The Dish

This is a central plank of Obama’s campaign. If he gets it, he’ll realize that ABC News and Clinton have given him a gift. He has an entire worldview to fight against, and they have helped crystallize what it is. Let it rip:

He accepts no criticism of his appalling performance as valid. Questions about lapel-pins are about

"experience, character [and] credibility."

How exactly is a lapel pin about any of those things? And if that is the standard, and no journalist can make an independent judgment about its merits, why would Joe McCarthy not be a relevant guide for the kind of questions that should be asked? Why have they not repeatedly asked if Obama is a secret Hamas-supporter? Or an al Qaeda supporter? Why have they not asked if his mom was a commie? Why have they not asked if Obama supported the domestic terrorism of the Weather Underground? Why have they not asked if Obama is actually a patriot … oh, wait, they did ask that.

But of course there are no rules for this – and that’s a good thing. It’s a free country and ABC News can ask what they want. In the end, the voters will decide if ABC News’ agenda is what they want to vote on. Next Tuesday, we’ll find out.

"K-Lo should be drawn and quartered," – Baliyya at Daily Kos.

Steve Chapman chides the candidates’ energy policies.

The difference between the effect of Obama campaigning in a state and Clinton:

For each day that he spends campaigning in a state in the 30 days in the run-up to the election, Obama can expect to gain about 3.5 points in his margin over Clinton. And for every day that Clinton spends campaigning in that state, Obama can expect to lose about 2.4 points.

So the more exposure voters get to both candidates, Obama inches ahead.

Jonah Lehrer on bloggy relationships:

One of the odd things about blogs, at least for me, is that they encourage a really informal and oddly intimate relationship between the writer and reader. I feel like I really know my favorite bloggers, in a way that I would never presume to know my favorite novelists or newspaper columnists or magazine writers. Partly, I imagine, it’s the informal voice of the blogosphere, and partly it’s the enticing mix of idiosyncratic personal information and opinionated commentary that defines the bloggy format. A blog, at least for me, is the writing genre that most closely approximates a friendly conversation.

Of course, I occasionally remember that I’ve never actually met Jason Kottke, or Matthew Yglesias, or Tyler Cowen, or Jessica Crispin, or the snarky asshole who writes The Superficial. They are all utter strangers.

Matt jibes McCain for promising to veto all bills with earmarks and then backtracking on earmarks for Israel:

…right there you have a great example of the vacuity of McCain’s budget proposals. It’s easy to propose sweeping budget cuts in the abstract. But then when you start looking at it, it turns out that behind every large spending commitment there’s a politically powerful constituency. And so McCain, having initially declined to promise specific spending cuts, preferring instead to propose vague general ones, winds up being asked about something specific and of course he doesn’t want to cut that! But you can’t start with a large deficit, add large new tax cuts, pile on a big increase in defense spending, and then make the math add up purely by cutting the most clearly absurd small-bore items.

"May Bush and bin Laden die in exactly the same way: alone, afraid, and in captivity," – Spencer Ackerman.

"I will tell you it does not get more fun than these debates. They are inspiring debates. I think last night we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people.

It took us 45 minutes — 45 minutes before we heard about health care, 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq, 45 minutes before we heard about jobs, 45 minutes before we heard about gas prices.

Now, I don’t blame Washington for this because that’s just how Washington is. They like stirring up controversies and getting us to play gotcha games and getting us to attack each other. And I’ve got to say Sen. Clinton looked in her element," – Barack Obama, in Raleigh, today.

That’s more like it. Lemons to Lemonade. In some ways, Obama now has a chance to make one of the most important points about his candidacy.

A reader writes:

As I’ve been spending a lot of time studying the Middle East (part of a Master’s programme), I’ve noticed something about fundamentalism.

People embrace fundamentalism at two points. The most common worldwide is when everything is falling apart. It’s the whole "the world is full of evil, God is punishing us" stuff. When you ain’t got nothing, well, clinging to dogma that makes you part of the right group makes you feel like your at least not alone.

But, the flipside that you noted is the people who want to stay where they are in life. I really like my lifestyle and the system that has put me in my position. And you non-believers want to introduce new ideas, raise my taxes, and so on. Ouch! They perceive a threat, and again, it’s that joining together because logic doesn’t have an answer for it, but claiming divine purpose will justify anything. It’s like the whole divine right of kings.

Living in the South, surrounded by Baptists, my girlfriend often reminds me that for most people in the dogmatic kind of setup it’s "I hate sin, but I hate yours the most."