Working on a number of troubling stories today, so for the moment, here's a much welcome :30 second comedy diversion for you and me both...

Too hilarious... This is not an Onion headline! From AP, within the last hour...

UPDATE: 10/10/08: Oops. The official bi-partisan state report has now been released, and Palin has been found to have illegally abused the power of her office. MSNBC's coverage here...

I'll be Guest Hosting a special "VP Debate" edition of the The Mike Malloy Show tonight. We'll carry the debate LIVE at 6pm PT (9pm ET), followed by an in-studio "Bloggers Roundtable" until 9pm PT (Midnight ET), featuring world class bloggers:

• MARCY WHEELER of Empty Wheel
• DAVID "DDAY" DAYEN of Hullabalo & Calitics
• MARC "ARMED LIBERAL" DANZIGER of Winds Of Change
• PAMELA LEAVEY of The Democratic Daily, and;
• PATRICK FREY of Patterico

Plus your calls if we can fit 'em in, at 800-989-1480. To hell with Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer and their professional spinners! Join us for the real scoop! Live from Los Angeles!

Malloy's show is nationally syndicated on a number of air affiliates around the country, on Sirus Ch. 146, XM Ch. 167 and streaming live online at NovaMRadio.com.

As always, "Agent 99" will be your rascible hostess here in our live Open Thread during the show. Hit comments below and give us your two-cents tonight! Maybe we'll read it on air!

POST-SHOW UPDATE: We had a very lively roundtable, with a lot of disagreements (the Rightwinger, Patrick Frey thought Palin dropped the ball, while the Progressives tended to think Palin did well, except for Danziger, and lord only knows what he is. My thanks to all of them, as well as the callers, including my father who offered an "Edward R. Murrow-esque" field report, live from St. Louis! Unfortunately, Pamela Leavy was not able to join us at the last second.

We ended the spirited discussion --- audio archive below --- with my request for a quick McClaughlin-style response to the following question: "Between now and the next debate on Tuesday, after tonight's debate, do the polls go up, down, or no change for Obama and McCain?" The answers from the bloggers...

Expectations for Sarah Palin continue to plummet in advance of the Veep Debate Thursday night. From NYTimes today...

You can add the comments of Frum, the man credited with coining the phrase "Axis of Evil", to previous Republican defections from Palin, including Kathleen Parker's call for her to leave the ticket, Laura Bush's admission that she lacks experience to be President, and Fox "News'" sad attempt at hiding an article detailing a number of conservatives jumping off the ship. All coming on the heels of the disastrous CBS interviews with Couric, which made her look like a Rhodes Scholar in her initial disastrous outing on ABC with Gibson.

At this rate, all Palin should have to do on Thursday is show up, and not pass out in the middle of the debate, and she'll be declared "the winner". For more background, please see Quayle '88, Bush '00 and Bush '04.

[Note: We'll be Guest Hosting The Mike Malloy Show this week, Wed - Fri, including during the debate on Thursday night. We'll be carrying it in full, starting at 6pm PT (9pm ET) followed by a world-class "Bloggers Roundtable". To hell with Chris Matthews and the professional spinners! We'll be talking with the folks who have been right, instead, for years! Scheduled to be with us so far: Marcy Wheeler of Empty Wheel, David "dday" Dayen of Hullabaloo and Calitics and more to be announced soon. Hope you'll tune in!]

The only thing America really cares about...

As of this posting, despite her latest disastrous interviews, calls from conservatives for her to drop out, Laura Bush's admission she's unqualified, and damage control from Fox "News", Palin is still on the ticket for some reason. The above video may explain why.

We were surprised as anyone to see this listed today at Google News...

We were somewhat less surprised when we clicked on it to find the page it linked to was now an error page at the Fox "News" website, reading...

Wow. These CBS/Katie Couric interviews on the economy with Sarah Palin are breathtaking. Cafferty's response afterwards is, on the other hand, a breath of fresh air in the corporate media.

If any serious John McCain supporter can claim, with a straight face, to actually have no problem voting for this woman for President, as that's what she's ostensibly running for, I'd sure like to hear it.

As it seems very few saw these when they originally aired (during the bailout panic last week), perhaps they need a bit more play. My god. Seriously, take a look at these...

Little wonder, then, that even rightwingers, after looking at this stuff, are starting to face reality, and call for Palin to be dropped from the ticket.

On CNN, Jack Cafferty was at least as alarmed by the interview as I was, noting on air that "If John McCain wins this woman will be one 72-year-old's heartbeat away from being President of the United States. And if that doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should." Take a look at his reaction...

National Review's Kathleen Parker wins the rarely-bestowed BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award" for her devastating column today calling for Sarah Palin, who, Parker says is "clearly out of her league," to put country first and leave the ticket.

"Do it for your country," she urges, after noting that "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

(Hat-tip RAW STORY.)

Why is it that this rather notable story, from Wednesday, received almost no play in the print or broadcast media?

If a similarly striking comment had been made by a powerful Democrat (or their spouse) about Barrack Obama or Joe Biden do you supposed it would have received a bit more coverage?

Nonetheless, I'll look forward to the wingnut commentary all weekend --- from the disingenous propagandists and their kool-aid chugging chumps alike --- following tonight's debate, about how the media is "in the tank" for Obama. And I'll look forward, as well, to the media internalizing that phony criticism and continuing to give every benefit of the doubt to a Republican, that they'd never even consider giving to a Democrat.

Wondering what was discussed during those important, question-free, :30 second photo-ops embarrassingly created by the McCain campaign to display Sarah Palin "meeting" with foreign leaders at the UN, this week? CNN offers some insight...

A Guest Editorial by author and NYU media professor, Mark Crispin Miller...

"Strategists say that Mr. McCain can now count on a more motivated social conservative base to help him in areas like southern Ohio, where the 2004 race was settled."
--The New York Times, Sept. 7, 2008, A1

"In investigating the 2004 election in Ohio--examining pollbooks, talking to pollworkers and election officials, as well as reading local newspaper accounts --we could find no data of a late surge to the polls by born-again Christians. What we did find is certified voting totals in areas favoring Bush that didn't match the number of voters who officially signed-in on the poll sign-in sheets."
--Email from Bob Fitrakis of The Columbus Free Press, Sept. 7, 2008

To understand how Team McCain intends to get away with stealing this election, we must recall how Team Bush got away with it four years ago. (Those aren't two different teams.)

The plan for stealing this contest has everything to do with the ostensibly surprising choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP.

Here's why...

Transcript/video...

AP...

UPDATE: AP does some fact-checking on Palin's speech and notes that "In some cases" she "stretched the truth." Here's a couple of the examples they offer (similar fact-checks are also offered, at the same link, for Romney and Huckabee's speeches):

Blogger "BoBo2020" compiled "130 Things to remember when Palin speaks tonight".

The nearly-exhaustive linked list of things we know (so far) about the Alaskan Governor and John McCain's selection of her as his Veep, begins by asking what the choice says about McCain's decision making process. Near the top of the list comes the following admissions from the Arizona Senators' own autobiography, explaining what the blogger describes as McCain's "COLOSSALLY bad judgement" in selecting Palin: