What Sowell says is basically confirmed by the long and meticulously researched article on Fannie Mae in the Sunday NYT. That article doesn’t mention the connections with Obama etc., but if you read it carefully it’s clear what really happened.

First guy: "I’ve already voted. I just don’t like what’s going on."

Second guy: "Maybe I’ll vote for Bush for dictator. Don’t you think it’s sketchy he wanted to give $700 billion dollars with no strings to someone he appointed?"

First guy: "I had to cancel a trip this week because I couldn’t get any gas. That damn [Republican Governor] Sonny Perdue should have had a plan ready, but he didn’t." [There’s been a severe gas shortage in Georgia, with almost all stations out at times. And the charge that the governor decided not to have an emergency plan ready is semi-true, as far as I can tell.]

Whatever the true facts might be in each case, it’s clear who’s been blamed and why.

As vital as it is for the McCain campaign and its supporters to focus on facts and ask pointed questions, it is also incumbent on our side to shoot down crazy allegations, which are readily refuted and discredit those raising the real problems of Obama’s associations. In a recent talk WSJ reporter John Fund referred to Obama as a potential "facilitator president"--one who would appear moderate but make possible the wildest dreams of the most extreme leftists, through funding their non-profits or appointment to lower-level government positions.

Update: Stanley Kurtz skewers the article on NRO today.

An unusual wine--full bodied in color and texture but at the same time light on the palate. And while dark, it was also quite clear--it has been filtered. I thought it would open up more with some air (like our Sarah), but not much. Not at all tart! But very drinkable and enjoyable. Solid, I’d say. Especially at a mere $12 a bottle. Maybe not a wine to make you wink at the world, but I’d definitely recommend it. Liberal wine snobs will definitely turn their nose up at this wine, just as you’d expect them to. It’s a wine for the rest of us.

NB: There is no vintage year on the label; must be a blend of more than one year’s grapes. Hmmm. . . This could be symbolic, too. A wine for more than one year? I expect so. . .

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

I am reminded of Senator Obama’s comment about going to the UN after Russia invaded Georgia. The details of the UN Charter matter less than what he takes to be its fundamental aims. Senator Obama seems to believe in "living" international law.

The general pundit consensus on Sarah this morning is that she won by not losing or losing badly. She no longer deserves to be ridiculed and all that, and she still will get the job done of energizing the base. But she did nothing to substantially change the character of the campaign, and she certainly said nothing to make Joe or Barack sweat.

The remarks of Mickey Kaus Peter links below are, as usual, astute and fair and balanced. He says Sarah helped herself but in no way hurt Obama, which was, finally, her job. He also says that Biden seemed pretty authentic, which, I will add, he also seemed in his convention speech.

David Brooks, who’s also authentic and astute in a somewhat confused way, surely exaggerates when he claims that our Sarah achieved DEBATING PARITY with their Joe. He does well in reminding us that her debating strategy was to present her ticket and especially herself as a RADICAL ALTERNATIVE by severing all ties with the Bush administration. Mavericks never look back. To me, that strategy is a Hail Mary pass if there ever was one. Mickey and David seem to agree that our Sarah has a promising future, but that future is probably not now.

UPDATE: ON the same webpage, we now have the CNN instant poll. It shows Biden winning the debate, but not by an overwhelming margin. Palin is judged much more likeable, but Biden by a large margin more qualified to be president. This doesn’t confirm the "stomping" theory of jwc on the thread below, but it does confirm my view that nothing happened to stem the trend in the Obama/Biden direction. So, unfortunately, I’m inclined to agree with the jwc judgment that McCain will be very, very lucky to get within 5 of Obama again. ONE MORE UPDATE: The CBS poll showed a decisive win for Biden among undecided voters and that the debate gave the Democratic ticket a small but real bump. I have to say, ever ready to modify my judgment in light of new evidence, that the voters seem a bit more pro-Biden that most of the experts.

The issue that the courts point to: Do we want the most leftist ticket in American history (of major parties) to take control of the Presidency and Congress, and subsequently the Supreme Court? Someone needs to sound the alarm, which the McCain camp’s themes don’t raise.

All this "maverick" talk reminds me of the individualists who comprise "the herd of independent minds." It reeks of process and style and avoids substance. Is eccentricity a virtue?

Michael Barone addressed the election to a group at the White House the other day. He gave the group no encouragement whatsoever.

I am more optimistic: Once the bailout/rescue bill passes, McCain’s numbers should stop tanking. (If McCain had a chance to lead a revolt defeating it, that would have been another thing.) But he needs to strip Obama of his moderate mask and make him the issue.

Finally, McCain could get a boost from President Bush, who will receive obligatory poundings from McCain-Palin. Conscious of his low approval ratings, the President has pulled back from the political scene--which has been the theme of his second term disasters, when he failed to calculate the political consequences of his policies and decisions: Iraq, Katrina, and immigration, for openers. The result of this shrinking of the executive branch has been to convert our regime of separated powers into a parliamentary one. Parliamentary regimes directly translate the passions of the people into policy and law--with disastrous consequences. Fighting his instincts and his past practice, Bush has to be pulled back into his constitutional responsibilities. That activity may not avert a Katrina for Republicans and a dark night for America. But it is Bush’s constitutional duty.

