Steve Hamm, a senior writer at Business Week, worries about the nation's diminishing role as a world leader.

Over the past eight years, the United States has lost a tremendous amount of influence on the world. The Bush administration's stance on global warming, its bullying style, the war in Iraq, and lack of leadership on fair trade have left the country as an outlier in the global community of nations rather than a true leader. So one of the most important tasks of the next president will be to fix that.

Hamm views John McCain as "positively enlightened" compared to Bush. McCain talks about the need to lead "by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish." But Hamm quite rightly worries that McCain undermined that position by selecting a vice presidential candidate who counteracts his message. [more ...]

More than three years ago, TalkLeft asked whether Bruce Lisker, who was convicted of killing his mother, is innocent. Some of the jurors in his trial, having heard about new evidence in his case, were questioning his guilt, as was the prosecutor who tried the case.

Lisker was convicted a quarter of a century ago. Two years ago, a federal magistrate held a hearing, listened to evidence, and produced a 57 page report concluding that Lisker's evidence of actual innocence was so strong that he should be granted an exception to the one year period that inmates have to pursue federal habeas corpus after a state conviction becomes final. The magistrate decided that the evidence against Lisker was so weak that no reasonable jury, hearing all of it, would find Lisker guilty. The strongest evidence against him -- multiple confessions given by the frightened teenager during prolonged interrogations -- had little probative value. [more ...]

Politico:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has no intention of becoming a Sarah Palin attack dog — but has no qualms going after John McCain, people close to the former first lady say. “She’s not the answer when it comes to winning conservative women — she never was — and we’re not going to be anybody’s attack dog against Sarah Palin,” said a Clinton insider. “To be fair to Obama’s people, they haven’t asked us to do that.”

Slamming Palin to win back women already hostile to Obama is pointless, the insider said, because Clinton’s most loyal base is working-class voters, not women in particular. “Attacking Palin is checkers, attacking McCain on the economy is chess.” Clinton will continue to yoke McCain and Palin to President Bush on pocketbook issues.

(Emphasis supplied.) Everyone got the memo except the Left blogs it seems.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The National Jewish Democratic Council has begun an online campaign to oppose Sen. John McCain's choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate:

Senator John McCain made a poor choice in his first critical presidential decision with his vice presidential selection of Governor Sarah Palin. We, in the Jewish community, have to question McCain’s judgment for choosing a right-wing religious conservative with absolutely no foreign policy experience and a brewing scandal which is being investigated by the Alaska state legislature.

It is ironic that McCain, who turned 72 last week, has said, “The fundamental principle behind any selection of a running mate would be whether that person is fully prepared to take over.” And then McCain selected Palin???

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Sarah Palin touted her business savvy in her acceptance speech. As an example, she said she put a jet purchased by her predecessor on EBay, leaving the impression she sold it through EBay.

The plane failed to sell on EBay. It was purchased by a private entrepreneur for $300k less than the broker's price.

And, turns out, the plane was used to transport prisoners, not just for the Governor's travels.

Update: Sen. John McCain perpetuated the misleading story today, falsely saying she sold the jet on EBay for a profit. There actually was a half-million dollar loss. [More...]

Today I remembered this blogger conference call with Sen. Charles Schumer in 2005 over President Bush's judicial nominees.

Sen. Schumer was emphatic in his remarks to us. He said the hard right, both economic and religious, has decided that the only way to push their agenda through is to control the courts. If they win and gain control of the courts, both economically and socially, they will roll back America to the 1930's or the 1890's.

He said that the hard right made a deal with George Bush during the election. It would support him and "not hound him", but he had to cede control of his judicial nominations to the Federalist Society.

That's the reward (in addition to enthusiastically supporting his election) I would bet the radical right is offering John McCain. When you see reports of his campaign coffers growing due to Gov. Palin, the picture comes into closer focus. [More...]

From today's St. Petersburg Times editorial: McCain's speech failed to deliver on change

[H]is agenda promises only more of the same: tax cuts for the wealthy that the nation cannot afford, an aggressive foreign policy that cannot be sustained and an energy policy short on vision and long on oil drilling that would threaten Florida and provide no near-term relief.

Holding that losing hand, Republicans dealt themselves new cards from a very old deck. Instead of emphasizing experience, the Arizona senator who has been in Washington for more than 25 years tried to hijack Democrat Barack Obama's pitch for change. But there was no innovative thinking in his laundry list of the usual conservative proposals, from school choice to trickle-down economics to market-based health care changes that will not make medical treatment more available or affordable.

More....

And it's unlikely to be favorable to Gov. Sarah Palin.

ABC News has exclusively learned that Alaska Senator Hollis French will announce today that he is moving up the release date of his investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her office to get the Alaska public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, fired. The results of the investigation were originally scheduled for release Oct. 31 but will now come almost three weeks earlier, according to sources.

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Josh Orton, who apparently did not get enough of the Media's Palin feeding frenzy, reacts to the news that Palin is going back to Alaska and is snubbing the Media by urging: "Traditional media: get thee to Alaska!"

I urge the opposite - Media - ignore Palin. My advice is both what I want as a Democrat and legitimate advice for the Media. As a Dem, I would much rather the Media cover McCain and the fact his agenda is identical to George Bush's eight years in office. For the Media, the best way to smoke Palin out is in fact to ignore her and to cover McCain's similarities to Bush. I guarantee you McCain will be trotting out Palin in no time as a result.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Kudos to the New York Times editorialists for calling attention to an issue of critical importance to TalkLeft and to Americans who care about the Constitution:

“Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights,” Ms. Palin said. Mr. Obama, in reality, wants to give basic human rights to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, only a handful of whom are Qaeda members, and shield them from torture. So, once upon a time, did Mr. McCain, but there was no mention of that in St. Paul, or of the bill he wrote protecting those prisoners.

"Miranda" is a conservative code word for "stupid rights that unfairly keep criminals from being brought to justice." Miranda has nothing to do with rendition, with never-ending detention in the absence of probable cause, with tortured confessions, or with sham trials based on secret evidence that fail to provide due process. Miranda has nothing to do with the unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus. Those are the rights John McCain and Sarah Palin are denigrating, and those are the rights that Barack Obama has repeatedly pledged to protect.

One of my major frustrations with the tack taken by Obama supporters in the blogs and the Media last week (the obsession with Sarah Palin, both on issues and the personal) was that it lost the most important political narrative coming out of the Democratic Convention - that John McCain represents George Bush's Third Term. To its credit, the Obama campaign fought hard to keep that narrative going, not getting caught in the Palin cul-de-sac.

For the most part, I am happy to see that Obama supporters in the Media and the blogs have come to realize that focusing on Sarah Palin is a self defeating approach (Palin became a standard for the GOP base to rally behind, performed extremely well in her speech and was perceived as unfairly attacked by many, if not most, Americans). This focus underlined the experience issue, an Obama weakness. But George Bush still seems an afterthought. For example, Ezra Klein writes:

In the aftermath of the desultory Republican convention, particularly John McCain's awful speech, I think we can say with some conviction that the best thing John McCain has done politically in the last week is choose Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The McCain confidant and informal advisor Mike Murphy condemned the choice and perennial Republican blowhard Peggy Noonan proclaimed the race "over" as a result of the pick. It is clear now that if McCain had not picked Palin it would be absolutely over. Murphy wrote: