links for 2008-10-03

Barack Obama is a "decidedly liberal" senator "who was finding his feet, and then got diverted by his presidential ambitions", according to a frank verdict delivered to Gordon Brown by the British ambassador to the United States.

Although the picture Sir Nigel paints is a highly complimentary one – Mr Obama's speeches are "elegant" and "mesmerising", he is "highly intelligent" and has "star quality" – he also judges that his "policies are still evolving" and that if elected he will "have less of a track record than any recent president".

Although he is among the least wealthy members of the millionaires club that is the United States Senate — he and his wife, Jill, a college professor, earn about $250,000 a year — Mr. Biden maintains a lifestyle that is more comfortable than the impression he may have given on the campaign trail. A review of his finances found that when it comes to some of his largest expenses, like the purchase and upkeep of his home and his use of Amtrak trains to get around, he has benefited from resources and relationships not available to average Americans.

Sarah Palin and her husband have pieced together a uniquely Alaskan income that reached comfortably into six figures even before she became governor, capitalizing on valuable fishing rights, a series of land deals and a patchwork of other ventures to build an above-average lifestyle.

Add up the couple's 2007 income and the estimated value of their property and investments and they appear to be worth at least $1.2 million. That would make the Palins, like Democratic vice presidential rival Joe Biden and his wife Jill, well-off but not nearly as wealthy as multimillionaire couples John and Cindy McCain and, to a lesser extent, Barack and Michelle Obama.

Direct evidence of extensive diversity of HIV-1 in Kinshasa by 1960

A. Serwer of the American Prospect calls me racist for objecting to Ifill.

You don't have to buy into Dick Morris' estimate (that Ifill's book will sell 100,000 copies if Obama is elected and four if he doesn't) to acknowledge that a book that "analyzes" (Serwer's insistent term) "The Age of Obama" will sell a lot more if Obama is president than if Obama is just another former presidential candidate serving in the Senate. (Anyone see any books about "The Age of Kerry" in January 2005?) If McCain wins, there won't be much of an "Age of Obama," at least not for the next four years.

The schadenfreude quotient of this story makes it irresistable. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd got stranded by the McCain campaign in Pittsburgh after the campaign revoked her credential for the press section of the campaign airplane in August. They have not reconsidered their position, which provoked this outrage from Timothy McNulty of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

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Should do it more with the nutballs of the MSM. Ledt them eat cake and fly on their own…..

Here’s how I wish the Palin-Couric exchange would’ve went:

Couric: Can you name any other Supreme Court decisions you disagree with?

Palin: Off the top of my head, no. Roe v. Wade is clearly the one that stands out above the rest. But the average American out there isn’t worried about whether I can rattle off a bunch of Supreme Court decisions. They are worried about making their mortgage payments, keeping their jobs and sending their kids to college. They trust the Supreme Court to make those decisions. What they want from a President and Vice President is someone who will appoint Federal judges who fairly interpret the Constitution and adjudicate accordingly.

Now, let me ask you a question, Katie. You interviewed Senator Biden recently. So when you asked him this same question, would you care to share with me his answer?

Couric: Well, I didn’t ask him that question.

Palin: You didn’t? Why not? He’s a VP nominee. I’m a VP nominee.

Everyone from Bill Kristol to Mitt Romney to Byron York has advice for the McCain camp: free Sarah Palin.

The wisdom — or is it hope — circulating among savvy conservatives is that she has been hampered by too little access and too little practice in mixing it up with the media. The MSM and liberal pundits have a different take: she is unprepared and dim-witted, so there was good reason to hide her from the press. (Meanwhile, John McCain, in a joint interview with Palin, told Katie Couric it was “gotcha” journalism which made Palin appear out of her league.)

At the VP debate on Thursday night we will find out which is more accurate: was she a brilliant choice incompetently managed, or an awful selection which now has come back to haunt John McCain?

Will Obama's single digit lead in the polls be enough? Probably not….

I agree with Ramesh that it’s not Palin but Biden who should be embarrassed by the exchange with Couric on Roe. The general view that the Constitution protects a right to privacy does not require, as Couric seemed to imply, support for Roe v. Wade or an abortion right. In their confirmation hearings, Justices Roberts and Alito were asked exactly the same question Couric asked Palin—do you believe the constitution protects a right to privacy? Roberts replied:

Senator, I do. The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways.

Alito replied:

Senator, I do agree that the Constitution protects a right to privacy.

But Biden’s reply on Roe is really astonishing

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Wonder if Ifill will ask Biden's abortion position and his Catholic faith and the incongruity thereof?