No, not really. That’s the headline I was hoping to write. But now that you’re looking….

I only saw a small portion of the debate live, and that was via my PC, followed by lots of pre-recorded bits and piece later in the day. Based on that, I would have to join the consensus and call it basically a draw, with Obama “winning” because he seems to have won over more undecideds than McCain.

Both did well (or well enough) and both achieved their most necessary goals:

McCain showed he is basically in control of his faculties and bodily functions (the Palin selection made a lot of us wonder), and that he has a decent grasp of the issues.

Obama showed he can speak articulately without a teleprompter, and succeeded in coming off as an erudite, likable and trustworthy centrist. Personally, I don’t think this is the right time for a centrist, but here we are.

No matter what we thought about the debates, one inescapable conclusion all of us can agree on is that McCain’s behavior prior to the debates was unsettling, to say the least. Maybe “deranged” would be more like it. Canceling the debate on the grounds he’s needed for the economic emergency (he wasn’t) – such a dire emergency for an economy he just said was fundamentally sound?? Flip-flopping and doing the debate?? Canceling his appearance with Letterman at the last minute?? (I presume all of you have seen the hilarious Letterman responses. Talk about backfiring.)

There’s a reason why McCain seems to be losing his mind: The day of the debate and the day prior brought to the foreground the most galling and unforgivable of McCain’s excesses, namely the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Thanks to the interviews she held on TV, I no longer need to tell anyone why I feel she is unacceptable and even dangerous. She can tell you that in her very own words:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

I want everyone to go over this sentence and savor each syllable:

But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too.

She has a list of talking points, and she is frantically trying to pluck the right one, but she jut can’t do it. She simply doesn’t have the breadth of knowledge or depth of understanding to play global politics. This is not a one-time fluke. If you check around, some of the most outspoken (and irritating) female conservative bloggers are saying Palin was and is an out-and-out disaster, and unfit for command.

But as always, I want to put the blame where it squarely lies – on McCain, not Palin. Like his temperamental on-again/off-again decision on the debates, his selection of this profoundly unqualified amateur underscores a dangerous predilection for shooting from the hip and thinking through the consequences later, if at all.

No complaints. Poison pill Palin is now McCain’s kiss of death, a very heavy albatross tied tight around his neck. As conservative Kathleen Parker says:

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

…Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

I said within a day of her being named that she would self-destruct and take McCain down with her. One needn’t be a seer to predict the obvious, but I remain baffled as to why so many people actually saw her as an asset, as a great choice to possibly be president of the United States. Aside from the announcement’s surprise effect, it was clear from the first that this was going to be a catastrophe. Still, I’m sure it was purely coincidence that McCain’s first suggestion was to cancel the vice-presidential segment and replace it with one of the postponed presidential debates.

Read the Catie Kouric interview again. Better yet, watch the whole thing. Imagine what’s going on in McCain’s head as he visualizes her standing up in front of a hundred million people and matching wits with Biden. As he looks at the Couric interview, does he think he made the best possible decision? Do any of you?

Update: As The Duck presciently noted back almost a month ago in this comment, this was sooo predictable:

Meanwhile, the big story here, as stated earlier, is about McCain, not Palin. Watching them scramble now to vet her is kind of amusing and definitely pathetic. They fucked up with their first major decision, and now much of the election going forward will be about defending Palin. Will this make her a sympathetic figure? To some. But in the light of America’s economic catastrophe, two wars, lack of health insurance, rising unemployment and in general a country deep in the shitter, it’s just a distracting sideshow that will further keep McCain from articulating why he would make the better president.

Truer words were never spoken.

Here it is. So light there’s almost nothing there. Shocking.

You are what you eat, and whether you know it or not, you are eating a lot of food (and other stuff) that’s made in China, or so says John Pomfret.

If the [milk] scandal illustrates anything, it’s that China’s product safety system is woefully ill-equipped. And that’s pretty sobering news from a country which is the second biggest supplier of goods to the United States.

A big chunk of that is food. From 1996-2006, U.S. imports of Chinese food, agricultural, and seafood products increased 346 percent to 1.833 milion tons. China is the third leading supplier of food (after Mexico and Canada) to the U.S., and the second biggest supplier of fish. Drugs and vitamins, too.

That vitamin C you’re popping each morning? Chances are the ascorbic acid was Made in China. In the past several years, the number of FDA-registered drug manufacturers in China has nearly tripled. They went from 440 in 2004 to almost 1,300 in 2007….

The Bush administration made the obligatory noise about cracking down on Chinese goods. But the reality was that, according to a series of agreements signed between the Bush administration and the Chinese government in Beijing in December of last year, no significant new American resources are going to be devoted to dealing with the problem. The onus is on the Chinese to clean up their act.

