From CBS News' Scott Conroy: (PHILADELPHIA) As the crowd cheered at a Sarah Palin rally this morning in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a man in the audience grinned as he held up a stuffed monkey doll with a Barack Obama bumper sticker wrapped across its forehead. The incident came at a time when McCain and Palin’s events have increasingly been fueled by angry crowds, since Palin began drawing a connection between Barack Obama and 1960s radical William Ayers, claiming that the Democratic nominee has a history of “palling around” with a terrorist. At a rally in Lakeville, Minnesota, on Friday, McCain was booed after he called on his audience to be respectful of Obama. The Republican nominee took the microphone away from one woman who said she couldn’t trust Obama because “he’s an Arab.” After Palin finished her remarks this morning, the man holding the stuffed monkey seemed to notice that a video camera was pointed at him, at which point he removed the Obama sticker from the doll’s head and crumpling it up in his hand. He then handed the doll to a young boy who was watching the rally from his father’s shoulders. The boy’s parents later told CBS News that they weren’t acquainted with the man who gave their son the stuffed monkey. Watch the video below: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/11/politics/fromtheroad/entry4515246.shtml My observation, This political season reminds me of the Perot campaign when hard-right-wingers infiltrated the MD party resulting in litigation, or when that video of a woman who just lost it who was a Hillary supporter, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KACQuZVAE3s or the demagouge Andy Harris in the MD congressional first who played the immigration card against Gilchrest, (this was a really nasty tactic.) The point here is that when the moderate middle creates a vaccum these types surface. The guy is creepy as he is the type who looks harmless but is probably a closet fascist. But again, these "true belivers" and "demagouges" especially in hard economic times are dangerous.

McCain stated that he was "not an expert on the economy."

And that will cost him as he goes into the tuesday debate.

BERLIN, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- The second-biggest mortgage lender in Germany appeared close to collapse after an effort to shore it up failed Saturday.

A spokesman for Hypo Real Estate said a consortium of banks refused to provide the $50 billion required by a government-sponsored rescue plan, the BBC reported.

The market response will not be favorable to HRE and covering positions will push down the markets, even a dead cat bounce being dangerous to buy into.

By trying to discuss ad-hominen attacks at this point, with the curtain of reality as a backdrop, will make McCain seem unconnected to reality.

It is as if the one weakness that McCain admits is the most important issue.  I expect the damages from Euro failures to cross the atlantic, and I expect that the candidate who can speak to these issues to win the debate.

The bailout/rescue plan did not usher in a new stage of the campaign, but instead seems to have been a missed opportunity by the GOP to refine a message.

I can only attribute this mistake as a genuine weakness within the GOP and McCain camp.

But events will dicate the issues, and the Euro failure to craft a bailout pretty much leaves little for market faundamentals to move forward.

McCain is showing up at an economic's debate with name calling, I think the public will not like it.

Yes things are F'd up.

But I want to point out some things to readers here.

Russia halts trading after 17% share price fall

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ff9306c-83f1-11dd-bf00-000077b07658.html 

the Bank of China cut interest rates for the first time in six years and lowered capital reserve requirements for its smaller banks.

http://www.moneymorning.com/2008/09/16/central-banks/

I guess the argument of China was, when on thin ice, reduce reserve requirements~~

The ECB allotted roughly $43 billion (30 billion euros) in a one-day money-market auction that was more than three times oversubscribed,

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a4CbU4pfZ9kc

http://www.fdic.gov/edie/ 

I saw some pretty irresponsible news reporting, that FDIC would not cover banks and deposits.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/56994/Top-Economist-Americans-Should-Worry-About-Bank-Deposits-if-Congress-Doesn't-Act?tickers=LEH,MER,BAC,AIG,WM, 

The above FDIC link will allow you to fill out a very simple questionare to know your coverage. 

If you are short on insurance, fill out beneficiary forms to extend your coverage so that it is, a.) insured and b.) does not on your death get taxed.

Note, you can add or remove immediate family at anytime.  

But the general news headline was misleading.   Check your insurance, contact your bank and get the forms for beneficiaries, and don't drink the koolaid.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/republican_race/2008/09/01/2008-09-01_bristol_palins_pregnancy_was_an_open_sec.html

Bristol Palin's pregnancy was an open secret back home

BY NANCY DILLON, VERONIKA BELANKAYA and TINA MOORE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Monday, September 1st 2008, 9:15 PM

Levi Johnston

Beck/Getty

Bristol Palin

He's a superhunky bad-boy ice hockey player from cold country; she's a chestnut-haired beauty and popular high school senior.

