Update: This seems to be the full video:





Earlier: Jon Stewart To McCain Advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer: "What The Pfuck?"
Dear Nancy Pfotenhauer: Please Wipe That Smile Right Off Of Your Face

Pfriend or Pfoe? [The Daily Show]

• John McCain's had some more time to think about John Lewis's words of caution about the level of racial intolerance and violence coming out in this election season. He thinks John Lewis' words were unacceptable. [CNN]
• Of course, he probably didn't read this article about how calling an African-American political figure a socialist has a long and unfortunate history dating back to efforts to make African-American political leaders — and their fight for equality — seem foreign and scary. [American Prospect]
• Or this one about how too many white people subconsciously associate white people with America and black people with foreign stuff. [Washington Post]
• Or this one, about how people think only the white working class voters of the Midwest count as an authentic political coalition. [American Prospect]

• Meanwhile, Barack Obama's got a new economic plan that involves you being able to access your retirement savings more easily and puts a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. [NY Times]
• But the McCainiacs definitely read that because their on-again-off-again new economic stimulus plan is back on again for tomorrow, which is totally the way to avoid looking erratic. [TPM Election Central]
• And Nancy Pfotenhauer Pfuckingsucks still fucking sucks and is forced to, giggling, accuse über-conservative Bill Kristol of buying into Obama's hype. [Think Progress]
• Oh and, yes, Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics. I sort of feel bad now that I skipped reading his book in college. [NY Times]

• John McCain has decided that since everyone is annoyed at him for lying and being a dick when he's called out on it, he's going to say Obama is lying and being a dick when he's called out on it. That's still lying, John, you're missing the point here. [Gawker]
• He was then promptly called out for lying again, not that he cares. [Swampland]
• And for being all for anti-abortion terrorists and their rights to harass and commit acts of violence against women and reproductive health care providers. Even better? Nancy PfotenhauerPfuckingsucks set him up for it by mistake. [Think Progress]
• He's probably still wondering why Obama is ahead in the national polls, though. [CNN]

• The Dow, unlike Obama's poll numbers, continues to shrink. [Washington Post]
• Katie Couric is annoyed that Sarah Palin is blaming her poor interview on editing. [Politico]
• Lieberman thinks God will propel Sarah Palin to the Presidency. Unfortunately, neither God nor Jesus is an American, so they can't vote. [TNR]
• Last call for voter registration in many states, so check yours here and fucking do it already if you haven't. [Vote411]
• Michelle Bruce, whose second race for City Council was undermined by her opponents' attempts to force her to expose the status of her bits, finally won her lawsuit that she didn't mislead voters by identifying as Michelle. [Wonkette, Brattleboro Reformer]

Gwen Ifill moderated the 2004 debate between Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards, asking a total of 20 questions. Ten of those questions were specifically about foreign policy — including the first 9 — while Cheney brought up foreign policy in two addition domestic policy questions and Edwards snuck it into one of his domestic policy answers. In the latter three cases, Edwards and Cheney responded to the other's foreign policy forays in kind. That means that foreign policy discussions comprised two-thirds of the last Vice Presidential debate.

Unlike the two Vice Presidential debates (Lieberman-Cheney and Gore-Kemp) before that, in 2008, this country has troops stationed abroad fighting in conflicts that we started — i.e., we're in the midst of two foreign wars— much as it did in 2004. During the Cheney-Edwards debate, the foreign policy questions were about Iraq, Afghanistan, the use of intelligence, Iran and Israel — gosh, it kind of seems like those might be ongoing and relevant issues, right? (Let alone that Sarah Palin has suggested that we go to war with Russia, attack Pakistan and has tried to burnish her foreign policy credentials by getting photo ops with world leaders might be relevant.) But Nancy Pfuckingsucks and Doocy think that it would totally be unfair to ask Sarah Palin too much about it.

Doocy said, "it seems like they're stacking the deck against" Palin by asking too much about foreign policy — not that Gwen Ifill has released her list of questions or anything — and added "the average person is more concerned with domestic stuff than foreign stuff anyway." Presumably he meant "the average person that doesn't have loved ones in imminent danger fighting one of the two wars abroad in which we are currently embroiled." Pfuckingsucks agreed, says " "Exactly! I think the moderator will have some serious questions to answer if they do go so heavily on foreign policy," and defined "heavy" as sixty percent of the questions — which is, as I pointed out, less than the percentage of the Cheney-Edwards debate that centered in foreign policy. I guess it's only fair to focus on foreign policy questions when it's the Democrat without a whole lot of experience.

In much the same way that the Obama-Biden campaign is seeking to lower expectations of Biden by talking Palin up, the McCain-Palin campaign is seeking to mitigate her expected trouncing by blaming Gwen Ifill. They're literally going on the airwaves and trashing Ifill and her journalistic credentials in advance of a single question being asked in the hopes that she won't ask too much about foreign policy and to garner sympathy for Palin if she does. How long do you think until Pfuckingsucks takes to the air again to suggest that Ifill is "in the tank" for Obama because they have so much in common? Tuesday? Wednesday?

McCain Camp to Ifill: Go Easy on Palin [Talking Points Memo]
The Cheney-Edwards Vice Presidential Debate [The Commission on Presidential Debates]
Palin: U.S. Might Have To Go To War With Russia [Chicago Tribune]
McCain Retracts Palin's Pakistan Comments [CNN]
Sarah Palin Meets World Leaders [Huffington Post]
Obama-Biden Camp Hypes Palin’s Debating Skills [CNN]

SPENCER: So should we go forward with Crappy Hour or can you tell Anna that the seriousness of the financial crisis merits a suspension of the feature?

MEGAN: Oh, sure, I mean, you and I really need to get up in the Hill this morning and involve ourselves in negotiations for the bailout package that we've been heretofore uninvolved in, because our presence and our presence alone will resolve the 3 days of negotiations. It'll just take a few days. She'll understand. It's a crisis after all. And totally unlike the mortgage crisis that spawned legislation that we ignored a couple of months ago. This one is important.

SPENCER: Country First, goddammit.

MEGAN: This is not a time for partisan politics!

SPENCER: I think in 42 days, we're going to look back on this as the day McCain lost the election. A more massively unforced error I cannot imagine.

MEGAN: I guess it depends on whether you're Steve Schmidt and think that debating Obama on Friday (or having Palin debate Biden next week) would be a bigger error.

SPENCER: While I was watching Bush's speech last night, a whole other dimension of error occurred to me: why does it benefit McCain to go meet with the least popular president in history, the one whose legacy McCain has to distance himself from?

MEGAN: The only thing I can think is what some Republipundit said last night, which is that it forces Obama to interact positively with Bush, inoculating McCain to a degree, and it might allow McCain to call a shitty bailout bill a "Bush-Obama" bill. If that's the actual thinking — if there is actual thinking involved in this decision — then kudos.

SPENCER: No, that doesn't match the timeline. Remember, at 8:30 a.m. yesterday, Obama called McCain and proposed a joint statement. McCain responded affirmatively around 2ish, and then an hour later announced this no-debate stunt. The likeliest explanation is that McCain huddled with Davis and Schmidt and thought about how to throw the ball further downfield. But here they miscalculated almost completely: SurveyUSA found only 10 percent think the debate should be put off.

MEGAN: Well, at least Schmidt and Davis managed to find some people in the tank for them.

SPENCER: I guess the Bush thing could have been trying to bind Obama, but he can't turn down a presidential invite, and could just as easily put out a release as tepid as... the joint statement he did with McCain.

MEGAN: According to Obama, though, McCain brought it up at the 2:30 conference call and Obama said, let's have our people discuss it when they're talking about the joint statement. So it was on McCain's mind before. But, yeah, they were in the midst of negotiating that statement when McCain made his announcement. So, it's unsurprising that the statement is tepid.

SPENCER: Meanwhile McCain looks like a complete pussy. He's too chickenshit to debate Obama — dude, al-Qaeda bombed the fucking USS Cole in October 2000 and Bush and Gore still debated! — and now looks like a supplicant to Bush. One unforced error on top of another.

MEGAN: Oooh, nice catch on the USS Cole. Also, I'd like to point out the absurdity of the idea that Congress will be negotiating this at 9:00 on Friday night.

SPENCER: Here's another unforced error! If you're suspending the campaign, don't send out talking points on suspending the campaign! Sorry to make you open a PDF.

MEGAN: I love how we can fix the economy by the time the markets open on Monday with legislation. Presto-chango! It's fixed!

SPENCER: We don't even really need to comment on the transparent foolishness of this stunt. Within 30 minutes the bigfoot journalists on secret listservs I'm on digested it and became immediately appalled. It's a waste of time to even treat the idea seriously.

MEGAN: Dude, I started laughing hysterically when I heard. Like, it might have been the 3 cups of coffee, but I was wiping away tears listening to it, I was laughing that hard.

SPENCER: The only right-wing journalists still shilling for this are at the Weekly Standard. Even NRO readers aren't buying the dog food. Look at what Bill Kristol wrote:

As for the question of Friday night's debate, which some in the media seem to think more important than saving the financial system—if the negotiations are still going on in D.C., McCain should offer to send Palin to debate Obama! Or he can take a break from the meetings, fly down at the last minute himself, and turn a boring foreign policy debate, in which he and Obama would repeat well-rehearsed arguments, into a discussion about leadership and decisiveness. And if the negotiations are clearly on a path to success, then McCain can say he can now afford to leave D.C., fly down, and the debate would become a victory lap for McCain.

I read that and thought of the scene in Boogie Nights when a coked-out Dirk Diggler tries desperately to get erect, tears rolling down his face, talking to his cock like "come on... come on..."

MEGAN: Um, I can't believe you just made me think about Bill Kristol's cock just there. I love this part, though, Country First my ass.

Of course his motives were partly election-related. But "the interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."

McCain is America! America is McCain! What's right for him is right for everyone! Quick, everyone swap spouses! Call your wife a cunt!

SPENCER: I call Kim Kagan. I will sex her up like Color Me Badd.

MEGAN: Will you give her your dick in a boxx?

SPENCER: Ohhh, maybe Noemie Emery. I hear she crazy. Like, files-her-pieces-on-legal-legal-paper crazy.

MEGAN: Oh, her poor interns.

SPENCER: Should probably record a take-off on a Biggie song. "Dreams (Of Fucking A Right-Wing Bitch)." Noemie, I'm just playing! ... I'm saying!

MEGAN: Man, I think we could totally make a YouTube video out of that.

SPENCER: Back to McCain. (Yo, Meghan, don't take me seriously girl. I know you're reading. Don't mind what I say about your dad. Hit me up. 281-330-8004. My girlfriend doesn't have to know.)

MEGAN: Hey, look, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are offering their services. I think that should be McCain's punishment if he bails on Friday. He should have to debate them, and Obama gets a night to himself.

SPENCER: How does McCain dig himself out of this? The debate is clearly going to happen tomorrow.

MEGAN: If it doesn't, he's cost the taxpayers of Mississippi $5 million for his little stunt. Oh, how do you like your low-spending Republicans now, Red State Mississippi? At least Obama gives a shit about how he spends your money.

SPENCER: He's going to have to slink down to Mississippi, backtracking on all this, an object of total ridicule for Obama. And McCain's temper cannot handle ridicule.

MEGAN: Yeah, I don't think him showing up tomorrow is going to be some big victory lap around Ole Miss, Bill Kristol's masturbatory epistles aside.

SPENCER: I'm kind of expecting Nancy Phflorfhfthflhflfhthloger to put out a statement about how McCain spent FIVE AND A HALF YEARS not being able to debate anyone.

MEGAN: He was just doing what he always does! Like with the Surge, he was doing what he thought was right, electoral consequences be damned!! Nancy Pfuckingsucks actually said that yesterday.

SPENCER: No! She did????

MEGAN: Yes, I heard it on MSNBC, but I was already laughing so hard I couldn't laugh any harder.

SPENCER: Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen has Obama up two points in... North Carolina. End times! This guy is fucked. He just lost the election. McCain better pray for a terrorist attack or some shit.

MEGAN: I think he already masturbates to that. I don't think you can pray one-handed.

It should be noted that Maddow says she has tried to get about a dozen Republican leaders on her show to discuss the election from their point of view. Every single one has declined, though many McCain campaign cronies, like Nancy Pfotenhauer and Tucker Bounds, have been making appearances on Chris Matthews' show, Hardball. It's unclear if they are shunning Maddow because she is new or because she is so aggressively left-leaning.

Anyway, the shine is officially off Sarah Palin, as the Nation notes, "the governor's overall favorable rating has fallen to just 40 percent in the CBS/New York Times survey — down four points from last week. Palin's unfavorable rating is up 8 points to 30 percent. But the shift is even more dramatic among women, with whom Palin's star has fallen 11 points in one week."

Poll: Obama Retakes Lead Over McCain [CBS News]
White Women Shift, Giving Obama the Lead [The Nation]

MEGAN: Oh, hello there! How were your protests yesterday? We talked about spanking without you.

JASON: The protest was modestly-sized, but passionate. If you caught the story on Cavuto last night, I spoke to the same woman from the Mahoning Valley that he did, who was very nice in that she allowed me to ask her many silly questions, like if she was jealous of the attention John McCain gave the Georgians, and whether Cindy McCain, if she bought their tent city, would count each tent as a separate residence or if collectively, the tent city would be a single domicile.

MEGAN: Yeah, I don't normally watch Cavuto because I've normally got my head deep in my computer writing the news round-up for the end of the night, but she sounds nice!

JASON: She was very nice. So, okay, speaking of forays into the lives of working class women, we have Maureen Dowd this morning.

MEGAN: Oh, God, any segue that starts off that way normally makes me want to tear out my hair. What did she spew now?

JASON: Anna sent me a link to her column. And mind you, I usually consider someone forwarding me her columns as a type of assault. But this being Anna, I knew that it was important, dangerous work that needed to be done. So I'm reading it, and honestly? Through three paragraphs — which in Dowd-ese means "three hastily constructed sentence fragments" — she does okay. But then you get this:

"The Wall Street Journal reported that McCain was thinking about taking Palin to the U.N. General Assembly next week so she can shake hands with some heads of state. You can’t contract foreign policy experience like a rhinovirus. To paraphrase the sniffly Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls,” a poy-son could develop a cold war."

Fugue For Tinears! I mean, that's the op-ed version of being clouted with a ball peen hammer.

MEGAN: Honestly, if I wasn't wearing my glasses, I would have smacked myself upon reading that. Who says that? Who thinks that?!!

JASON: Maureen Dowd is JUST THE WORST. Murder your darlings, darling! The rhinovirus line was sufficient!

MEGAN: Well, speaking of the over-privileged...

JASON: Anyway, that fucking travesty was about Carly Fiorina. I sense that your taking it in that direction? Since we're on the subject of travesties?

MEGAN: No, actually, I wanted to talk about Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who Moe and I mocked last week for her horrendous editorial about elitism, and is now endorsing John McCain. Like, bitch went to the Democratic convention on the motherfucking platform committee, but she's endorsing John McCain this week. Because, as an elitist, she know elitism when she sees is and DESPITE WRITING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM she's going to vote for John McCain because Obama wasn't nice enough to her.

JASON: What a relief! I had thought that we might end up with Dischord Records releasing a ROTHCHILDS AGAINST ELITISM compilation disc or something! Let's talk elitism. Here's the lede from Portfolio's profile on Lynn:

"When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderberg conference—the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger—she was already a woman of major means."

I mean, wow. Kissinger and the Bilderberg conference come up RIGHT OFF THE BAT. So, you know going in that this is the woman who will cure us of our elitism.

MEGAN: I guess she really, really, really knows elitism. That's about the most amusingly gagable description of a meet-cute since I didn't read the New York Times wedding announcements last weekend. Also, the woman helped write the Democratic party's fucking platform, but because she's got a personal distaste for the candidate elected to represent and implement that platform, she's going to publicly support, campaign for and vote for the guy who represents and plans to implement the polar opposite.

JASON: What I see as the problem is that this person was allowed within a million miles of the Democratic party platform. They should be glad she turned into a self-lancing boil.

MEGAN: I mean, what I want to know is: what sections did she work on? I mean, obviously not the ones on energy, the environment, reproductive freedom, marriage equity, equal pay, women in the military, taxes, health care... so, what's left? Is there a section on wealthy baronesses?

MEGAN: Um, WHOA, our embassy in Yemen just got bombed. MSNBC says 16 people are dead so far. But no Americans so far.