Just as we we’re told we should trust Paulson to take care of a trillion-dollar loan, so too should we leave it to China, on blind faith, to make sure all that food they’re sending us is safe. And for a long time, that’s what we did. Now, I am sure my friends in California and Arizona are going to think twice before they buy those frozen tilapia filets at Trader Joe’s. Which is tragic for China. But that’s what happens when greedy businessmen decide to cut some corners and make some extra yuan, even if cutting those corners leads to the death of infants. Other businesses, even the law-abiding ones, will suffer. Once again, the carelessness and selfishness of a few will lead to hardship for many. (Hard to tell whether I’m talking about the sub-prime debacle or Chinese food exports.)

And now, I’m going to check where those vitamins in my cabinet are made. (Just out of curiosity. After all, I live here and just about everything I eat is made in China.)

Please watch this clip. Make your friends watch it, too.

Kaiser Kuo posted this video link on another medium, and you simply have to go there. Absolutely electrifying.

Sorry for the missing link! It was midnight when I put that up. Corrected.

I hereby make a resolution never to post anything without previewing it and testing the links.

Remember that Bush slogan? This was going be the time when people and businesses would be responsible for themselves, without the government clinging like a monkey on their backs. The free market would set things right and, unfettered by bureaucracy and unspoiled by handouts, America would prosper like never before.

Well, it didn’t exactly turn out that way, did it?

I’m not sure how many of you have heard of Danny Schechter, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, former 20/20 producer and reporter, winner of several Emmys and one of the smartest critics of the American media on the planet. I used to link to him until about 2006, when he fell off my radar screen.

Now he’s back on my radar screen. I just read one of his articles that is so terrifying, I have to conclude Schechter is either clinically insane or a prophet. If you want to google around, you’ll see that he is highly respected and has a rather incredible track record when it comes to dissecting what’s actually going on in the world (as opposed to what we see in the media).

Anyway, all of that was just a way to lead up to to this link. This is about as over the top as one can possibly get – or so it seems. But it would also have been over the top six months ago to even think, let alone to say out loud, that Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG and others (many more to come) would crumble one right after the other. Totally over the top.

Schechter says we may be on the verge of a civil war. Normally this type of alarmist talk would make me laugh my head off, but not in a week when I read that the domino effect of the subprime crisis could soon lead to similar meltdowns around the globe.

But back to Schecter’s post. Just a short snip:

Some are saying that because of this dire emergency, the election could be “postponed.” That may be too unlikely and unnecesary, especially if it is fixed or if both candidates sign on to the PLAN, what ever it is. We don’t even know the details yet but both McCain and Obama are aboard as you may have seen on 60 Minutes Sunday night.

This seems to follow the pattern layed out by Naomi Klein–create a shock and disorient the normal processes of government to impose emergency rules by fiat. It is shocking, but few in the media are even presenting the voices of critics who feel this way.

This measure is being sold as a way to help everyday Americans but the first time that members of Congress wanted the bailout to apply to distressed homeowners, Tresasury Secretary Paulson’s predictable response was a big fat NO WAY.

Thanks a lot.

This power grab has a name—“the troubled assets relief program” or TARP. Gretchen Morgenson of the NY Times compares this tarp to others, “the kind of thing they spread over muddy fields so you don’t spoil your Guccis.” This is also a tarp they seem to be pulled over the eyes of the American people and its Congress as the fear weapon is used again as it was after the last 9/11.

He goes on to say an actual armed insurrection in America is not out of the question in the weeks ahead. Yes, I know how nuts that is sounds. But this guy is not a fool and he’s not crazy. Of course, he may be totally wrong (I sure hope so), but he’s got credentials and he’s equal opportunity – he goes after Obama’s campaign manager without mercy. (Scroll down in that post to find the Schechter quote.)

So I am not saying I agree, only that I am listening and wondering, just how serious is the crisis we are in? Are we on the verge of a precipice as steep and equilibrium-eradicating as 911? It doesn’t feel quite that severe, but can anyone read the headlines and say there isn’t a surreal mood settling in around the nation, a state of angst and confusion, as if we were heading into an uncharted and possibly dangerous territory? I can only relate it to 911 because that was perhaps the only time in America, ever, that I had to ask myself, What the fuck is going on? Is this a dream or reality? What is happening to the world? Today, especially after reading Schechter’s piece but even by simply reading the headlines.

And do keep an eye on gold.

If you think so, what would you say about this?

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

The story isn’t that McCain has a campaign manager who was dedicated to deregulating one of the lynchpins in this crisis. The story is McCain’s sanctimonious and unbelievably hypocritical finger-pointing at Obama for his ties to Fannie Mae, the “tie” being that the leader of Obama’s VP search was head of the quasi-governmental organization. If that’s reason to link Obama to the Fannie Mae disaster, which was years in the making, then what does today’s revelation do to McCain? McCain chose to play guilt by association, and based on his own rules he’s looking very guilty.

