memeorandum: Retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion — so far (Julie Hirschfeld Davis/Associated Press)

5:45 PM ET, October 7, 2008

Top Items:

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 …

Discussion: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jack & Jill Politics, TPM Election Central, Comments from Left Field, BlueOregon, pandagon.net, Althouse, CBS News, NewsBusters.org, DownWithTyranny!, Newsweek Blogs, The Raw Story, Political Machine, Hot Air, The Daily Dish, First Draft and Midwest Voices

The Huffington Post:

Obama Hatred On Display Again At Palin Rally, Supporter Screams “Treason!” — 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.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Washington Independent, Matthew Yglesias, Comments from Left Field, The Seminal, Hullabaloo, Matt Ortega, FRAMESHOP and Taylor Marsh

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

HIS DISGRACE KNOWS NO BOUNDS — As we saw yesterday, John McCain's latest gambit is to juice up his and Palin's crowds into calling Obama a “terrorist”, hurling racial epithets at black reporters (presumably, there aren't many in attendance as supporters), or just random calls for murder.

Discussion: Spin Cycle, ATTACKERMAN, Daily Kos and folo

Washington Wire: Palin Continues Hammering Obama on Policy and Character

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
HOPE VS. HATE, PART II.... Yesterday, we heard McCain/Palin …

Discussion: The New Republic

Mark Silva / The Swamp:

William Ayers' past was unknown: Obama — NASHVILLE — Barack Obama has since condemned the Vietnam war-protest tactics of William Ayers, though a top adviser said today Obama didn't know of his past when Ayers hosted a campaign reception for Obama in 1995.

Discussion: www.redstate.com, Townhall.com, www.redstate.com, TIME.com and Wake up America

Mark Silva / The Swamp:

Sarah Palin: Obama's ‘left-wing agenda’ — Sarah Palin, waging the Republican Party's presidential campaign in a state that she and John McCain count on for victory, kept up an assault today on Democratic rival Barack Obama's association with William Ayers, a Chicago education professor and onetime radical war protester in the Sixties.

Discussion: New York Post, Ben Smith's Blogs, FiveThirtyEight.com, The Caucus, Top of the Ticket, New York Times, PrestoPundit and Hot Air

David Talbot / Salon:
The Palins' un-American activities

Discussion: Reason

City Journal:
The Bomber as School Reformer

Discussion: Pajamas Media, Commentary, TigerHawk, No Left Turns and Reason

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
CNN: Obama's lying about William Ayers

Discussion: Dirty Harry's Place, Weekly Standard, NewsBusters.org and THE CITIZENS JOURNAL

Hindrocket / Power Line:
A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST

Discussion: The Anchoress, The Caucus, Associated Press, Patterico's Pontifications and PrestoPundit

Washington Wire:
Obama Camp Rebuffs Ayers Connection

Discussion: Taylor Marsh

David Frum:
“The Chicago Way” — My pals over at the Corner are very excited …

Discussion: American Spectator

Gallup:

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 …

Discussion: Swampland, FiveThirtyEight.com, The Moderate Voice, Hotline On Call, TPM Election Central, MyDD and No More Mister Nice Blog

Frank Newport / Gallup:

Americans' Satisfaction at All-Time Low of 9% — Dismal rating sets stage for town hall-style debate — USA - Election 2008 - Government and Politics - Most Important Problem - Satisfaction - Americas - Northern America — PRINCETON, NJ — Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John …

Discussion: AFL-CIO NOW BLOG, Ross Douthat, American Power and Think Progress

Roger Simon / The Politico:

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 …

Discussion: Democratic Strategist

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

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.

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, Silicon Alley Insider, Hot Air, The Foundry and JammieWearingFool

Michelle Malkin:
The forbidden skit: Full transcript and screenshots of SNL's Soros …

Discussion: Wake up America, Hot Air, Stop The ACLU, The Huffington Post, Moonbattery, Terry Ann Online, Mother, May I Sleep …, The Volokh Conspiracy, A Tiny Revolution, Pajamas Media, Associated Press, MsUnderestimated, Pat Dollard, The Poor Man Institute, The Jawa Report and Clayton Cramer's BLOG

Chris Cillizza / Washington Post:

