BIDEN: SAY IT TO HIS FACE  —  From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli  —  ST. JOSEPH, MO - Joe Biden echoed the campaign's response to continued Republican efforts to highlight Obama's past associations, adding a personal touch to the idea that McCain wasn't willing to make the attacks in person.

Exclusive: Obama buys half-hour of network primetime  —  Barack Obama has purchased a half-hour of primetime television on CBS and NBC, sources confirm.  —  The Obama campaign is producing a nationwide pitch to voters that will air on at least two broadcast networks.

Obama on Ayers: ‘I assumed that he had been rehabilitated’  —  In an interview with the sympathetic conservative talk radio host this afternoon, Obama offered the clearest explanation yet of how an extremely careful politician allowed himself anywhere near a former '60s radical who would become …

McCain Co-Chair Calls Obama “A Guy Of The Street,” Raises Drug Use  —  Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a McCain campaign co-chairman, edged up to an explicitly racial attack on Barack Obama on Thursday, describing the Illinois Senator as a “guy of the street” before raising his youthful drug use.

In Dozens of Calls, Palins and Aides Pressed for Trooper's Removal  —  ANCHORAGE — The 2007 state fair was days away when Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, took another call about one of his troopers, Michael Wooten.  This time, the director of Gov. Sarah Palin's Anchorage office was on the line.

Keating to McCain in 1986: 'I'm yours til death do us part.'  —  The Washington Times reports that in 1986, John McCain wrote a note on House stationery to Charles Keating, chairman of a failed savings and loan association who went to prison in the late 1980s.

QUESTIONER: ‘I ACTUALLY DID’ KNOW FANNIE  —  From NBC's Michael Levine  —  I tried to get in touch via Facebook with Oliver Clark, the man who McCain said probably didn't know what Fannie Mae was before the financial crisis (at Tuesday's debate).  Apparently others have done the same.

Two kinds of fraud  —  “Acorn” may not exactly be a household word, but it was on the cover of one of the newspapers I read in hard copy today, so it seemed worth getting into a marginal story that the GOP is trying to make central.  —  The key distinction here is between voter fraud …

Dan Balz's corrupted journalistic “balance”  —  (updated below)  —  The Washington Post's Dan Balz has an article today perfectly illustrating how the modern journalist's conception of “balance” leads them to distort the truth.  Balz's article is about the increasing use of “character attacks” …

Asian Stocks Plunge as Credit Crisis Widens; Nikkei Tumbles  —  Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) — Asian stocks tumbled, driving Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average down 11 percent, and U.S. futures slumped on concern the deepening credit crisis will push the global economy into recession and spur corporate failures.

Supreme Court won't block Troopergate inquiry  —  The Alaska Supreme Court today rejected an attempt by a group of six Republican legislators to shut down the Legislature's investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin.  —  The ruling means that Steve Branchflower, the investigator hired by the Legislative Council …

Moment of Truth  —  Last month, when the U.S. Treasury Department allowed Lehman Brothers to fail, I wrote that Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was playing financial Russian roulette.  Sure enough, there was a bullet in that chamber: Lehman's failure caused the world financial crisis, already severe, to get much, much worse.

Meet Sarah Palin's radical right-wing pals  —  Extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin's political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy.  “Her door was open,” says Chryson — and still is. … Video: Interview with former Alaskan Independence Party chairman Mark Chryson

Charlie Gibson engages in verbal sex with Barack Obama (UPDATED)  —  I watched the interview with Obama last night and that's the conclusion I came to.  His condescension, his arrogance, his looking over his glasses and down his nose at the interviewee and his smirks, all were missing.

The world is at severe risk of a global systemic financial meltdown and a severe global depression  —  The US and advanced economies' financial system is now headed towards a near-term systemic financial meltdown as day after day stock markets are in free fall, money markets have shut …

Rothenberg Warns of GOP “Bloodbath”  —  The horizon looks bleak for House and Senate Republicans.  AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite  —  UPDATE, 4 pm: The Cook Political Report is also amping up their predictions of Democratic gains in the House and Senate next month.

Dow 9,000!  —  Stock prices are, however, the least of our worries.  The money markets are frozen; the TED spread is 4.14%.  —  G7 meeting tomorrow, IMF-World Bank over the weekend.  Now is the time for major action — an announcement of coordinated capital injections, liquidity measures, and more.

Fear and loathing bubbling up at GOP events  —  Republican activists are increasingly uneasy about the prospect of an Obama presidency, a loathing that is being borne out now at McCain and Palin rallies.  —  My colleague Amie Parnes, with the GOP ticket today in Wisconsin, sends along an exchange at a town hall meeting:

The Obama Discount  —  I have no idea whatsoever if there's merit to this, and if there is how much merit, but lots of email like this: … Update: Enraged readers sent here from other sites might want to read this.