Just one more example of McCain’s descent from being (or appearing to be) the tell-it-like-it-is “maverick” to a nasty, hypocritical, quick-to-smear liar. He’s my senator; I’m ashamed of him. You should be, too.

MoDo has written a splendid column. As it starts, you groan because she seems to be using her usual cheeky tricks. And then it picks up speed and gravitas. I know, Maureen set the bar kind of low, but this is her magnum opus. First time in years I’ve read one her columns and ended up angry – and not at her.

Have to add the money quote – a long one.

OBAMA: What would you do?

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

“Heh. Read the whole thing.”

By now we all know about the bailout of the robber barons who brought death into this world and all our woe. They and the government – which are looking more and more like a single entity – are being rewarded beyond any of their wildest dreams for their staggering failure and incompetence while we are being asked to pay. I really don’t think the ramifications are clear to most people: we are giving the Treasury Department free reign to do anything it likes with as much money as they want, with no oversight or accountability.

You’ll find in the bailout plan this hair-raising gem:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

You have to read that a few times. This verges on the totalitarian. There will be a semi-annual review by a congressional committee with no power of enforcement, and that’s it. We are giving the Treasury Department everything, on faith, despite the economic maelstrom they themselves helped to create. It is wholly unprecedented and looks like it will go into effect with little or no debate, in the Patriot Act tradition. Krugman asks some simple questions: Does the public have no say in this matter? Are we not owed an explanation about how this will work? No answers yet.

Meanwhile, what about the rest of the nation’s needs? How do we fight a two-front war and provide services as usual and hand the thieves a trillion dollars or more? What about the effect of increasing the national debt and flooding the system with dollars? No one seems to be going there, at least not in the US media. Remember what happened in Germany in the 1920s?

From one of my favorite commentators:

Today’s reported potential infinite bailout of all and any portends, if adopted, is the largest increase in dollars outstanding since the Jurassic Age. It closely models actions undertaken regarding the production of currency liquidity seen in the Weimar Republic….

The only conclusion is that when the smoke clears and the advertised actions have been adopted, nothing more dollar negative than this has ever occurred due to the potential expansion of T bills and therefore dollar supply explosion.

The Times of London raised the question but no one seems to be particularly worried about it. Perhaps we should be.

THE US Treasury’s $700 billion (£380 billion) plan to bail out the banks could undermine the dollar, economists warn. The plan, details of which were unveiled yesterday, will seek congressional approval to raise the total amount the US government can borrow from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion.

It also gives Hank Paulson, the US Treasury secretary, immunity from legal challenge under the plan. The US Treasury will buy mortgage-related securities “from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States”, draft legislation said. Securities issued before September 17 will be eligible for inclusion.

Word of the proposals created a mood of euphoria in financial markets on Friday. But analysts warned of the risks.

Tim Bond of Barclays Capital, while conceding that the rescue was necessary to avoid the risk of depression, said: “The volume of fresh government borrowing and the fast expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet are both negatives for the dollar, carrying a potential risk of increased inflation.”

Other economists also think that the dollar could be undermined. Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and now a professor at Harvard, said: “It is hard to believe that the dollar will continue to stand its ground as the crisis continues to deepen.”

At this point, would McCain or Obama or Palin or Clinton make a difference? Hard to say. If it were up to me, Obama wouldn’t be my first choice. His ties to Wall Street may be as worrisome as McCain’s ties to the deregulation architects. However, the very distinct possibility of a Palin presidency tips the scales in Obama’s favor. Drastically. Maybe on election day it will all boil down to the lesser of two evils (which most elections usually are anyway). And I think it’s pretty easy to determine which is the greater and which is the lesser.

It takes a great writer to enrage you and make you laugh out loud at the same time.

People should stop picking on vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin because she hired a high school classmate to oversee the state agriculture division, a woman who said she was qualified for the job because she liked cows when she was a kid. And they should lay off the governor for choosing another childhood friend to oversee a failing state-run dairy, allowing the Soviet-style business to ding taxpayers for $800,000 in additional losses.

What these critics don’t understand is that crony capitalism is how things are done in Alaska. They reward failure in the Last Frontier state. In that sense, it’s not unlike like Wall Street’s treatment of C.E.O.’s who run companies into the ground.

Look at Carly Fiorina, John McCain’s top economic surrogate — if you can find her this week, after the news and her narrative fused in a negative way. Dismissed as head of Hewlett-Packard after the company’s stock plunged and nearly 20,000 workers were let go, she was rewarded with $44 million in compensation. Sweet!

Thank God McCain wants to appoint a commission to study the practice that enriched his chief economic adviser. On the campaign trail this week, McCain and Palin pledged to “stop multimillion dollar payouts to C.E.O.’s” of failed companies. Good. Go talk to Fiorina at your next strategy session.

Much more, and it gets funnier. Comments are worth a read, too.

Will try to get back to China blogging soon. The US needs me more at the moment, I’m afraid.