Soon the all-American teen twosome will make GOP vice presidential pick and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a grandma at age 44, just in time for Christmas.

Doe-eyed Bristol Palin, 17, and ruggedly handsome Levi Johnston, 18, have been dating for about a year, locals in their hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, told the Daily News.

And the pregnancy? An open secret in the close-knit town of 9,780.

Bristol Palin, now a senior, was frequently seen cheering her young beau from the stands. He graduated high school in June.

Wasilla mom Jennie Johnston, whose son Jade played hockey with Levi, saw the young couple in January at a game.

"She was in a cute little outfit like young girls wear," said Jennie Johnston, who is not related to Levi Johnston. "She was with Levi."

She said her son told her the two were already engaged.

"They've been together quite a while, more than a year," she said. "I hope everything comes out well. These are local kids."

Johnston, broadchested and wearing a No. 15 jersey, can be seen in photographs hitting the boards as a Warrior in action.

A closeup shot shows the handsome teen with a light dusting of whiskers on his chin - his dark brown hair curly and wet.

"Levi has got huge potential," Jennie Johnston said. "He's a smart kid."

Sarah Palin admitted Monday her "beautiful daughter" Bristol was five months pregnant and would marry Levi. The baby is due in late December.

In a photo taken on Aug. 28, Palin holds her infant brother Trig close to her belly during a campaign rally where Sen. John McCain introduced her mom as his running mate.

The campaign released word of the teen's pregnancy to knock down claims on Internet blogs that the teen - not her mom - secretly gave birth to Trig, who has Down syndrome.

Wasilla Warriors' coach Bill Sturdevant said he never believed that talk.

"Knowing Levi, from having him as a kid on teams, something like that, it would show on anybody," Sturdevant said. "He was the same kid from the beginning of the season to the end. No signs of anything like that.

"He was a good kid to be around, with lots of friends. He was well-liked."

A telephone number for Levi Johnston's parents, Sherry and Keith Johnston, was disconnected.

Bristol's pregnancy was no secret in the town that lies wedged between two mountain ranges.

The mother of one of Levi's friends, who asked not to be named, told The News that locals knew about Bristol's pregnancy for weeks.

Besides his hard play on the ice, Levi Johnston was also a bit of hell-raiser off it - another reason Bristol may have been smitten.

State troopers popped Johnston last year for snagging some King salmon out of season in Moose Lake, records from Alaska wildlife enforcement show. He had to pay $370 bail.

Mark Okeson, the assistant principal at Wasilla High School, told the Chicago Tribune that Bristol started her junior year last fall, in the town where Sarah Palin grew up.

He said Bristol inexplicably transferred to an Anchorage high school midyear, leaving Levi behind.

"I never heard the story why," he said."She was very well respected, very kind to be around. She ran in lots of circles."

He said he learned of the pregnancy Monday.

"I'm sorry to hear this, but I have every confidence they can handle this]," he said. "Just like children should not pay for the sins of the parents, the parents should not pay for the transgressions of the children."

tmoore@nydailynews.com

 

Curious

LOL  The blogosphere is having a time.  I think that Palin has created a new accronym.  Maybe the secret service will use it as well.

