Personally, I have no desire to dig into Obama’s personal sexual affairs; so long as he wasn’t compromised, such things are best left for he and Michelle (and maybe a pair of divorce attorneys) to hash out. But I suppose the case can be made that infidelity goes to character (McCain, eg., has been put through this wringer by the press, and tabloids were eager to plant suggestive stories about

David Harsanyi, The Denver Post: Politics wasn’t invented to be clean, positive and reassuring. It was invented so that one group could beat the holy hell out of another. To do that, they need money. Lots of it. All told, candidates for the presidency have raised more than $1.5 billion since January 2007. This staggering sum is bound to arouse dismay in all high-minded people. And remember, we’re not even

I wouldn’t hold my breath. — Though, sensing an impasse — and installing himself in the role of unofficial mediator between the McCain camp and the Times/Obama/Khalidi/Ayers axis — Jimmy Carter has suggested a “compromise” that would provide the McCain camp with an artist’s rendering of the videotape in exchange for Israel returning the country to its 1948 borders. Well, not really. But it’s plausible. Because, like, he’s batfuck insane.

Michael Malone, ABC News: The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game — with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates. The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the

Elaine Lafferty, former editor-in-chief of Ms (and soon-to-be-savaged “anti-feminist” feminist): It’s difficult not to froth when one reads, as I did again and again this week, doubts about Sarah Palin’s “intelligence,” coming especially from women such as PBS’s Bonnie Erbe, who, as near as I recall, has not herself heretofore been burdened with the Susan Sontag of Journalism moniker. As Fred Barnes—God help me, I’m agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in

Of course, none of this had any impact on him — just as his twenty years at a church based around Black Liberation Theology had no residual effect on his ideology. He was just in it for the pussy, I’m guessing.

Dumb kids. Shoulda just stuck with something benign and uninvestigatable — like, say, wide scale voter registration fraud, or sweetheart real estate deals. (h/t IP)

From the Columbus Dispatch: Ohio’s inspector general is investigating why a state agency director approved checking the state child-support computer system for information on “Joe the Plumber.” Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed today that she OK’d the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate. She said there were no political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential

“…do I sound too much like Barry White? I worry that I’m overdoing it sometimes, and that the whole ‘Mandingo factor’ thing could kick in for Whitey, causing a kind of unwelcome electoral blowback. I’ll have to remember to ask Michelle. And maybe put together a focus group. Whitey and his bitches, all sitting crosslegged at my feet while I give ’em the whole Hope and Change bit in a