’s platform that has turned the mess of the mortgage crisis into a debacle: Corporate socialism. For contrary to McCain’s patriotic pap, the “fundamentals” of the American economy are anything but strong - they are on the life-support of massive infusions of cash straight out of the pockets of the tax payer.

Conservatives of the old school rail, and rightly so, about the incompetence of some social programs - be they school boards, welfare programs or the IRS. Yet we have heard nary a peep from the custodians of the “conservative” legacy about the fact that we are dumping far, far more billions into the mismanaged, disastrously inept financial industries.

Just today, the sole thing that saved Wall Street from disemboweling itself and the ailing Euro and Japanese markets with it, was a shot of no less than $70 billion dollars. Allow me to put this in perspective, as perhaps someone like Goldwater - a conservative of principle, rather than the Corporate-Commies like McCain, would say:

$70 billion could buy an education for every child in the system for two years. It could pay for the senior prescription drug entitlement nearly twice over. It nearly pays for the entire Veterans’ Affairs for a year.

What it bought us today was time.

It did not, in any way, cure our problem. At word that the federal reserve would not be cutting interest rates below 2% for now - most likely to keep the euro area from collapsing under the combined weight of its inflating economy and useless American debt - the market plummeted again. The second safety net was deployed when the government intimated it might bail out the teetering insurance giant, AIG - another example of the public sector propping up the private.

More obstacles lie ahead. Goldman-Sachs will perish if Japan and the euro area don’t get their act together soon and start moving the investment group’s sluggish ducats. The next big black eye will land when the global economic growth reports are released, an indicator that most expect will be at only half of what people had hoped.

In short, the whole of the globe is ailing because Americans were allowed to rack up massive debt and then turn their pockets inside out when the chips began to be cashed. Japan and Europe are wringing their hands over diminishing American buying power, while China and India to keep their boom running full tilt on American debt that’s drying up. Now is /not/ the time for supply side, debt-based economics.

Without cutting federal spending substantially, all one does is swell and increasingly depraved and worthless American debt. Without giving the American middle class more buying power, all it does is demand that American corporations go to China and India for cheaper goods. The combination of these two factors can be a disastrous - essentially like drinking more so that you forget how drunk you are.

The press piddles away with its “he said, she said,” nonsense while Rome begins to smolder. We get the standard talking points that are no more than a boxing match in cheap ties anyway, and each channel tries to paint this like Armageddon. It isn’t Armageddon. It was just another Black Monday, and we survived it.

But we need to realize that we’re having too many Black Mondays, and too often. We need to get the simple fact that there is a relation between the economic choices we make and the results that occur. There is no more important economic choice in the entire world this season than the American vote:

We can no more vote for the guy we “feel” like voting for, than we can spend money like we “feel” and expect that we can just get more debt. Eventually the bill comes due. Corporate Communism is not the answer.

We must make the intelligent choice to get the intelligent result.

And so we are faced with the critical decision: Do we vote for the man who will say anything to make us feel good about electing him, or the man who is smart enough to make the right decisions - according to 66% of economists - now and in office?

Increasingly, we see the former having more appeal. All indications are that this campaign is now propelled by personality, not by policy: The crucial question is not “who do the experts support?” but rather “are you with Palin, or against her?”

Let us hope that the country wakes from its strange, self-indulgent, masturbatory dream about tanning beds and bridges to nowhere, and starts trying to put its house in order: Not by speeding up along the wrong path that it’s on, but by making a change.

“Perverse” is how the new McCain ad has been described. I would allow that. And given that I find no need for our prospective leaders - the hero and role model that is the President - to add to the perversion of political discourse, I would add the descriptor, “infuriating.”

This is horrifying to me. The bill that McCain mentions Obama enacted was for “age-appropriate” education, meaning to protect children against pedophiles by teaching them to report to a parent any abusive activity. It was to protect children.

McCain describes it as, “learning about sex before learning to read.”

For those observing this matter objectively, I ask this:

What is the intent of this ad?

It isn’t to educate. Its facts are untrue. Not only the distortion about the children, but all three articles that the ad cites either go on to praise Obama or rip McCain worse - Education Week very much so.

But consider the distortion about the children. Why would you present a bill that intends to teach children how to protect against abuse, as “teaches about sex before learning to read”?

It isn’t enlightening - isn’t intended to better inform the voter about two candidates. It isn’t comparing the candidates honestly. So that’s not its intent.

What is?

In my estimation, it’s to scare people. To use a lie to scare people. To use the fear for our children in a lie to scare people. To use the fear for our children in a lie to scare people that they will, in essence, be attacked by sex - by sexual information when they’re practically toddlers.

I can’t see any other intent for this ad.

I can’t see that someone who would submit it would have any respect for the honest functioning of democracy.

I can’t see that someone who would accuse their opponent of sexual assault on the minds of young children has anywhere near the decency to represent the greatest country in the world.