www.vpilf.com

LOL!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vpilf&aq=f&oq=

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/anthrax.usa/print

Case closed. The FBI has found the "Anthrax Killer" – and he acted alone. And now that he's committed suicide, just at the moment the Feds were about to finally snare the diabolical menace who arguably brought utter chaos in days following the September 11 attacks when he'd sent deadly letters to Democratic officials and members of the media, his guilt couldn't be clearer. Then again, you may have also believed that whole "Mission Accomplished" thing. The case against Dr Bruce Ivins – the widely-respected bio-terror researcher at the US army's medical research institute of infectious disease in Fort Detrick, Maryland – was revealed by the FBI in a press conference, following his reported suicide the previous week, several ensuing days of bad reporting, laughable evidence-free leaks from anonymous government officials to media outlets happy to repeat them, growing scepticism from experts in the field of bio-terror research, colleagues of Ivins' and anybody who bothered to pay close attention beyond the misleading headlines. The trouble began to reveal itself on the Friday, the same day Ivins' death was first reported, when experts in the field of bio-terror research noted one simple point: Ivins, the FBI's latest supposed "Anthrax Killer" (they had just settled a lawsuit with their last one, Steven Hatfill, in June, to the tune of $4.6m dollars) had "no access to dry, powdered anthrax" at the Fort Detrick facility. Furthermore, colleagues of his claimed, had he tried to create any from the liquid version kept at the facility, he'd not have been able to do so without being noticed. Even after the FBI finally released a limited subset of one-sided information on Wednesday, the scepticism from experts and peers has persisted. In explaining the exceptionally complicated procedure that Ivins would have had to secretly carry out in order to turn the liquid bacteria into the dry, powdered, weaponised version said to have been used in the letters which killed five and injured 21 others, University of Illinois microbiology professor and anthrax researcher Brenda Wilson noted that "People would notice what he was doing. People would be aware of him doing it. I know what people are doing in my lab. Even if he wanted to be sneaky about it, people would know that things were done." Remember, the lab in question is an extraordinarily high-security facility where the world's deadliest bio-weapons are stored and researched. The FBI notes, however, that it was Ivins himself who was in charge of the vial of liquid anthrax genetically identified as the one from which the spores used in the attacks had come. They say that he had often returned to the lab after hours during the months preceding the first anthrax attack in mid-September. But a closer look reveals that, oddly enough, Ivins' late-night hours began to spike in August of that same year, well before the 9/11 attacks, when the rest of the world, including even George Bush, was largely oblivious to threats of Muslim extremist-inspired terror – even though it was spelled out for him in an August 6 2001 presidential briefing paper entitled: "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US". But still, perhaps it's just a coincidence that both Ivins and Bin Laden had the same thing in mind in August of that year. And that Ivins was unable to adequately explain his night-time presence in the lab during that period as anything more than an escape from problems at home, is seemingly "close enough" for the FBI in building their admittedly wholly circumstantial case. That hundreds of scientists also had access to the same vial of spores also seems of little concern to the federal investigators who said they are "now beginning the process of concluding this investigation". There is little doubt that Ivins was a troubled man. Though whether he became troubled enough to kill himself before or after the relentless hounding of investigators (who showed photos of anthrax victims to his daughter and declared "your father did this" and fruitlessly offered $2.5m to his son as enticement to turn on his own father) is yet another open question. Then there's the therapist who treated Ivins for the last six months or so, until being encouraged by the FBI to go to a judge to seek a restraining order against him. But the social worker, Jean Duley, whose embarrassing hand-scrawled statement to the judge, declaring Ivins "homicidal" and "sociopathic" and bent on revenge killings as long as ago as 2000 – and who spelled therapist as "theripist" – has her own problems, including a rap sheet for drunk driving, possession of narcotics paraphernalia, and apparently no job or money for an attorney since she no longer works at the Maryland facility where she supposedly treated Ivins. Notably lacking in the FBI's case, is corroboration of the deadly threats of revenge killings made by Ivins in group therapy, according to Duley. Nobody else from those sessions has spoken up? And if Ivins was known to have begun his killing spree in 2000, and the FBI knew about it, why was he allowed to continue working in the lab, with his high-security clearance as late as just last month? Why was he allowed to roam free for that matter? Never mind that. A set of emails, culled from thousands on Ivins' seized computers, presumably sent to folks whose names were redacted (so we'll just have to presume they're real), reveal one particularly damning piece of evidence highlighted in the FBI's case. Ivins wrote, in the middle of a longer note on September 26th, 2001: "I just heard tonight that Bin Laden terrorists for sure have anthrax and sarin gas." And later in the same letter: "Osama Bin Laden has just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans." That note, the feds say, displays "language similar to the text of the anthrax letters postmarked two weeks later warning 'DEATH TO AMERICA,' 'DEATH TO ISRAEL.'" What the FBI doesn't note, is that the first anthrax letter, sent to NBC anchor-man Tom Brokaw, was postmarked on September 18, a week before the Ivins email, and read: "THIS IS NEXT ... TAKE PENACILIN [sic] NOW ... DEATH TO AMERICA ... DEATH TO ISRAEL ... ALLAH IS GREAT." And what the media, by and large, failed to note when reporting the Fed's less-than-convincing squib of evidence, was the first part of Ivins' sentence - the part declaring that Ivins had "just heard tonight" about Bin Laden having deadly biological weapons. We're already down into the weeds, so we'll have to get to the sorority girls nonsense at another time. Citizen journalists on the internet such as Glenn Greenwald, the folks at Talking Points Memo, Larissa Alexandrovna of at-Largely, Marcy Wheeler of EmptyWheel and even my own blog, have already dispatched the absurd claims from both those "unnamed government sources" presented to us in the American corporate media over the last several days, as well as the FBI's own case. Sure, Ivins could be the man – the terrorist – who, all by himself, carried out multiple terror attacks on American soil after 9/11 (despite repeated claims that we've had none, made by untold supporters of Bush who argue there have been no such attacks since 9/11) as the FBI has definitively argued. But the actual evidence presented in the case falls far short of proving it. And I'm being kind. But for most who read only the headlines, the last unsolved terrorist attack has now been sealed up and can be added to the great success of the "war on terror" where "the surge has worked" in Iraq, all is well in Afghanistan and "We're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them over here," cause that's what we've been told by the government and the American corporate media (and I dare you to explain to me the difference between the two.) Anybody who bothers to look below the headlines, to notice what America has become in the bargain – an outlaw nation of organized anarchy, wholly bereft of the watchdogs in the media, the government and the courts on whom we once we relied upon – in the years since those now-solved anthrax attacks is just a deluded, paranoid, conspiracy nut. Like Ivins. Mission Accomplished. Try not to notice the report from Associated Press last Thursday, not 24 hours after we were informed the FBI had their man. AP's lede: "The government is still searching for evidence that Bruce Ivins was solely responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks despite declaring the case solved." About this articleClose Brad Friedman: Serious questions remain over the investigation into the anthrax attacks of 2001
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Monday August 11 2008. It was last updated at 01:56 on August 12 2008. Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us  larger | smaller ShareClose Digg reddit Google Bookmarks Yahoo! My Web del.icio.us StumbleUpon Newsvine livejournal Facebook BlinkList EmailClose Recipient's email address   Your name   Add a note (optional)

