Update: Houston Chronicle:

Perhaps the worst mistake McCain made in his campaign for the White House was the choice of the inexperienced and inflammatory Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Had he selected a moderate, experienced Republican lawmaker such as Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison with a strong appeal to independents, the Chronicle's choice for an endorsement would have been far more difficult.

...Back in the spring, Obama's sentiments seemed more a hope than reality. Since then, we have watched him grow in the roles of candidate and leader, maintaining grace under fire without resorting to political expediency. He is by far the best choice to deliver the changes that Americans demand.

The Detroit Free Press: [More...]

See TChris yesterday. Anti-American? Socialist? Yes, the Red Scare is upon us again. Saturday, John McCain said:

You see, Obama believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe [the sort of Plumber], in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism. And a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines. In the best case, "spreading the wealth around" is a familiar idea from the American left. . . . At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives.

The Democratic Party as a secret Socialist cabal? I guess McCain is jettisoning the bipartisan schtick too, running as an anti-FDR Republican now (McCain like Joe the Plumber and Joe McCarthy, thinks Social Security is Socialism too.)

The last refuge of a Party of Scoundrels:

Two weeks to go and the tracking polls are converging - Obama with a significant advantage but not a double digit lead. Today, DKos/R2000 stays steady with Obama +7, 50-43. Ras has Obama up 6, 51-45. Hotline has Obama up 7, 48-41. IBD/TIPP has Obama up 7, 48-41. Gallup has Obama up 7, 51-44 (up 10 in the RV).

Obama has more money than any candidate in history now (justifying his opt-out of public finance), having raised $150 million in September and likely to top that in October. He will be swamping McCain in every battleground state with money. I do not see what John McCain can do to win this race. I think it is over.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Reacting to news that Barack Obama set a record by raising $150 million in donations in September, John McCain said:

I mean, Senator Obama raised $150 million in — I understand, during the month of September, completely breaking whatever idea we had after Watergate to keep the costs and spending on campaigns under control — first time, first time since the Watergate scandal.

And I can tell you this, that has unleashed now in presidential campaigns a new flood of spending that will then cause a scandal, and then we will fix it again.

Chris Wallace helpfully asked McCain whether Obama was "buying the election," a suggestion that McCain happily embraced. [more ...]

Will Colin Powell endorse Obama? Find out Sunday morning when he appears on Meet the Press.

Update: Powell endorsed Obama.

Shorter version: McCain doesn't have a grasp on the economic problems we face and Palin isn't ready to be President, which is the job of the Vice-President. Biden is ready. [More...]

We wrote up the LA Times, Washington Post, Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Atlanta Journal Constitution on Friday and the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday.

Today we have:

The New York Daily News: Overly wordy and infused with the editorial board's own position on issues and more a plea for bipartisanship. You get the picture the minute they call McCain's position "dead-on" about Iraq. So why not McCain? He's hampered by Bush and the last 8 years. [More...]

Saturday Night Live will have not only Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin, but Sarah Palin herself.

We'll post video when it's available. I'll update with my thoughts after the segment airs here.

If you're in an earlier time zone and have seen it, feel free to weigh in.

Update: Huffpo has video here. Reuters recap here, AP wrapup here.

Update: My take: The opening was ho-hum, the Weekend Update segment with Amy Poehler's rap was great. I highly recommend watching Amy in that segment. All Palin did was sit there and play the good sport, which was fine by me. The sidelines is where she belongs.

Opening skit below the fold:

Ronald Brownstein, fearful that Democrats will emerge from the November elections with a president and large Democratic margins in the House and Senate, urges Democrats to abide by their duty to govern as if they were Reagan Republicans. This is because Americans are faithful to the ideology of Reagan and recognize that the New Deal represented a failure of ideas. Voters who send Obama to the White House are rejecting George Bush, not Reagan's belief that government is the problem.

The evidence in support of this fever dream goes unstated. Is it not more likely that the public supports Obama because he argues that a responsible government can act to improve the lives of its citizens? Isn't it possible that voters are tired of waiting for wealth to "trickle down" as Reagan-era economic theories (revived on steroids by Bush) promised? It is Reaganomics, not the New Deal, that represents a failure of ideology.

Add the Philadelphia Inquirer to the list of papers endorsing Barack Obama.

While John McCain also promises "change," it's hard to believe that's possible from someone who, by his own admission, has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time. On key issues such as campaign finance, pork-barrel spending, and humane interrogation of terrorism suspects, McCain has indeed been a "maverick." But mostly, he and Bush have been on the same page.

More troubling was McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. This blatant overture to women voters and evangelical Christians who share her views on abortion backfired when Palin in interviews proved she is not prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Over the past four months, this Editorial Board has compared the candidates' positions. In almost every case, Obama has a superior proposal for this nation. (emphasis supplied)

New York City has agreed to pay $3.5 million to Shih-Wei Su. That will make his life better, but it won't give him back 12 years of lost freedom.

Shih-Wei Su, was convicted by a jury in 1992 after Queens prosecutors knowingly presented false testimony from the star witness, according to a ruling in 2003 by the United States Court of Appeals, which overturned Mr. Su’s conviction and condemned the Queens district attorney’s office. ...

“The settlement doesn’t buy back the time I lost and doesn’t do real justice, but the amount shows the public something is very wrong here,” said Mr. Su, now 35 and a financial consultant in Manhattan. “I did 12 years on a wrongful conviction, and no one was punished for it.”

Misconduct by police and prosecutors that leads to wrongful convictions is rarely punished. [more ...]

The World Medical Association's General Assembly met Friday and Saturday in Seoul, South Korea. It passed the following resolution, expanding those of prior years prohibiting physcian participation in executions:

RESOLVED, that it is unethical for physicians to participate in capital punishment, in any way, or during any step of the execution process, including its planning and the instruction and/or training of persons to perform executions, The World Medical Association REQUESTS firmly its constituent members to advise all physicians that any participation in capital punishment as stated above is unethical. URGES its constituent members to lobby actively national governments and legislators against any participation of physicians in capital punishment.

More...

Calling Barack Obama a liberal did not advance John McCain's cause, so he's trying out a more sinister word: socialist. Never mind that McCain voted for a bailout plan that creates a degree of government ownership of private financial institutions. That's socialism we can believe in. It's Obama's offhand remark to Joe the Plumber that a tax increase on upper incomes will "spread the wealth" that marks the socialistic tendency McCain has seized upon as the distraction of the day.

As always, Obama responded quickly, calmly, and forcefully.

"John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people ‘welfare,’” Obama told a massive crowd under the infamous St. Louis arch. “The only ‘welfare’ in this campaign is John McCain’s plan to give another $200 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations in America.”

[more ...]