I find this a new low.

From the beginning of the campaign, The Economist has been wary of Barack Obama. This week, it declared that it has definite reason to worry about John McCain.

This is no “Obamaniac” rag. The Economist has dutifully regurgitated its fair share of distortions about the Democratic candidate - claiming he supported post-birth abortion; wringing their hands about Rezko.

But of late, they have been taking McCain to task for distracting from real issues by playing up personality issues and abandoning his past positions in order to cave to the “corporate socialist” faction of the GOP in Executive power. And when he appointed Palin, they cut to the quick.

Their most critical point, as often with The Economist, is found at the end. Here, in entirety, is the article, “The Woman from Nowhere.”

Lexington
The woman from nowhere

Sep 4th 2008
From The Economist print edition
John McCain’s choice of running-mate raises serious questions about his judgment

Illustration by KAL

THE most audacious move of the race so far is also, potentially, the most self-destructive. John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate has set the political atmosphere alight with both enthusiasm and dismay.

Mr McCain has based his campaign on the idea that this is a dangerous world—and that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it. He has also acknowledged that his advanced age—he celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29th—makes his choice of vice-president unusually important. Now he has chosen as his running mate, on the basis of the most cursory vetting, a first-term governor of Alaska.

The reaction from inside the conservative cocoon was at first ecstatic. Conservatives argued that Mrs Palin embodies the “real America”—a moose-hunting hockey mum, married to an oil-worker, who has risen from the local parent-teacher association to governing the geographically largest state in the Union. They praise her as a McCain-style reformer who has taken on her state’s Republican establishment and has a staunch pro-life record (her fifth child has Down’s syndrome). Who better to harpoon the baby-murdering elitists who run the Democratic Party?

Mrs Palin was greeted like the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan by the delegates, furious at her mauling at the hands of the “liberal media”. And she delivered a tub-thumping speech, underlining her record as a reforming governor and advocate of more oil-drilling, and warning her enemies not to underestimate her (“the difference between a hockey mum and a pitbull—lipstick”). But once the cheering and the chanting had died down, serious questions remained.

The political calculations behind Mr McCain’s choice hardly look robust. Mrs Palin is not quite the pork-busting reformer that her supporters claim. She may have become famous as the governor who finally killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere”—the $220m bridge to the sparsely inhabited island of Gravina, Alaska. But she was in favour of the bridge before she was against it (and told local residents that they weren’t “nowhere to her”). As mayor of Wasilla, a metropolis of 9,000 people, she initiated annual trips to Washington, DC, to ask for more earmarks from the state’s congressional delegation, and employed Washington lobbyists to press for more funds for her town.

Nor is Mrs Palin well placed to win over the moderate and independent voters who hold the keys to the White House. Mr McCain’s main political problem is not energising his base; he enjoys more support among Republicans than Mr Obama does among Democrats. His problem is reaching out to swing voters at a time when the number of self-identified Republicans is up to ten points lower than the number of self-identified Democrats. Mr McCain needs to attract roughly 55% of independents and 15% of Democrats to win the election. But it is hard to see how a woman who supports the teaching of creationism rather than contraception, and who is soon to become a 44-year-old grandmother, helps him with soccer moms in the Philadelphia suburbs. A Rasmussen poll found that the Palin pick made 31% of undecided voters less likely to plump for Mr McCain and only 6% more likely.

The moose in the room, of course, is her lack of experience. When Geraldine Ferraro was picked as Walter Mondale’s running-mate, she had served in the House for three terms. Even the hapless Dan Quayle, George Bush senior’s sidekick, had served in the House and Senate for 12 years. Mrs Palin, who has been the governor of a state with a population of 670,000 for less than two years, is the most inexperienced candidate for a mainstream party in modern history.

Inexperienced and Bush-level incurious. She has no record of interest in foreign policy, let alone expertise. She once told an Alaskan magazine: “I’ve been so focused on state government; I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” She obtained an American passport only last summer to visit Alaskan troops in Germany and Kuwait. This not only blunts Mr McCain’s most powerful criticism of Mr Obama. It also raises serious questions about the way he makes decisions.
Vetted for 15 minutes

Mr McCain had met Mrs Palin only once, for a 15-minute chat at the National Governors’ Association meeting, before summoning her to his ranch for her final interview. The New York Times claims that his team arrived in Alaska only on August 28th, a day before the announcement. As a result, his advisers seem to have been gobsmacked by the Palin show that is now playing on the national stage. She has links to the wacky Alaska Independence Party, which wants to secede from the Union. She is on record disagreeing with Mr McCain on global warming, among other issues. The contrast with Mr Obama’s choice of the highly experienced and much-vetted Joe Biden is striking.