Obama Outspending McCain Nearly 3 to 1 on Television — Barack Obama is outspending John McCain at nearly a three-to-one clip on television time in the final weeks of the presidential election, according to ad buy information obtained by The Fix, a financial edge that is almost certainly contributing …

Discussion: Newsweek Blogs, TIME.com, Ben Smith's Blogs, MyDD and Clayton Cramer's BLOG

John McCormack / Weekly Standard:

Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers — Ed Whelan takes apart Howard Kurtz's fact-check of the McCain ad posted above: … Today, on the Washington Post's Trail blog, Kurtz fact-checks a new McCain ad that says Obama has lied about McCain's record. — Kurtz writes: “Both presidential candidates …

Discussion: The Corner and Washington Post

Mary Katharine Ham / Weekly Standard: Looking Forward to a Friendly Townhall Debate

Ed Whelan / The Corner:
More Factchecking Follies — In today's Washington Post …

Discussion: Washington Post

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Advisers worry about ‘grumpy McCain’ — When Politico's Ryan Grim approached Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) after the evening of the Senate bailout vote, the reporter didn't even get his question out. — “Excuse me, you're bothering me,” McCain said. — It was a surprising rebuke …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Don Surber and Talking Points Memo

Steve Kornacki / New York Observer:

Dukakis on the Election: Obama Knows How to Win, ‘McCain Has Nothing’ — When John McCain's campaign made it clear over the weekend that their stretch-run strategy would lean heavily on raising questions about Barack Obama's personal history and past “associations,” Obama's communications director provided …

Discussion: Wonkette

Fox News:

ACORN Vegas Office Raided in Voter Fraud Investigation — ACORN's Las Vegas headquarters has been raided by Nevada authorities looking for evidence of voter fraud. — LAS VEGAS — Nevada state authorities are raiding the Las Vegas headquarters of an organization that works to get low-income people to vote.

Discussion: The Jawa Report, The Raw Story, Atlas Shrugs, www.redstate.com and NO QUARTER

Stephen Dinan / Washington Times:

McCain also said U.S. troops killed civilians — John McCain in 2000 said because of tactical decisions U.S. troops were put in the position of killing civilians in Kosovo — something awfully similar to the comments he's now attacking Barack Obama for. — During a Republican primary debate …

Discussion: Think Progress, Washington Monthly, USA Today and Media Matters for America

Jim Rutenberg / New York Times:

Obama's Personal Ties Are Subject of Program on Fox News Channel — During a weekend of Republican attacks on Senator Barack Obama's personal associations, Fox News Channel ran a program Sunday that made provocative assertions about similar connections, called “Obama & Friends: The History of Radicalism.”

Discussion: Washington Monthly, News Hounds, The Nation, The Corner, Grasping Reality … and Reason

Josh Hafenbrack / Juice: Fox presents anti-semitic Florida gadfly as credible source on Obama

Blue Texan / Firedoglake:

Peggy Noonan Admits GOP Base Is Full Of Racist A**holes — A rather revealing exchange on ‘Hardball’ last night in which Nooner tells the truth about her fetid, decaying party (ignore the BS about Nooner being undecided about who to vote for): … Calling Obama a terrorist? Fine.

ABCNEWS:

After Bailout, AIG Execs Head to California Resort — Rescued by Taxpayers, $440,000 for Retreat Including “Pedicures, Manicures” — Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat …

Discussion: Don Surber

Daily Mail:

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 …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars

Chris Bowers / Open Left:

Bush Now Least Popular President Since Polling Began — Not sure how I missed this yesterday, but with the new Gallup poll, George W. Bush has passed Nixon and Truman, and become the least popular President of all-time. According to the Roper Center, here is the worst net approval / disapproval result …

Discussion: Gallup, MyDD, Oliver Willis and Matthew Yglesias

Domenico Montanaro / MSNBC:

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 …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, New York Times, MyDD and Blog entry

ccrjustice.org:

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 …

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Monthly, MSNBC, TalkLeft and folo

KPIX-TV:

CBS 5 Poll: Young Voters Lead Prop 8 Support Shift — SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ― A new CBS 5 poll finds that California's Proposition 8 has picked up support in the wake of a television ad campaign that features footage of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaiming same-sex marriage is here to stay “whether you like it or not.”

Discussion: The Huffington Post and AlterNet.org

Rob Crilly / Times of London:

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.