He said that he was surprised that Obama was only looking at 3-5% leads (statistical dead-heats) against McCain considering the low ratings of Republicans and the President.

He had been scheduled to appear at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. A placard with his name sat in front of an empty chair at the witness table, with a handful of protesters sitting behind it calling for Rove to be arrested.

The dems will "consider" contempt charges.

From Think Progress:

Democrats in Congress are negotiating a compromise on offshore oil drilling. "Democrats also want any compromise plan to include investments in clean and renewable energies, a crackdown on oil speculators and proof that the oil and gas companies are fully utilizing land that is already leased for exploration."

...
Steg noted that the Brandenburg Gate has become "a place with a particular exclusivity, intensity and symbolism" in view of past speeches by sitting U.S. presidents and events such as a large rally in solidarity with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

As a result, he said Merkel has voiced "great skepticism as to whether it is appropriate to bring an election campaign being fought not in Germany but in the United States to the Brandenburg Gate."

Steg said that "no German (chancellor) candidate would think of using (Washington's) National Mall or Red Square in Moscow for rallies, because it would be considered inappropriate."

Those who work on the front lines of the abortion debate couldn't quite believe what they were hearing: Obama, in an interview with a Christian magazine, seemed to reject a mental health exception to the ban on late-term abortions. They feared that Obama, like Democrat John Kerry in 2004, was adopting a view favored by abortion opponents to appeal to conservatives.

After days of examining his initial comments and a subsequent clarification that he supports a mental health exception -- as long as the woman suffers a diagnosed illness and is not just "feeling blue" -- some activists are satisfied, while others are far from it or just plain confused

...

http://alegrescorner.soapblox.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=214

Sector              ratio O/M    % ea sector
Lawers                   3.6            6.2
Securities               1.8            3.3
Communications       5              3.2
Medical                  2.3            2.7
Real Estate             1.3            2.4
Education               10             2.1
Comm Bankers         1.3            0.8
Hedge Funds           1.9            0.7
Totals For High        2.8   
Total Totals            2.7   

In the chart above, the first line is the ratio of money contributed to Obama by sector to money contributed to McCain, and the last line is the total percentage off all money contributed to both candidates by sector.  According to the author, 5 out of the 8 sectors contributed more ot McCain as a percentage of his total contributions than to Obama.  The reasoning here is that if the number is higher than 2.7 ( in the first column ) that advantages Obama.  However, looking at the last column, we can easily see that not all sectors are created equal.  Lawers, for example, contributed 6.2 percent of all money in this campaign, and to Obama at a ratio of 3.6 to McCain.  Contrast that to McCanin's advantage from Commercial Bankers and Hedge Funds Managers, who contrubuted 0.8 and 0.7 percent respectively.

But what caught my eye was this, from the NJ poll:

Women, a key voter bloc at play in the presidential campaign, continue to support the Democrat (52%) far more than his Republican opponent (28%). Fifty-three percent (53%) of female voters voiced support for Obama a month ago, but McCain has fallen significantly from 34%. Those voters have moved into the undecided column.

Men, on the other hand, have shifted even more dramatically to McCain. Now 54% of male voters back McCain, up from 46% in early June, while 34% favor Obama, an eight percentage point decline from a month ago. Only 6% of men are undecided as opposed to 15% of women.

So here's yet another state where men are switching from Obama to McCain, while women's support of Obama is growing. I'm surprised this widening gender gap has been pretty much ignored by the media.

If it weren't for the women's vote, and their higher percentage of participation in voting (resulting in women being given more weight in polling), Obama would be in pretty bad straits.

... I want to cut his netroots off ...

Here's the only post I could see on the front page:

FISA Passes Senate

The final vote was a rout: 69-28.

No surprises here. Just the weight of disappointment.

Late Update: Worth noting that Hillary voted against the bill, while Obama --as we've noted here before -- changed positions on telecom immunity and voted for the bill.

--David Kurtz

I mean, that's it for the front page?

And this single post is not even authored by Josh Marshall?

Of course, there are endless posts from Marshall bashing McCain for one thing or another.

Problem is, the man has no credibility anymore when he criticizes anybody. Coming from his pen,the knocks mean nothing. They could be genuine substantial issues, or the most trivial, overblown of irrelevancies -- the man simply doesn't discriminate. It's simply non-stop, wall-to-wall, fill-all-space-and-time slamming.