The Economist has an interesting interactive map that show what people in other countries think about the upcoming presidential election. The other countries are overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. What we don't know yet is what the majority in the United States think. Some of the electoral maps - see here and here - seem to giving Obama a slight edge but it's way too early to make a call.
"Taste we can believe in." This is a yummy interpretation of Barack Obama's logo. Donuts and bacon is a breakfast that a lot of people would vote for. (via Cynical-C Blog and J-Walk)
All Eyes on the First Presidential Debate All eyes will be on the first presidential debate tonight in Mississippi. No one was really sure whether there was even going to be debate after McCain's political stunt. Suspending his campaign to focus on the bailout deal that no one in Washington wanted him involved in was a mistake.
It really wasn't a bad idea to have a meeting between the current president and the next president (McCain and Obama had a meeting with President to discuss the situation), but the timing was off. Polls showed that the public wanted the debate to go on and so McCain had to suspend his suspension and head for Mississippi.
The topic tonight ostensibly is foreign affairs, but the economy is sure to play a large role in the questioning given current events. McCain has to make sure not to lose his temper and his sarcasm will not be welcome tonight. The mood of the public is ugly -- they don't like the bailout and sniping between the candidates won't go over well. As for Obama, his challenge is to seem calm, in control of the facts and ready to lead. McCain's best argument is that he has faced many big crises such as the current one and that he's captain our ship of state through the stormy waters ahead. Both candidates must show a full command of the economic facts at hand. If either candidate makes a major gaffe that makes him look as if he doesn't understand the economy, he's toast.
The debate is on most major channels at 9:00 p.m Eastern/8:00 p.m. Central time.
The Three Most Powerful Men in the World Today
So who exactly is in charge of fixing the current credit crisis? Three men hold the reins of power
right now: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Washington Post has an excellent piece about the three men and how they have learned to work together to try to avert a financial catastrophe.
It is this unusual collaboration among a consummate dealmaker, a professor and a seasoned public servant that could determine how the nation weathers the most profound threat to its economy in modern times. Despite their disparate backgrounds, the three men have formed a close, informal partnership built on rapid-fire phone calls and open debate that breaks the mold of Washington policymaking.
As they chart a government response to the crisis, the stakes could hardly be higher. If they succeed, they could tame the economic downturn and orchestrate a restructuring of Wall Street with minimal collateral damage. If they fail, the toll could be millions of jobs, trillions of dollars in lost wealth and a crisis of confidence in global capitalism.
Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner spent most of their careers in different worlds. They barely knew one another before beginning their current jobs and still rarely socialize -- though they have spent more time working together in recent months than with their wives.
Paulson, 62, is an investment banker who rose through the ranks of Goldman Sachs to lead the firm. A lanky former Dartmouth College offensive tackle and an intense workaholic, he said he agreed in 2006 to become the Bush administration's third Treasury secretary to prepare the government for a possible market crisis.
Bernanke, 54 and calm of demeanor, is one of the foremost scholars of financial crises, especially the Great Depression. Before being named Fed chairman in 2006, the largest organization he had run was Princeton University's economics department.
Geithner, 47, was a career staff member at the Treasury Department when Lawrence Summers, then a Treasury undersecretary, plucked him from obscurity in the early 1990s. He became a key member of the group that guided the Clinton administration's response to the international financial crises in the 1990s and has been honing his knowledge of Wall Street since taking over the New York Fed in 2003.
It's a lengthy article that's well worth reading. Because most of Congress wouldn't know the difference between a CDS (Credit Default Swap) and the RTC (The Resolution Trust Corporation), it will have to rely on the advice from these three men when it drafts bailout legislation. In fact, the current crisis is actually so complicated to explain that not one politician I've heard has tried to discuss it in any more than the most general of statements, such as "Wall Street is Greedy" or "Don't Worry, We'll Fix It."
In fact, I heard a noted economist this morning refer to the RTC as the Resolution Thrift Corp. If even he doesn't remember the correct name of that agency helped resolve the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, then we really are in big trouble. Unless, of course, the Council of Three gets it right.
Sarah Palin's Tanning Bed
Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America, with the government's blessing and help. The stock market is heading south as the country's financial woes seem to be getting worse. But what's getting more coverage than these stories are the seemingly endless scandals surrounding Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. The latest? She installed
a tanning bed in the governor's mansion.
This morning NarcoNews reported that that a tanning bed had been installed in the governor's official residence in 2007, sourcing a Department of Transportation employee familiar with renovations at the mansion. This evening, Politico's Ben Smith reported that Palin had paid for the tanning bed with her own money.
Now, Palin's own gubernatorial spokesman Bill McCallister has confirmed to TPMmuckraker that a tanning bed had been installed in the governor's official residence in 2007, and that it wasn't paid for with state funds.
"She paid for it herself," McCallister told TPMmuckraker. "It was surplus from a local athletic club."
The news of Palin's luxurious purchase -- beds can cost as much as $35,000 -- presents a sharp contrast to the blue-collar persona she projects on the campaign trail.
She owns a tanning bed. She can see Russia from parts of Alaska. We've now read an in-depth profile of her hairdresser by The New York Times. Clearly, we don't need to know any more about her. It's not like she could become the leader of the free world or anything.
Michelle Obama Dances With Ellen
Michelle Obama appeared on Ellen and -- as is traditional on the show -- she danced her way onto the stage. She even vogued a bit. She says she's a better dancer than Barack, and I think she's right. Take a look:
NBC Demotes Olbermann and Matthews The New York Timesreports
that NBC has removed Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as anchors for the presidential debates and election night coverage. They've both been demoted back to analyst. David Gregory will become the political anchor.
After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.
The change - which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle - is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel's perceived shift to the political left.
"The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into what's supposed to be straight news programming," said Davidson Goldin, formerly the editorial director of MSNBC and a co-founder of the reputation management firm DolceGoldin.
Executives at the channel's parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBC's coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBC's news division, and quite possibly alienating viewers. Although MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions, its competitive position did not improve, as it remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news networks. In prime time, the channel averaged 2.2 million viewers during the Democratic convention and 1.7 million viewers during the Republican convention.
It's true that the on-air sniping between Olbermann and Matthews has reached ridiculous extremes lately. But if MSNBC had been first in the ratings, instead of third, we think execs would have happily allowed those two to stay. But their behavior was an embarrassment without any accompanying ratings boost, so they were demoted.
Karl Rove's Conundrum
John McCain is under fire for not properly vetting Sarah Palin before picking her as his running mate. For one thing, he's completely negated his argument that Obama doesn't have the experience to be president. Sarah Palin, who could be a heartbeat away from being the most powerful person on the planet, has been on the national political stage for all of six days. She's clearly not qualified: she's served as mayor of a tiny town and then for a mere twenty months has been governor of a state with a population less than that of the District of Columbia. This is obvious to GOP insiders. But McCain's choice has forced them to grit their teeth and rally to the cause, with hilarious results. Take a look:
Who Is Sarah Palin?
Republicans and Democrats alike are still reeling from John McCain's shocking announcement Friday that he was choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate. So what do we know about Sarah Palin?
--She's only been in office for one year and eight months.
--When asked about the Surge in Iraq, she responded "surge? What surge?" She has no stated foreign policy positions, other than a video of her speaking to her Church about the Iraq War being a mission from God.
--She supported the Bridge to Nowhere until it became a national joke, then she quietly allocated the funds elsewhere.
--Billed as a tax cutter, she actually raised the sales tax and instituted a windfall profits tax on oil companies when she was governor.
--She loves to hunt and has photos of her next to a bloody caribou she shot and of a bearskin of a bear she shot. She loves to eat moose stew and caribou burgers.
--She used to smoke pot (it is legal in Alaska, although not under federal law) but said she has stopped smoking. Her comment in an interview was "I can't say, like Bill Clinton, that I didn't inhale."
--Her husband had a DUI at 22, and is a champion snowmobiler. He works for an oil company in the winter and is a fisherman in the summer.
--She has five children, including a four month old infant who has Down's Syndrome.
--She is rabidly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in cases of incest or rape.
--She opposes all sex education and birth control for teens.
--She has an unwed 17 year old daughter who is four months' pregnant.
--She said in an interview that she doesn't know what a Vice President does.
--John McCain had talked to her on the phone once before he invited her to Sedona, chatted with her and then offered her the job.
--She was raised in the Pentecostal Assembly of God church. She is an evangelical Christian.
--Reporters are still investigating whether it's true she first received a U.S. passport in 1997.
-- Her mother-in-law commented to a reporter "I don't see what she brings to the ticket."
Well, there you go. What else could we possibly need to know about a woman who is a heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world? Heckuva job, McCain.
No Love Lost Between Mattews and Olbermann
One of the odd things during the convention coverage has been the increasing hostility that the MSNBC anchors are showing towards each other. The wheels are really coming off at the news station. I knew Olbermann and Matthews had their differences, but this is really getting ridiculous. Jon Stewart has the report:
Bill Clinton Gets Rockstar Welcome at Convention
Former President Bill Clinton got a rock star welcome at the Democratic convention this evening. He used his time very effectively, showing that he's still the best politician living today. When he speaks, you just have to listen. Clinton did not equivocate: he clearly told Hillary's 18 million supporters to support Obama and made the case why Obama is qualified to be president. He is an incredibly effective speaker. Between Hillary's soaring speech last night and Bill's speech tonight, the Obama campaign should be thrilled. Here's the video:
All eyes will be on the first presidential debate tonight in Mississippi. No one was really sure whether there was even going to be debate after McCain's political stunt. Suspending his campaign to focus on the bailout deal that no one in Washington wanted him involved in was a mistake.
Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America, with the government's blessing and help. The stock market is heading south as the country's financial woes seem to be getting worse. But what's getting more coverage than these stories are the seemingly endless scandals surrounding Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. The latest? She 