I see that the news orgs are keeping on top of this, <A HREF = "Newsweek'>http://www.newsweek.com/id/151784">Newsweek has a lead: ANTHRAX The Case Still Isn’t Closed</a>.  I guess I see many gaps in the case, and feel that the pursuit of a lead is not the same as "stating that the case is closed."

I guess I also wonder why the case and the previous media frenzy of anthrax and Saddam seem so similar, almost as a script, I would like to see some investigative journalism follow the last story of pre-war allegations where the "story seems fishy"

<A HREF = "http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,987885,00.htmlhttp://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,987885,00.html">http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,987885,00.html</a>

From 1998 there was a similar Anthrax hoax where Americans were connected to Saddam, the story is below.  I have an old cartoon from the Las Vegas Sun that is illuminating and will have on my website soon...

Story below...

Monday, Mar. 02, 1998
Catching a 48-Hour Bug
By TAMALA M. EDWARDS

The talk of anthrax had been in the air for days as America focused on Saddam Hussein and his germ-making factories: of how quickly the bacteria could kill, how widely the havoc could spread, how easily the deadly spores could be obtained. And the nightmare seemed to materialize on American soil last week after the FBI arrested two men at a medical complex in Henderson, Nev. In their possession were eight to 10 flight bags containing what federal agents believed to be anthrax. More troubling was the fact that one of the men was Larry Wayne Harris, a self-styled microbiologist with white supremacist sympathies who, after an arrest in 1995 in connection with the possession of three vials of bubonic-plague bacteria, had been under a federal probation order forbidding his "conducting any experiments with or obtaining any infectious diseases, bacteria, or germs." The criminal complaint that cited the prohibition also noted that Harris had told an unidentified group last summer that he planned to release bubonic-plague germs at a New York City subway station. Tabloids in Manhattan promptly blared headlines like SUBWAY PLAGUE TERROR and FEDS NAB 2 IN TOXIC TERROR.