Mr McCain’s appointment also raises more general worries about the Republican Party’s fitness for government. Up until the middle of last week Mr McCain was still considering two other candidates whom he has known for decades: Joe Lieberman, a veteran senator, independent Democrat and Iraq war hawk, and Tom Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania (a swing state with 21 Electoral College votes) and the first secretary of homeland security. Mr McCain reluctantly rejected both men because their pro-choice views are anathema to the Christian right.

The Palin appointment is yet more proof of the way that abortion still distorts American politics. This is as true on the left as on the right. But the Republicans seem to have gone furthest in subordinating considerations of competence and merit to pro-life purity. One of the biggest problems with the Bush administration is that it appointed so many incompetents because they were sound on Roe v Wade. Mrs Palin’s elevation suggests that, far from breaking with Mr Bush, Mr McCain is repeating his mistakes.

That point should have profound weight for readers of The Economist here in the United States: That in these critical times, Hail Mary passes to stir up the base with a wedge issue is the kind of pandering desperation that we cannot afford.

The issue of abortion is one that is grim and will surely not be resolved soon. But this only underscores the far greater importance of other issues in this election - for this election finds America not faced by challenges down the road, but by emergencies grappling with it now.

Abortion plays to the emotions of the voter, and it divides. But the most pressing concern we have now is not this long-term issue - it is whether the process of the last eight years should continue.

Should we continue with the same isolationist, belligerent and weak foreign policy - the policy that saw North Korea proliferate nuclear weapons and delivery systems; the policy that saw Russia resurgent; the policy that led to Iraq being so mishandled that it took three years and Petraeus’ defiance of White House order to stay its descent into chaos; the policy that has al-Qaeda stronger now than at the time of 9/11?

Should we continue the same economic policies - the policies that have led to record jobless rates, to record disparity of wealth between upper and middle classes, to lags in wages, to economic incentives that drive industry overseas to India and China while shunning foreign talent coming here, to lose our precious global advantage in the most important struggle of our century - resource management?

Do you want more of the same?

More enemies ascendant while America rages alone like a lunatic on a soapboax. Iran is growing terrifically powerful. Venezuela is conducting military exercises with Russia. South America is going socialist. North Korea now has both American aid /and/ nukes. Russia is unopposed. Darfur is still dying. These things were not inevitable. There is a reason they were not stopped, and the reason is that the same men who advise John McCain and George W. Bush said they should not be.

More decline of the middle class. Corporate money is pouring away from our manufacturing centers into Mexico and Asia. We have the most enormous debt in history, and China owns the lion share of it. We have neglected countless advances in energy technology and science while Europe leapt ahead, almost catching us. We have let so many, many businesses atrophy so that oil prices could soar. So many tax dollars go into corporate tax loopholes, “cost-plus” overcharging and subsidies. These things were not inevitable. There is a reason they were not stopped, and the reason is that the same men who advise John McCain and George W. Bush said they should not be.

More mishandling abroad.

More division here at home.

More wedge and fear politics.

These processes are not inevitable. They are not, like with abortion, long-term struggles.

They are immediate. They are making millions of lives worse rather than better, worldwide. They are costing lives now - as in Iraq and Afghanistan - and setting the field for costing more lives later.

They can be changed now, only now, and only by voting Democrat.

That is what matters now.

Conventions aren’t just about the speeches. That would be like Valium without the Johnny Walker Black Label and Ritalin chaser. And now that I’ve regained consciousness after taking a large dose of John McCain’s accepting his party’s nomination, we can cover the zany circus spinning around the center ring:

By this, of course, I mean revealing Freudian slips!

Dogs who know how to respond to the mainstream media!

Balloon assault!

And the Return of the Son of the Bride of GREEN SCREEN!

The last of which begs the question, how long before John McCain’s campaign attacks him for hating America because he didn’t wear a flag pin last night? Considering how rabid they’ve been in the past, I’m thinking it’ll be any minute now.

Anybody got an hourglass?

John Stewart took the recent Republican punditry pabulum to task for their duplicity and double-standards last night.

This, along with Colbert’s excoriation of the Palin choice as paean of McCain’s lack of political integrity, and the Daily Show exposure of how feckless and fraught with lies the Thompson and Lieberman speeches are, serves as a well-aimed backhand at the people who want to pull the wool over the eyes of this country.

Unfortunately, it seems a lone blow.

Just last night, I was marveling at how CNN and MSNBC both had animated scrolls showing a plethora of facts during the speeches - none of which had any real bearing on the speech.

Why no red text pointing out that Sarah Palin was lying about her position on the Bridge to Nowhere? Why nothing under Guiliani pointing out Obama has not “zero,” but an outstanding one-hundred and fifty pieces of legislation in his brief Senate term, a number of which were drafted by him and are global in effect? Why no fact checking?

As the sagely pajamajournalist remarked, it’s tragic that we need to depend on comedians to keep political discourse honest.

If you’ve not seen it before, this is essential viewing: