October surprise?

It's Travelgate Palin-Style. Wink. According to a CBS News report:

"Alaska Governor and Republican Vice President hopeful Sarah Palin may be facing another round of scrutiny, this time for charging the state for her children to travel with her while conducing official state business.

CBS News has obtained a copy of the complaint that Frank Gwartney, a retired lineman in Anchorage filed last Friday, with Alaska’s Attorney General, Talis Colber in Juneau. 'Palin ran on the platform of ethics, transparency and anti-corruption. I’m tired of the hypocrisy that exists in Government and people need to know the truth,' said Gwartney."

Read More "Palin Subject of New Ethics Complaint" »

Another McCain staffer now has come forward anonymously to declare the veep nominee a "whack job." Not sure why just yet. Maybe it was for her really lame Jackson Five reference.

There is just so much out there crazy talk among McCain supporters/volunteers/paid staff/people-old-enough-to-know-better that it has become difficult to pick out just one item for a morning blog post. McCain's People--and that includes, you Gov. Palin--should read yesterday's Frank Rich column. Just sayin'.

Here's my McCain Camp Crazy Moment of the Weekend:

The Associated Press is reporting that something called the "Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008" sent out an e-mail to Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. The AP goes on to quote the e-mail. Warning! It is scary! Warning! It is really, really stupid. Warning! It is something that even John McCain would declare as stupid.

"'Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008,' the e-mail reads. 'Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!... '

It warns 'Fellow Jewish Voters' of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama."

Republicans say they have fired the guy who sent the e-mail and are issuing a "correction" to the 75,000 voters who got the e-mail.

The AP digs up more intrigue or just GOP lameness. I can't decide.

Read More "McCain Camp In PA: A Vote For Obama=Another Holocaust" »

In her policy speech yesterday, her first, Palin and Palin's people based it on her one talking point not yet deemed a "lie" or "false"--motherhood. She tries to drop some science on fruit-fly research. She deems fruit-fly research a joke. One of those wasteful earmarks.

Science bites back. Science doesn't like Sarah. At all:

"This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks basic research and the international research community. You damn well better believe that there is research going on in animal models — what does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and chop up baby brains for this work? — and countries like France and Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all respected participants in these efforts.

Yes, scientists work on fruit flies. Some of the most powerful tools in genetics and molecular biology are available in fruit flies, and these are animals that are particularly amenable to experimentation."

Last night, on Countdown, a Newsweek reporter who usually can be counted on to spout dull Conventional Wisdom declared that Sarah Palin's quip that fruit fly research is a joke may in fact be the Dumbest Thing Sarah Palin Has Ever Said.

Via Coates.

OK. The headline was a little harsh. Via TPM:

"By now you've all heard about Ashley Todd, the 20-year-old McCain volunteer who claimed that she was assaulted in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night by an attacker who scratched a 'B' in her cheek after learning that she was for McCain.

The story was flacked madly last night by Drudge, even though few if any details had been established or independently confirmed."

Well. The woman made it all up. The AP is reporting that police found her story just didn't add up. Here's more of the details:

"A McCain campaign volunteer who reported that a tall black man robbed her and then cut a "B" onto her cheek after seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car has been given a polygraph test because of 'inconsistencies' in her story, police said.

Among other things, police said photos and bank card information from an automated teller machine where the college student claimed she was robbed do not show her using the machine at the time, police said."

Yesterday, Todd became a mini Joe The Plumber. According to HuffPo: "The report of the attack Thursday prompted the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate, Sarah Palin, to call Todd expressing their concern. Barack Obama's campaign also issued a statement wishing Todd well and hoping the attacker would be swiftly brought to justice."

I guess Todd won't be making any appearances on Fox News. And I guess McCain will not be citing her in any campaign rallies or using her as some sort of campaign theme.

McKenna has posted some details about the woman's blog earlier today.

Update 3:16 p.m. A Fox News Honcho says if this assault turns out to be a hoax, McCain's campaign is over. Really? I wouldn't blame Todd for McCain's problems.

*photo courtesy of Huffington Post.

Chicago Tribune has an interview with Palin. The Veep nominee says this: "If people only knew how frugal we are."

New Columbia Heights asks: Know any brothels in the Hood?

And Now, Anacostia reports that Big Chair Coffee is close to opening its doors. This is just one more bit of good news coming out of Anacostia--stuff this blogger is always on top of! And they have the perfect line among all the pictures: "it's just nice seeing the word restaurant."

Metrocurean has a confession: It loves ginger. This means a piece on a new ginger-flavored booze: "Of my absolute favorite flavors, ginger ranks right near the top. So I was eager to learn more about Domaine de Canton, a new ginger liqueur, at its DC launch dinner at Central this week."

D.C. Foodies has some fightin' words: "Yeah, Mr. Smarty McHealthypants! There is nothing wrong with high fructose corn syrup; its made from F@$#ing CORN for Christ's sake! All natural and all American! What you got to say to that? Yeah, that's what I thought... Eat your popsicle, commie. But seriously, what the hell?" Yeah. Seriously.

WTOP is reporting that someone painted "Scam" on a road in front of a speed camera in MOCO:

There have been at least two other instances where the words 'GREEDY SCAM' and 'GOV. SCAM' have been written in large letters on Montgomery County roads, directly in front of fixed speed cameras.

Speed cameras have been in use in the county since May 2007. If a driver goes more than 10 miles per hour over the posted the speed limit, a picture of the license plate is taken and a $40 fine is sent in the mail.

The Montgomery County police department maintains it is not trying to catch drivers off guard, just slow them down."

Pop Cesspool is feelin' angry too: "Dear Tampa Bay Rays fans: Your stadium is shit. We Philly fans know all about shit stadiums. Yours is one. We don't have one anymore. I hate looking at the roof of your stadium, but I can't stop thinking about it, either." Awesome collage if you click on the link.

TPM notes a former Bush Spokesperson says he is now voting for Obama.

*photo from Mingering story.

The Atlantic is trying to figure out if Palin's $150,000 clothing haul from RNC donations was even legal. They dig through election regs and find at least one mention of where such an expenditure does not fall within legal guidelines. Check it out, here.

I just think this whole mini-scandal goes to the larger Palin narrative. She lied about the Bridge to Nowhere. She hyped that pipeline that may never get built. She preached good governance in the face of that troopergate scandal. She claims repeatedly to not run with the Washington crowd and yet spent a lot of time wooing the Washington crowd as mayor and governor as the New Yorker reports.

Yes, Palin is utterly not qualified to be President. But she's also a phony.

One gets the sense that she's simply playing tourist, loving every minute of her short ride: the touring of Ground Zero, the inane SNL cameo, the free clothes and free trips to various battleground states. Palin has taken all this in without an ounce of introspection. Her thoughts are only bumper-sticker deep. For $150,000 in clothes, I would expect a little more than platitudes.

I'm not one to talk. I have three shirts. I don't know a lot about fashion. But jeez. Sarah Palin ain't looking all Real America. The Politico is reporting that the RNC appears to have shelled out $150,000 for Palin's outfits budget. Talk about welfare!

In between calling Obama a socialist, claiming that he hangs out with terrorists, and lying about that Bridge To Nowhere (remember that?), Palin is shopping on the RNC's dime:

"The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.

Spokeswoman Maria Comella declined to answer specific questions about the expenditures, including whether it was necessary to spend that much and whether it amounted to one early investment in Palin or if shopping for the vice presidential nominee was ongoing."

The money might be worth it if Palin actually understood what the Vice President's role actually is.

Read More "Palin’s $150,000 Clothes Fund" »

The New York Times reports that several baseball players from the Tampa Bay Rays appeared yesterday at a rally in support of Obama. The players should be resting, reading up on their World Series opponents. Instead, they're hugging it out with the candidate:

"On Monday, he was endorsed at a rally in Tampa by six players for the Rays — outfielders Jonny Gomes and Carl Crawford, and Fernando Perez, the pitchers David Price and Edwin Jackson, and Cliff Floyd, the designated hitter.

Mr. Obama shook their hands, hugged them, smiled and offered: "'I’ve said from the beginning that I am a unity candidate, bringing people together. So when you see a White Sox Fan showing love to the Rays, and the Rays showing some love back – you know we are on to something right here.'”

McCain must be fuming.

The Post endorses Obama. Its editorial board writes in part:

"There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.

The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes."

Read More "The Post Endorses Obama" »

Maybe he'll want to revive his column for The Nation again! Is this Hitchens endorsement a shocker? Not really when you consider the man's distaste for lies, propaganda, stupidity, and so on. He writes best when putting McCain in his place (saying what so many are at least thinking):

"But the difference in character and temperament has become plainer by the day, and there is no decent way of avoiding the fact. Last week's so-called townhall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience. McCain occasionally remembers to stress matters like honor and to disown innuendoes and slanders, but this only makes him look both more senile and more cynical, since it cannot (can it?) be other than his wish and design that he has engaged a deputy who does the innuendoes and slanders for him."

I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.

Ouch.

Another day. Another reason to be kinda scared about the people who shout things at Palin rallies. This from a Huffington Post story:

"In the latest instance of inflammatory outbursts at McCain-Palin rallies, a crowd member screamed 'treason!' during an event on Tuesday after Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of criticizing U.S. troops."

Did this kind of cowboy stuff work for our current president?

Wow. Dana Milbank reports some scary stuff at a Palin campaign event in Florida:

"Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, 'Sit down, boy.'"

What worries me is that there is still a month left before the election. This moment will probably not be the low point for either campaign.

OK. The Veep Debate is over. Perhaps the most hyped debate ever turned out to be a bit of a snooze. While Slate's press critic warned that the format was going to be a problem--a rapid pace of 90-second answers which could only lead to sound bites--I still hoped for fireworks. In Palin's case, the 90-second answers turned into non-answers and sound bites that could be read/scanned from index cards.

Forget which candidate won or lost. Gwen Ifill was the real loser here. Could she have bothered to press either candidate (but especially Palin) when they refused--sometimes openly refused--to answer her questions. Or how about a follow-up when Palin suggested expanding the veep's authority? Or what about healthcare? Ifill couldn't even press Palin after the candidate dodged a softball on the candidates' weaknesses. Or when Palin said this.

I would have also appreciated Ifill challenging Biden on how the Dems would leave Iraq. And what he thought about Amtrak's pretty crummy snack options.

Don't believe me that Ifill is biased against follow-ups? Slate agrees: Ifill lost this debate.

Anyway. Check out our live blogging over at the Sexist while you watch Keith.

*photo via Huffington Post.

Via TPM. Finally. This could be Palin's defining moment. Just embarrassing and shameful. You've been warned [her interview is after Biden's]: