Palin gets question, looks to McCain, demurs  —  This is what happens when campaigns let reporters into photo ops.  They get all uppity and ask questions.  —  From the pool report account of what happened after McCain and Palin's meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko:

A Partisan Paper of Record  —  Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization.  Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid …

FOX News Poll: Obama Reclaims Lead Over McCain, 45% to 39%  —  Barack Obama has recaptured the lead — 45 percent to 39 percent — over John McCain in the presidential race, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday.  —  As majorities of each party's faithful back their party nominee …

Cell Phones and the 2008 Vote: An Update  —  Current polling in the 2008 presidential election shows a very tight race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.  In part because of the strong support Obama is attracting among younger voters, and as the number of Americans …

McCain's gambit  —  McCain suspends his campaign, and asks to postpone Friday's debate, to address the financial crisis.  —  Both candidates have been marginal players; McCain, though, seems to have the potential to make himself a major one, and his move is a mark, most of all, that he doesn't like the way this campaign is going.

To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:  —  As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis.  We are well aware of the difficulty …

Bill Clinton cites Jewish holidays to explain delay in campaigning  —  File this one under Ya Can't Make It Up.  —  Call me crazy, but there may some Christian areas of the country that he could stump in for Obama before, after or doing the high holidays.  —  From WJC's interview with Larry King tonight:

Intrade Betting is Suspicious  —  There's something funny going on over at Intrade with respect to the pricing of the Obama and McCain contracts.  —  Right now, Obama is trading at 52.3 points.  That is, Intrade implies that he has a 52.3 percent chance to become the next President.

The Ignorance Behind the Paulson Plan  —  From The PBS News Hour on September 23: … Ludwig is one of the authors, along with Paul Volcker, of the op-ed that put the bailout proposal on the table in the first place.  —  I am sure that Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Eugene Ludwig …

Palin on Thin Ice  —  With today's kerfuffle over the media being kept away from Sarah Palin's meetings with foreign leaders — like there was a risk she'd answer their shouted questions?  — I've been mulling over Colby's post about the Hannity-Palin “100 percent pure infomercial” interview.

PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human Milk  —  VERMONT — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk …

NBC/WSJ POLL: DOUBTS ABOUT PALIN  —  From NBC's Mark Murray  —  The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll will be released at 6:30 pm ET, but here's an early look at one set of numbers:  —  Forty-nine percent say that Palin is unqualified to be president if the need arises, compared with 40 percent who say she's qualified.

John McCain Uses Idol Makeup Artist!  —  John McCain, whose ads skewer Barack Obama for his “celebrity” status, has his own close ties to show business, the new issue of Us Weekly reports exclusively.  —  The 72-year-old was recently made TV-ready by makeup artist Tifanie White who's worked …

A STATEMENT FROM LUKE RUSSERT  —  From NBC's Luke Russert  —  Earlier this morning on the Today Show I misspoke and made what is without a doubt, quite simply a dumb comment.  —  Matt Lauer talked about UVA being a smart school and whether or not it could be considered a microcosm of Virginia at large.

It's Judgment Day for McCain  —  Last week, Republican presidential candidate John McCain called for a commission to “find out what went wrong” on Wall Street.  It was an excellent suggestion: Public inquiries into Wall Street practices served the country well in the 1930s.

Pinpoint Attacks Focus on Obama  —  STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. — Hundreds of times in the past three weeks, cable television viewers here have been the exclusive audience for two of the roughest advertisements of the political season.  —  One links Senator Barack Obama to the former mayor of Detroit …

Render unto Obama  —  First we had the Vero Possumus seal, and then the Barackopolis.  One might have thought that Team Obama would have learned their lesson on hubris and self-absorption, but a deal with a British firm goes even farther.  Democrats have begun striking coins with Barack Obama's profile …

The Crime Of Committing Journalism  —  Howie Kurtz's piece in the Washington Post today reprints two emails I sent McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb privately last week.  Kurtz got the emails because Goldfarb sent them to him, after sending them to other reporters to goad them into doing a story on me.