The trouble was that the other man arrested was William Leavitt Jr., an unlikely biowarfare blackguard. The father of three owns biomedical labs in Nevada and Germany, but was known mostly for his quiet ways, civic and business responsibility and devout Mormon life-style. Indeed, he appeared confused by the entire incident. Asked at his arraignment if he understood the charges being brought against him, he said, "Not exactly." Leavitt's lawyers said their client and Harris did not possess anthrax but were instead carrying anthrax vaccine and were testing a device that would neutralize bacterial toxins in the human body, exactly the kind of gadget a country on the verge of war with anthrax-oversupplied Iraq would be happy to develop. One of Leavitt's lawyers charged that the FBI's informant, from whom Harris and Leavitt would have bought the bacteria-neutralizing device, was a scam artist with two convictions for extortion. On Saturday the FBI said that the anthrax found was a nonlethal form used in animal vaccine. Possession of bacteria, even anthrax, is not illegal if criminal intent cannot be proved. Leavitt was released on Saturday.

Harris, who is under probation specifically over bacteria, may remain under scrutiny. A New York City tabloid called him a "mad scientist." And, if all this had been a movie, Harris might well have been sent by central casting. The 46-year-old has a full beard and a spastic eye. Then there is his home in Lancaster, Ohio. The first thing you notice when you enter Harris' world is the smell, the stench of numerous cats and dogs in a cramped bungalow. This is laced with the subtler scent of a basement filled with dried foods, stockpiled for the aftermath of the coming race war. Enter Harris' bedroom and you will find lab equipment and a refrigerator, from which Harris pulls a sample of a growth medium for cultivating biological weapons. Talking of biologically induced mass death, he nonchalantly remarked to CNN producer Henry Schuster, "A terrorist would need very little of this."

In the visit by CNN, Harris noted that "you could lose 200,000 plus in [a biological] attack"--something he labeled an inevitability. "That is merely prelude to what is gonna happen." Published reports last week had him traveling America inoculating people against anthrax. But he has a clear taste for celebrity and overblown rhetoric that worries even right-wing militiamen who see doomsday eye to eye with him. John Trochman warned members of his Montana Militia against Harris in a May 1997 newsletter and requested that he be expelled from a survivalist expo for "exhibiting weapons of mass destruction." "The lure for the terrorist is anonymity," says Brian Levin, director of the Center on Hate and Extremism at New Jersey's Stockton College. "It is counterintuitive to be a celebrity of right-wing warfare. I mean, if you were planning a terrorist attack, would you show up on TV?" Just before his arrest, Harris had taped three segments for a local Nevada TV talk show. When ABC recently sought Harris' opinion on anthrax, he told Diane Sawyer, "It's no big deal. Five-gallon container of anthrax spraying over Manhattan; 48 to 72 hours, you're looking at 500,000 people dead."

Harris is the author of a self-published book called Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America, which goes into detail about the culturing of biological agents (as well as blueprints for easy-to-make weapons to take out America's power grid), all the while arguing that this knowledge is important if Americans are to protect themselves from such threats. He first made his way onto the federal radar in the 1980s. When Harris was a student at Ohio State, his association with the Aryan Nations, a violent white separatist group, prompted the Secret Service to check him out to be sure he wasn't a threat to George Bush, who was scheduled to visit the campus. When police searched his home in 1995, they found a certificate stating that Harris had risen to the rank of lieutenant in the Aryan Nations.

In 1995 Harris used the letterhead of the food lab that employed him to order $240 worth of bubonic-plague bacteria from the American Type Culture Collection based in Rockville, Md. Alerted by a suspicious ATCC employee who contacted a colleague at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, authorities searched Harris' home and found the three vials of freeze-dried plague in the glove compartment of his car and the man himself full of bizarre excuses. Harris claimed he had ordered the plague as research for his book, which he described as a safety manual inspired partly by an Iraqi woman who told him Saddam Hussein was preparing to release supergerm-carrying rats in the U.S. Harris, however, couldn't be charged with anything stronger than mail and wire fraud. In fact, what the feds wound up doing to Harris was make him a star of sorts. Congressmen used his name in offering antiterrorism bills, and journalists came looking for the odd man who got away with ordering the plague. Now, he is the man to see about anthrax.

--With reporting by Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles

With reporting by Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles

 

 

http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=3031

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/photos/08/06/29/76901_large.jpg

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll 

Lead from Drudge Report.

LA Times leads with,

Obama, McCain agree on many once-divisive issues

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-centrists13-2008jul13,0,4649817.story

The FISA FLIP-FLOP DEBACLE CONTINUES.

Hail Senator Flip-Flop 

Where did Obama and his "advisors" imagine that his flip-flop on FISA would leave him?

I stated in previous posts that this was a tipping point.

If Obama thought that there was anything in his platform appealing to libertarians and independents aside from the FISA and associated "rule of law" issues, integrity issues, he was wrong.

I'm still amazed at the blunder, I saw Bill Richardson on CNN say that there was no issue here, move along, etc.. and CNN was showing the angry posts.

Libertarians and independents aren't your Koolaid drinking true believers, the demographic carried Obama only marginally over Clinton, and now that they are gone, burnt if you will by the flip-flop, there is no issue that follows as a second tier issue that they are coming back for.

I'll say it again, just to say I told you so.  This will go down as one of the greatest blunders in politics.

McCain will remind voters this fall that Obama flipped on FISA in a debate, and the results won't be pretty when that contrast is drawn in front of a non-caucus audience.

The DEMS I think don't want the Whitehouse, they want an executive that they can blame for everything in 2009.

If that vote on FISA was about making a clear case choice between Republican and Democratic choice for POTUS, and Obama couldn't deliver the support for that clear contrast, well he frankly deserved the result.

NewsWeek reporting that close in the polls and the lack of online contributions are only the beginning of fallout from alienating the precise segment that got him where he is at.

Obama is surrounded by a echo chamber of aides and yes men, the campaigning made him unresponsive to the crowds, people not people but another handshake from an already hurting hand, and... Obama divorced from sensibilities and listening to the preaching to the choir, committed a blunder taking for granted the group that decides US elections.

I guess he was not smart enough to understand the one wedge issue that he had this fall...

he blew it.

 

If she did? Did it cost her the candidacy? I mean would that have prevented some of the close wins?

My bet is that Obama suffers a 3% drop in support as voters who supported him on principle resort to a second level issue to make a distinction and cast a vote.

From what I gathered on the primaries I see that 15% to 18% of voters decided the candidate of their parties.

I saw that the GOP had a steady 3 to 5 % turnout for Ron Paul, independents and "principled" voters, similarily the numbers at Obama website indicate 2% of the total; 20 thousand protesting.

My point is this, that those who would take a principled stand against FISA and amnesty, and after immunity is granted, will make a next level decision or second tier decision of support.

It might be based on smaller government, gun rights, or other rather libertarian ideals, but with the FISA issue off the table, easily a 5 percent shift could occur.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is already using Obama's FISA flip-flop to attack the senator.

"Over the past several weeks, Barack Obama has made it increasingly difficult to take him at his word on anything," wrote John McCain's senior policy advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin in a memo sent out to the press Monday morning. "After pledging to accept public financing, he decided not to. After saying he would debate 'anywhere, anytime,' he decided against participating in any of the 10 joint town hall meetings.  After backing the D.C. handgun ban, he now says it was unconstitutional. After pledging to filibuster the FISA bill, he voted for it."

The real point is that Obama has been caught in a circumstance where he can't flip-flop out of the flip-flop he is in.

My bet is that the moderate, libertarian, and independent voter evaluates the support differently after this vote, and I bet that McCain and his campaign will find ample opportunities to point out that they must vote in the absence of this FISA distinction within the choice.

Arguing that those votes will go third party is not wise, asked to evaluate who has a legacy with this independent voter segment from 2000, and who has been historically more sympathetic to libertarian ideals, Obama painted as big-government flip flopper was the one break McCain needed as an issue as a summer wears on.

It has not been a kind year for the favorites, Obama made that trend easier by allienating voters who supported him on the "FISA principle of no immunity" and the people who care about this issue don't equate "principles" with "compromise."

Repeating "Flip-Flop" and "compromising principles promised" makes the McCain message easier.

This issue this fall, can make big states close if Obama cannot close the deal with Catholics and Independents.

A principled stand on FISA was one of the few wedge issues that Obama had with libertarians and independents.

He now no longer has it and McCain will not allow the voter to forget it.

It was a mistake that I'll come back to as the election nears to a conclusion.