More thoughts tomorrow. Long day; I’m going to bed now.

My half-case of Palin Syrah wine arrived yesterday. Alas, I’m going to miss the debate altogether, so I’ll have to give my review later on. I suspect it is a "full bodied and tart" wine. Tonight I’m attending the world premier of the documentary film Do As I Say (based on the Peter Schweizer bestseller) because, well, I’m in it--somewhere. (You can hear my voice briefly on the trailer, but no pic. I’m told I get some decent screen time.)

I must have missed this article. Have I been sniffing too much glue? When did I do this?

I’m wondering how to register a complaint with MSNBC. Probably a waste of time, given how far gone they are.

UPDATE: Video now up on the MSNBC site. My Post Office mug and name come up about the 1:15 mark.

For a less, er, "creative" title and a picture of my ugly mug, go here.

But probably not. Over to you, NLT Southern Command, Knippenberg and Lawler.

These sets of stories accusing banks of blatant racism took hold--despite severe criticism from academic reviewers who questioned the validity of the model and its use of incomplete data. Eventually, they began to affect the political climate in Washington and a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston seemed to lend some credence to the general theme of these newspaper stories--even as it proved them to be greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless and despite severe criticism even of this study from independent researchers as well as an FDIC economist, government went on a campaign to encourage banks to lower their standards to make more minority loans. Of course, the standards had to apply to all . . . not just minorities.

In the midst of this and to convince banks to accept this new regime, sophistry followed. All sorts of clever arguments were developed to explain why up was down and down was up. Banks bought it--no doubt, in part, because the competition was buying it too and there was a lot of money to be made . . . for the time being. In addition, when Freddie and Fannie began easing up on their standards for mortgage purchases, the housing market boomed and banks were only too happy to embrace these new standards. Moreover, those CEOs who did this with the most gusto, like Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide, were heralded as geniuses and pillars of the community. They were honored and celebrated to such an extent that it is hard to imagine the case of whiplash they must be suffering now.

It would be wrong to say that the media is to blame for the mortgage crisis. But I think Malanga ably demonstrates that what is to blame is a kind of misplaced and compassion-driven logic that patronizes the needy at the same time that it inadvertently victimizes them. It is the story of the last 60 years (or more) of American politics.

Apparently, yesterday as the Dow sank 777+ points, Barack Obama proclaimed the following while campaigning in Colorado: "We’ve got the long-term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows." So let me get this straight . . . he now agrees with McCain?

As Jonah says, "Perhaps after Al Qaeda seizes Baghdad, a President Obama would finally declare, ’Hey, we can win this thing!’"

And just to show you how quickly my thinking can "evolve," it’s no longer clear to me that voting NO yesterday was all that stupid. Individual representatives didn’t think their vote should cost them their seats, and their calls and letters really were suggesting that they would have to pay the ultimate price. Meanwhile, the Democrats can’t afford to act without the Republicans, given the unpopularity of any kind of bailout. So the Republicans remain in a good bargaining position and can certainly get more concessions.

A genuinely bipartisan deal would create a situation where neither party could campaign for or against the bailout. It seems that Pelosi really did violate the "subtext" of the deal, if deal there was. McCain would obviously benefit from getting the perception of crisis behind us, and by anything tht would improve the economy short-term. But maybe the Democrats don’t obviously benefit from extended national reflection on why the bailout is necessary.

Part of that is simply emblematic of the gap between our political (and business) elites and those folks who live in flyover country. Part of it is also an unwillingness to look in the mirror and recognize how our unrealistic expectations (of the appreciation of our houses, the size of our houses relative to our incomes, the returns we can expect on our investments) left us open to the, er, creativity of various sorts of financiers.

So we face at least a threefold challenge. The first is putting together a package that has enough votes to pass Congress. I’m confident that after Rosh Hoshonnah, our "leaders" will look at the markets and the polls and find the will to do something that restores a modicum of confidence to our financial industry. That’s the easy part. Yes, you read that right.

Second, we have to come to grips with the fact that in our fabled competitive global marketplace, hard work and even harder savings are going to be rewarded with more modest returns than we were accustomed to. Those who want to get rich quick (most of us) will have to learn that that often also means getting poor quick and that the royal road to "commodious self-preservation" doesn’t get us there quickly and effortlessly. We’ll have to learn that cleverness is not a virtue, and that self-restraint and patience are. That’s hard, but there are plenty of places where we can learn it, if only we turn off our televisions and talk to our grandparents or go to churches (with the noteworthy exception of those that preach the gospel of prospertity).

Third, our political and economic elites are going to have to rebuild public trust in our institutions. I don’t have a magic prescription here, but a little less clever talk, a little less pandering, and some genuinely sober action are surely good places to begin. If there is a human nature, courage will be recognized and admired, even by people who don’t see much of it.

Presumably, our ten biggest private equity/ hedge funds, plus our biggest pension plans (CALPERS, etc.), plus groups like TIAA-CREF could raise $200 billion, perhaps much more in a hurry. Moreover, their balance sheets would suffer if the market tanks and if we have a severe recession. Hence it would be in their interest to act.

If we want to show Americans that they need not look to government to solve their problems, what beter time than the present?