Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame  —  FORT MYERS, Fla., Oct. 6 John McCain is collapsing in the polls in Florida and other swing states, but Sarah Palin, God bless her, has a solution.  —  “For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off,” she announced at high noon Monday to a group …

The Bomber as School Reformer  —  Back in the early eighties, in an interview with David Horowitz and Peter Collier, Bill Ayers remembered his reaction upon learning that he would not be prosecuted by the government for his bombing spree as a member of the Weather Underground.

Gallup Daily: 9-Point Obama Lead Ties Campaign High  —  Voters prefer Obama to McCain by 51% to 42%  —  PRINCETON, NJ — The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking poll shows registered voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain for president by 51% to 42%.  —  The nine percentage point lead …

Court Orders Release of 17 Innocent Guantanamo Detainees into U.S.  —  Tallahassee and D.C. Religious and Community Leaders Offer Plan for Men's Support  —  Today, for the first time, a federal court ordered the release into the United States of 17 innocent Uighur men who have been imprisoned …

Hulu, NBC Pull SNL Skit  —  But Political Skits Bringing in Huge Numbers  —  The presidential campaign has been good for “Saturday Night Live” — and for Hulu.com.  In a few short weeks, the first clip of Tina Fey impersonating Gov. Sarah Palin has become the site's most-viewed of all time.

How McCain could pull this one off  —  Can John McCain possibly win this thing?  Can he actually win in November?  —  The outlook is bleak: The polls are ugly, the Electoral College map is grim, the economy is getting worse, and McCain's choice of Sarah Palin may have energized the Republican base …

CNN Polls: New Obama gains in battleground states  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - Polls in five key battleground states in the race for the White House released Tuesday suggest that Sen. Barack Obama is making major gains.  —  The CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation polls of likely voters in Indiana …

FIRST THOUGHTS: NEEDING A GAME-CHANGER  —  From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann  —  NASHVILLE, Tenn. — McCain heads into tonight's debate here down in the polls and in need of a game-changer.  Three weeks after the Wall Street crisis began …

THEATER FRAUD?  Sabotage of An American Carol and Its Opening-Week Numbers?  —  Now this sounds like enemy action.  Help me out here, folks.  —  Mpower pictures and Vivendi are starting to hear complaints about sabotage of An American Carol by employees of theaters that are carrying the movie.

Democrats refuse to talk about Fannie, Freddie in Oversight hearing  —  Democrats have begun a search for the culprit in the financial collapse in a manner somewhat akin to the OJ Simpson search for Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman's murderer.  The Hill reports that Henry Waxman's Oversight …

For release at 9:00 a.m. EDT  —  The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday announced the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), a facility that will complement the Federal Reserve's existing credit facilities to help provide liquidity to term funding markets.

Jerome Corsi, anti-Obama author, detained in Kenya  —  A leading American neo-conservative author has been detained by immigration authorities in Kenya as he tried to launch a book smearing Barack Obama.  —  Jerome Corsi, of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth fame, was this morning being held after failing to reckon with Obamamania.

About That Middle-Class Tax Cut . . .  Remember the last time a charismatic Democrat made such a promise?  —  “It's like déjà vu all over again.”  —  As John McCain heads into the second round of presidential debates tonight, Yogi Berra's words come to mind.

Man shot three times in street by racist gunman - for wearing Barack Obama T-shirt … A man told today how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt.  —  Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted …

This Debate's Biggest Loser  —  Reading William Kristol's column in yesterday's New York Times, I discover that Sarah Palin and I have something in common.  Kristol, who was once Dan Quayle's chief of staff and therefore, shall we say, has a Mister Rogers approach to certain politicians …

A follow-up follow up  —  Lynn Sweet reported yesterday that the two campaigns had reached an agreement under which, among other things, moderator Tom Brokaw wouldn't ask follow-up questions tonight.  —  But Brokaw wasn't a party to the deal, I'm told, and hasn't agreed to it …