43 days - Stephanopoulos: “The era of big government is back”  —  Execs at failed Lehman could get $2.5 billion (with a b) in bonuses — Paulson package could pass off House floor on Thursday — Newsweek cover: “King Henry” Paulson — From Sunday shows: Paulson will resist curbs on executive pay …

Franken helps craft McCain ‘SNL’ skit  —  Al Franken, the former “Saturday Night Live” star now running in a high-profile Senate race in Minnesota, helped craft the opening sketch mocking John McCain that kicked off the NBC comedy show Saturday, according to two well-placed sources inside the network.

All the Candidates' Cars  —  From the magazine issue dated Sep 29, 2008  —  When you have seven homes, that's a lot of garages to fill.  After the fuss over the number of residences owned by the two presidential nominees, NEWSWEEK looked into the candidates' cars.

Did Obama Just Touch the Third Rail?  —  CURIOUS EDITS TO HIS SOCIAL SECURITY PAGE.  —  Barack Obama is such a hard-core wonk, his camp grinds through policy day in, day out.  That may be a great quality to have in a president—but it's not necessarily a smart strategy for a presidential candidate just weeks before an election.

The Push to ‘Otherize’ Obama  —  Here's a sad monument to the sleaziness of this presidential campaign: Almost one-third of voters “know” that Barack Obama is a Muslim or believe that he could be.  —  In short, the political campaign to transform Mr. Obama into a Muslim is succeeding.

Welcome to the final stages of the coup...  UPDATES AT BOTTOM … In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism - a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected …

Seeking a President Who Gives Goose Bumps?  So's Obama.  —  Now that he's finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can't fade out again.  He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry.

Yes, There Are Deeply Angry Democratic Members of Congress  —  This email is from a lawmaker and it should give you a flavor for what's going on right now in Congress.

Bill Moyers & Kevin Phillips on Bad Money  —  Bill Moyers sits down with former Nixon White House strategist and political and economic critic Kevin Phillips, whose latest book BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM explores the role …

Protesting Obama by Air  —  JACKSONVILLE, FL - Protesters are as common to the campaign trail as supporters - from those waving McCain signs at the entrance of events, to the more subtle passersby who flash the thumbs down gesture (or worse) along the motorcade route, to the occasional group that infiltrates and interrupts an event.

The Crisis  —  I'm blogging under the influence, so perhaps things aren't quite as dramatic as they seem to me right now, but the bailout plan on the table right now seems to me like something of a crisis point for American liberalism.  The plan is bad.  But bad policies get enacted all the time.

The incredible shrinking Obama  —  How's Barack Obama's narrative going?  —  Journalists used to tell stories, now they plumb narratives.  Narrative is a pretentious borrowing from the abstraction-clotted world of academic criticism, where texts are interrogated, authors are dead and high-toned fatuousness is king.