I'm deciding between watching the last hour of Play It As It Lays, the movie with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins made from the Joan Didion novel which was my favorite book for all of the '70's and '80's (I can still recite most of the dialogue by heart) and the first hour of the new Survivor, while I wait for the two hour season premiere of Gray's Anatomy to start.

Survivor is in Gabon in Africa, and in HD for the first time.

I've had enough of the economy and Sarah Palin for the day. What are you watching or doing?

Update: Gray's Anatomy was terrible, everybody died and the melodrama was over the top and boring.

While Digby is infuriated by the blatant, shameless hypocrisy of Doris Kearns Goodwin, I personally am happy to see that she has decided to plagiarize some of us on the blogs and has decided to embrace the Politics of Contrast:

GOODWIN:[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.

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Via Huffington Post, Sen. John McCain canceled his taped appearance on Dave Letterman's show today as part of his announcement he was suspending his campaign, but instead went down the street to be interviewed by Katie Couric.

CNBC's Jim Cramer was on Tweety's show telling us how great a deal the Wall Street Bailout is. He went as far to say as he hopes he can get in on the action. I have two reactions. The first is why doesn't Cramer raise money and buy some of the Sh*tpile if he loves it so much? Why don't other Wall Street types buy some of the Sht*tpile?

My second reaction is to remind you of Cramer's "prescience" on the value of the Big Sh*tpile, via Atrios:

Jim Cramer told you to buy at $44. Countrywide will cease to exist... at $7.16.

Jim Cramer is the last person to listen to on the housing crisis and this Wall Street Bailout.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

This is what you get when you work the refs the way the McCain camp has - Jay Carney capitulates (probably the first of many):

Summary: In a Swampland blog post headlined "McCain's Legitimate Attack," Jay Carney wrote that unlike previous McCain campaign ads that included "false and distorted assaults" on Sen. Barack Obama, McCain's "new ad ... attacking Obama 'and his liberal allies' for failing to lead in the midst of the current financial markets crisis" is "entirely within bounds." In fact, the new McCain ad contains falsehoods about Obama's response to the current economic situation and his tax proposals.

Carney could not take the heat from the McCain campaign and folded. What a hack.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Just starting here. I'll update. This is an open thread.

Update: Chris Rock follows Clinton and is laugh out loud funny on Palin. He talked about her killing a moose (here's a photo)and holding a dead bloodied moose and quips, "Michael Vick is like, 'Why am I in jail?'" (Video here, start at 1:50 in, although the whole thing is funny.)

Update: They talked about the Clinton Global Initiative and the economy. The economy discussion was too complicated for me. (Letterman said the same thing when Clinton was done.) It got a little easier to understand when Clinton changed the subject to how the Bush Administration could have prevented this by having policies that focused on investing in jobs and clean energy rather than giving tax cuts to the rich who just kept investing in real estate, and leveraging the investments, but only a little.

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Demonstrating what how foolish he can be, Mark Halperin gives last week to McCain.

A few more "winning" weeks like that, and McCain will be in McGovern territory.

This is an Open Thread.

The Emmys are on tonight. Its website is really lame, but AOL already has 341 photos from the Red Carpet up.

The Red Carpet area is really small and they are packed in like sardines. It's also very hot. The interviews are ongoing now on E! There was also some kind of threat so some of the stars had to walk part way. [More...]

I kid you not. Just now Howard Fineman said that Bill Clinton was to blame "because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were securitizing mortgages." What stunning ignorance.

Hell Howard, let's blame FDR while you are at it:

Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. The collapse of the national housing market in the wake of the Great Depression discouraged private lenders from investing in home loans. Fannie Mae was established in order to provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages in an attempt to raise levels of home ownership and the availability of affordable housing.

Or maybe LBJ:

Great line from Kevin Drum. And it gets to a larger point of the discussion of Drudge World - the political Media, by and large, is not only largely incompetent, they are incredibly behind the times.

I betcha if you gave the Right bloggers some truth serum, they would admit Drudge is ridiculous and well, so 5 years ago. Pajamas Media and their group of bloggers are much more interesting to read for what is happening on the Right. The Corner is much more interesting. Drum compares Drudge to the Enquirer, in terms of whether it is interesting. I think that gets it right. But it is a reflection on how, in essence, out of touch the political Media largely is. Of course there are important exceptions, like Ron Brownstein who, whether you agree with him or not, generally brings something intelligent, original and interesting to the table almost every time. Sort of the anti-Politico.

Speaking for me only

Jonah Goldberg learns. From his column today:

Now, facing John McCain's blistering ads, Obama seems unable to fight fire with fire. . . . Nonetheless, the Obama campaign has vowed, once again, to take the gloves off and go after McCain hard, linking him to President Bush and highlighting the fact that the Arizona senator is out of touch.

One flaw with this supposed course correction is that it isn't one. McCain-Bush-Economy has been Obama's message for months now. Indeed, ABC News' Jake Tapper wrote on his blog that this is actually the fourth time Team Obama has pledged to engage in a bracing round of fisticuffs.

Time to revise and extend those remarks Jonah. Of course, "the economy is fundamentally sound" may be a winning soundbite. But I doubt it. It did not work for Hoover.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

When you write posts like this, you forfeit the right to complain about the lack of substance from the Media. On a day when Barack Obama gives a fantastic speech on the economy, that is what some blogs choose to write about.

Somerby says:

WE’RE ALL SEAN HANNITY NOW: Josh Marshall’s descent into Hannity Land has been a dizzying ride. But even by Josh’s declining standards, this gruesome post by Kate Klonick represents a new low in rube-running. (David Kurtz linked to the piece, on page one.) Do you enjoy being treated like fools? If so, you’ll love Klonick’s opening: On the campaign trail, Sarah Palin likes to brag about how she put the Alaska state jet on eBay and fired the governor's personal chef. One item that doesn't appear in her stump speech, however, is the personal tanning bed Palin had installed in the governor's mansion.

Yep. You sometimes become that which you claim to hate.

Speaking for me only