In an open letter to Sarah Palin, The American Conservative sees in Palin what it once saw in George Bush: a regular person with strong traditional values who champions faith, limited government, and pro-life judges. The AC feels betrayed by a president whose promised “values” agenda was hijacked by neocons.

You see what happened: the president’s entire domestic agenda collapsed under the weight of his failed foreign policy. Social Security reform stalled. Pro-lifers became political orphans. And whatever gains Bush’s tax cuts secured were wiped out by record spending. Everything was subordinated to the war on terror.

It’s doubtful that the president’s failed foreign policy slowed the advance of a conservative domestic agenda. Social security privatization went nowhere because it was spectacularly unpopular. The president was never committed to the right’s values agenda or to a conservative belief in responsible spending and limited presidential power. Lacking views of his own, Bush depended on his corporate political cronies for policy. They happened to be neocons. To appease the religious right, the president said what Karl Rove told him to say, but his real agenda was to redirect the country’s wealth to wealthy countrymen, as well as oil companies and favored corporations like Haliburton.

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Here's an e-mail that is making the rounds among lawyers today:

How Racism Works:

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

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The Senate will vote on its own bailout plan tomorrow night.

Majority Leader Harry Reid and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell say, however, that they're going to add a tax cut package already rejected by the House on Monday....The Senate plan would also raise federal deposit insurance limits to $250,000 from $100,000.

Sen. Barack Obama and John McCain today both urged passage of a bill.

CBS News aired another segment of the Katie Couric - Sarah Palin interview tonight.

Twice, Palin described homosexuality as a choice.

But as for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her dearly. And she is not my "gay friend," she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice I would have made. But I am not going to judge people.

Other answers: She couldn't or wouldn't name a single publication or magazine she read before becoming the VP candidate. Couric tried three times, and each time she evaded the question.

She is against abortion even for teens who are victims of rape and incest.

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I've been writing about Sen. John McCain's intent to attack Barack Obama for his coal position in the battleground states where coal is important.

Sunday, I saw the ad on TV here in Denver.

Newsweek fact checks the ad and finds it false, but I wrote a much longer post over at 5280.com yesterday detailing just how false, based on Obama's coal record since his days as a state legislator in Illinois.

As readers know, I sign most of my posts "speaking for me only." The reason I do that is because it permits me to say some stupid sh*t and sometimes some smart sh*t that other folks may not want to say without it reflecting on two of the nicest, fairest, sharpest people I know, Jeralyn and TChris.

Our contentious blogging colleague John Cole has had some fun at my expense about that phrase. That's fair and funny. But I wish John would credit me when I write one he likes. For instance, Country first my ass about John McCain. What say you John?

This is an Open Thread. And yes, I am speaking for me only.

There will be a hearing Thursday before an Alaskan judge to decide whether the legislative ethics investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin may proceed.

The lawsuit was filed by five Republicans who say the legislative investigation is partisan, a false claim in my view. Palin wants the Personnel Board, whose members serve under her in the Executive Branch, to decide.

Washington Monthly and Atrios have some (albeit not much)sympathy for Gov. Sarah Palin if, as rumored, her next gaffe in the upcoming airing of a new Katie Couric interview shows she couldn't name any Supreme Court cases.

Not me. Lawyers, Guns and Money has a better take.

Oh it's all morbidly fascinating, until somebody gets hurt.

Let's call it what it is: In combination with everything else we know about her, Terrifying.

William Arnone, long-time Democratic party activist and the author of the key state series I've quoted many times, has just prepared an update to his preliminary electoral vote preview and again graciously agreed to let me publish it.

His new electoral map analysis of who would win if the election were held today is here. Key findings are below:

DKos/R2000 has Obama up 10, 51-41. Ras has Obama up 6, 51-45. Gallup has Obama up 6, 49-43. Hotline has Obama up 6, 47-41. Even Battleground has Obama up 2, after stubbornly having McCain ahead for the past 2 weeks.

With just over 30 days to go, unless McCain changes the game, the election is over.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Yesterday I engaged in an e-mail spat with a prominent Obama Bot/Clinton hater from the primaries about my criticisms of Barack Obama during the primaries. This Obama Bot of course was so blinded by his Obama worship, that he had no idea that I have been criticizing Obama's post-partisan unity schtick since long before the primaries. My first post in the summer of 2006 was titled What Obama Needs To Learn Hofstadter, Lincoln And FDR and argued for, as I have since I began blogging in 2003, a Politics of Contrast. Krugman was on it in early 2007. The other day I wrote about the fact that Even Doris Kearns Goodwin Is For a Politics of Contrast and wants more FDR from Obama:

[W]hat FDR did was to say this isn‘t just an election between two men. It is between two doctrines. He laid out the difference between the Republican and the Democratic party, one concerned about government favoring the few and the other one wanting the masses to be sound and that would help the country. It seems to me Obama is missing a chance. . . . To not argue about the doctrine of the Democratic party. Yes, he wants independents. Yes, he wants to be post-partisan after wins. But right now is the time when the Republican-Democratic brand is so contrasting and I think he has desired to not be in that fight. It‘s not helping him in a certain sense.

Digby, who has been on this issue as long as I have, wrote about it again yesterday:

There is such a misconception about how the American People feel about the mortgage/credit crisis Wall Street bailout. Of course everyone hates it. Who wouldn't? But the American People know the problem must be addressed. The latest WaPo poll demonstrates this:

Most Americans see the current financial situation as a "crisis," and there is overwhelming concern that the failure of the House of Representatives to pass the economic recovery package will deepen the problem, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. . . [N]early nine in 10 expressed concern that the failure of the bill could lead to a more severe economic decline.

From a purely political perspective, something must be done. But what? Here is where the Democratic leadership should grab their chance to enact a progressive proposal. The WaPo poll says: