• Rush Limbaugh has his big-boy britches in a wad over the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court because she and President Obama are racists for thinking themselves not only equal to white people but superior to some...like Rush Limbaugh. By that standard, we are all racist! [Time]

• If you have been hiding under a rock this weekend, the Obamas got their Portuguese Water Dog, Bo, from the Kennedys, and tons of awwws erupted around the blogosphere. [Washington Post]

• Good news first: Obama is up in the polls in Pennsylvania and Iowa and tied in Minnesota and Nevada. Also, most people blame Republicans for the current economy crisis. Unfortunately, he's pulling staff from North Dakota, Georgia, Idaho and Alaska. That can't be good. [CNN, CNN, CNN]
• A new poll shows that, since putting Palin on the ticket, McCain now polls evenly with Obama on the question of who understands women and what's important to us. Obama used to have a 34 point lead. [Politico]
• Obama's got a new ad in which he (rightly) accused McCain's health care plan of being a massive program of deregulation, sort of like how McCain used to love the deregulation of financial markets, too. That the kind of change even an NRA member might fear more than an ammo tax these days. [Huffington Post]

• Despite a little wave in the direction of potential independent women voters earlier this year, anti-abortion Republicans feel much better today that McCain is fooling independents and not them about his position on abortion. Of course, he also talked about how he wouldn't have nominated the 4 liberal justices on the Supreme Court despite having voted to confirm all of them but Stephens (nominated before McCain took office), but, details, people.[Time]
• Another juicy tidbit: McCain thinks the dividing line between the middle and the "upper" class is $5 million in yearly income. But it doesn't matter because he's not going to raise anyone's taxes, and especially not yours! [Politico]
• In other laughable news, the Republican National Convention is "going green" by putting out a whole 300 recycling bins and loaning out 1,000 bicycles to convention goers. That should be quite a sight to see. [Politico]

• When John McCain was asked to comment on Jerome Corsi's work of Obama-hating fiction, McCain told the reporter, "gotta keep your sense of humor." This caused an uproar, so McCain's spokeswoman said he never heard the question. So he's either politically tone deaf or going deaf? Good save. [CNN]
• It's probably because the campaign has more important things to deal with, like convincing right-to-lifers that McCain would, like, totally not pick a pro-choice VP even though he said he would. Pick one! Maybe then they really will stay home. [Politico]
• McCain defended his love of ABBA today by saying his taste in music was stuck back in the sixties when he got shot down. Unfortunately, it turns out ABBA started recording in the seventies. Was this part of the torture technique of the North Vietnamese? [CNN, Attackerman]

• Hey, remember how we were going to, like, tax oil companies more and stuff? Yeah, not gonna happen anytime soon. [Washington Post]
• But, hey, monkeys can fish! So, as long as we don't eat all the fish or kill all the monkeys before we drive ourselves into extinction, they can totes rule the world later. [AP]
• Yes, that was a cheap distraction before I told you that we're totally fucked in Afghanistan and no one has any idea what to do about it. [Washington Independent]
• But that's ok, because Obama might pick Ret. Gen. James Jones, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, as VP, because now the Democratic party is all about getting the military dudes on the take so they can look "strong" and shit. Only, the story is actually complete bullshit because he's already a McCain adviser and someone is laughing at MSNBC besides me. [MSNBC, Politico]

• The McCain strategist who thought it was a brilliant idea to have him give a speech at the Lorraine Motel on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination to apologize for having voted against MLK Day should probably not keep his job. [CBS News]

The feminist blogosphere is up in arms because Mike Huckabee pardoned a rapist and signed a petition that asks women to "submit graciously" to their husbands, but these same bloggers give him a free pass on taxes. This make me think of that terribly stereotypical Teen Talk Barbie from a few Christmases back. "Math class is tough!" she said. I'd hate to think that taxes are too "tough" for the Barbie blogs to address today.