JASON: Ten Yemeni civilians, though.

MEGAN: Well, since when did suicide bombers care about their own people? They have a political point to make about... something.

JASON: True. Reports say that snipers opened fire on the first responders, too. Another terrorist act brought to you by the people we will not go and fight.

MEGAN: That is, notably, the second attack we've faced in Yemen, in case anyone's forgotten.

JASON: There was a mortar attack on the Embassy earlier this year, as well.

MEGAN: Well, let's play newscasters and make our sad/serious faces now and quickly changes the subject back to something "sexy". Like Carly Fiorina.

JASON: Yes. We'll get a thorough dose of grandstanding from Senators McCain and Obama later.

MEGAN: And then we can talk about it again! So, let's talk about Carly Fiorina and her ego. Is it just me spending too many hours with Republicans, or do you recall a lot of times hearing that we needed someone to run this country more like a business? Like, say, Mitt Romney.

JASON: One of the hallmark arguments the GOP has made, IN MY LIFETIME, was that the U.S. of A. COULD BE RUN LIKE A BUSINESS!!!

MEGAN: Just not, apparently, with McCain or Palin at the helm.

JASON: Really? Should Carly Fucking Fiorina be lecturing ANYONE on how to run a business?

MEGAN: Hey, I am happy to let her spout off again McCain and Palin. Let's not stop her, please? She knows a lot, from personal experiences, about the kind of people that shouldn't be CEOs.

JASON: Yesterday, Andrea Mitchell was basically taunting her about her own golden parachute, even as John McCain is vowing to end the practice. (And don't ask me how the federal government achieves THAT.) And she said that with her it was different!

MEGAN: Well, of course hers was different.

JASON: ...that her severance package was decided for her, put to a vote. And that constituted real reform! Two things on this.

One: Yes, Carly. I am sure that there was a vocal faction of Hewlett Packard decision makers who were like: "You know what? We need to consider not giving her all these millions of dollars. Because we need to send a clear message to shareholders that we hired an incompetent woman to run this company. THAT WILL WORK."

Two: The process Fiorina describes is commonplace! That's how these golden parachutes get strapped to these morons' backs. These disgraced CEOs aren't, you know, actually PLUNDERING THEIR COMPANIES COFFERS WITH A SCIMITAR CLENCHED IN THEIR TEETH.

MEGAN: Also, it's all super-clubby up in there.

JASON: Not that John McCain could stop that, either! He had an ad up, exclaiming ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! And then three hours later, the government bails out AIG.

MEGAN: Last night, I seriously turned off the computer and TV, took a short nap and went to dinner and by the time I got there, the entire bar was watching the news of the AIG bailout — and I don't even live in NY! And it's not like golden parachutes aren't "voted" on, but they're "voted" on in the same way that North Koreans "vote" for Kim Jong Il.

JASON: Right! Minus the exciting visual of those adorable goosestepping lady soldiers! AND THEY ARE ADORABLE! I want to SQUEEZE those crazy ladies! Who says intractable fascism can't have a Cute Overload aspect to it?

MEGAN: I never did understand why dictatorships continue to allow goosestepping to remain alive.

JASON: Could you imagine having, like, a three-inch tall brigade of North Korean lady soldiers skipping all around your apartment. I would be like, OMGZ THAT IS TEH CUTENESS.

MEGAN: I think they should be at least 10 inches.

JASON: Jeezy creezy! Is the Dow already down 209 points today??

MEGAN: I love, by the way, that the NYSE was opened today by "Emeritus Senior Living." Where John McCain would retire, if he didn't have the right to die, senile and crapping his pants, in office. Sidenote: Bob Casey is on MSNBC right now and, um, man needs to wax that unibrow.

JASON: You know, credit John McCain. He has, to my knowledge, never crapped his pants. Yesterday, Carly crapped hers twice on national teevee.

MEGAN: See, I prefer to think of that sort of appearance as vomiting up the bile from her soul.

JASON: You won't be seeing her on teevee for a while, either.

MEGAN: Well, my days will no doubt be burdened by that.

JASON: More time for Empress Nancy Pfotenhauer. And Tucker Bounds! And now the Lady de Rothschild!