If this is the attitude of the investigative reporter CNN has put on the trooper-gate case, I guess we shouldn't be expecting much from them.

From the WSJ ...

The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.

The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.

According to a article just out from Huffington Post, the story about flags from the Democratic National Convention being thrown away is simply false. The story was jumped on and apparently authored by the McCain campaign. But the real tell is down in the Huffpo piece where it traces the story to none other than Fox News' Carl Cameron.

Longtime readers of TPM will remember that back in October 2004 this site caught Cameron publishing a series of fabricated quotes attributed to John Kerry on the front page of the Fox News website.

After I placed a series of calls to Fox News inquiring about the Kerry story, the story was eventually pulled, and Fox was forced to issue an apology and retract the fabricated story. Fox spokesman Paul Schur told TPM: "Carl [Cameron] made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment. It was a poor attempt at humor."

Why anybody would believe anything this joker says is difficult to fathom. But he's good enough for McCain.

Reed Hundt has more on McCain's apparent obstruction of the trooper-gate probe.

Isn't Palin supposed to move to Cheney's undisclosed location after she gets elected, not before?

It always brings a tear to my eye when I see the Grey Lady hopping on the McCain tire swing. But there she goes. Yesterday the McCain campaign was all mum on the Walter Reed/Green Screen goof until deep in the evening when they released some pro forma bamboozlement to the effect that it was all on purpose. They mean to highlight the middle school.

From the Times report ...

"The changing image-screen was linked to the American thematics of the speech and the public school was simply part of it," Mr. Bounds said, adding that during the speech, Mr. McCain "called for public education reforms that empower parents and students before bureaucrats and labor unions."

Sadly, the Times actually went for that explanation. And even more bizarrely, Timesman Michael Falcone actually bought the idea that the McCain campaign wouldn't want to highlight the real Walter Reed because of the controversy over its treatment of Iraq and Afghanistan war vets.

However that may be, a few problems with the idea that this wasn't a goof. One is that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was admitting it was a goof at party's after the speech and telling reporters that Fred Davis, McCain's ad man, was at fault.

But you don't need the inside scoop to know what happened here. Those who watched the convention closely know that through the event, the screen backdrop had rotating video of what Bounds called "images of Americana." Stuff would cycle in and out.

But that's not what happened with McCain. Our crack analysts at TPM HQ pulled the tape. And what happened in McCains case was that the green screen was up for 5 or 6 minutes. Then it got pulled. It was replaced briefly by a cornfield. And then after a few moments of that it was the picture of the flag, which appeared as a blue screen to viewers on tv. That remained through McCain's entire speech. No more changes. It was pretty clear that someone on McCain's staff realized the goof a few minutes into the speech, cancelled the pre-programmed order of images and hurriedly slotted in flag image to save the day.

Newsweek: McCain camp and its Alaska allies move to shut down trooper-gate probe.

Definitely take a look at the Newsweek article. Also take note of the following, that we're going to be looking into next week. Within days of Palin's selection, at least seven of her aides and associates, who had previously agreed to cooperate with the trooper-gate investigation, informed investigator Steve Branchflower that they were now no longer willing to be deposed. Note too that this was immediately after the McCain team deployed what George Stephanopoulos reported was a "rapid response team of about ten operatives that includes lawyers" to the state.

So the question is: what contact did representatives of the McCain campaign have with these aides that had agreed to testify but within days of her selection took back their pledge and are now refusing to cooperate?

That school out in North Hollywood that John McCain shameless exploited as his convention speech backdrop is calling foul.

Meanwhile, the McCain camp, despite requests for comment from almost every media organization under the sun, is refusing all comment.

(Remember, just between you and me, at that party last night Rick Davis was blaming it on their ad man Fred Davis.)

I'm officially laughing my head off at the McCain camp's -- oh, sorry, 'Drudge's' -- attempt to bully Oprah into doing a puff interview with Sarah Palin.

TPM Reader SR ...

I hope you are penning something to this effect: that the Walter Reed mix-up last night is indicative of GOP politics and policy-- that is, injured troops are merely political props, and even then the GOP can't get it right. If they can't get the actual Walter Reed up on screen as a political ploy, how can we possible expect their competence in addressing the needs of actual veterans at the actual Walter Reed?

The investigators up in Alaska have come out with their press release announcing how they plan to deal with Gov. Palin's stonewalling of the trooper-gate investigation. It seems Palin has now gotten seven others to also refuse to speak to the investigators (they all signaled their refusal to testify post-Palin announcement). And they've now decided to meet on September 12th to decide whether or not to issue subpoenas to compel testimony. However, they will not issue a subpoena for Palin herself. Why? The press release from the investigators says it's because: "She has told the public that she intends to cooperate with the investigation, indeed, she has told the public that she welcomes the investigation and I have every faith that she means it."

Now, this is a bit artful since just two days ago Gov. Palin made clear that she will not cooperate with the investigation. She is insisting that she will only provide testimony once the committee closes down its investigation and allows the probe to be taken over by the State Personnel Board made up of three members appointed by the governor. So she's saying she's not going to cooperate but they're insisting on taking her at her earlier promises to cooperate.

Now, there's some backstory here that's critical to understand. The point-man for the committee which voted to start the probe is Democrat Hollis French. However, the committee, that voted unanimously to begin the probe has a Republican majority.

So what if Palin just absolutely refuses to testify and continues to stonewall?

TPMmuckraker's Zack Roth just spoke to GOP Rep Jay Ramras, also a member of the committee. And he says no, that even if Palin refuses to cooperate, compelling her to testify would be "inappropriate conduct given the unique political circumstances" and "disrespectful."

From Ambinder ...

A senior McCain campaign official advises that, despite the gaggle of requests and pressure from the media, Gov. Sarah Palin won't submit to a formal interview anytime soon. She may take some questions from local news entities in Alaska, but until she's ready -- and until she's comfortable -- which might not be for a long while -- the media will have to wait. The campaign believes it can effectively deal with the media's complaints, and their on-the-record response to all this will be: "Sarah Palin needs to spend time with the voters."

Not out of the question are appearances on lighter, fluffier television shows. But -- not for a while.

Okay, seems like the finger-pointing is breaking out in the McCain campaign over the green screen / Walter Reed / McCain McMansion goof in last night's McCain speech.

Last night at the Google/Vanity Fair party celebrating the last night of the RNC, McCain chief Rick Davis was telling people the whole thing was the fault of McCain ad man Fred Davis.

MJ Rosenberg ...

You would never know it from the media coverage but John McCain is not one of America's greatest war heroes. He is a former POW who survived, heroically. He deserves to be honored for that heroism.

But one thing distinguishes McCain from other war heroes, the kind whose heroism changes history rather than their life stories.

America's two greatest war heroes were Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower. Grant saved the union. And Ike saved civilization.

And neither one ever bragged about their experience. (Can you imagine Ike smacking down Adlai Stevenson by saying that while Adlai ran a nice medium-sized state, he was the Supreme Allied Commander who ran D-Day, defeated Hitler, and liberated Europe?).

Impossible. Like Grant, Eisenhower did not brag.

The big papers and cable networks in the lower 48 states may be cowed. But Alaska's biggest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News apparently isn't. They're asking Sarah Palin to stop stonewalling the ethics investigation probing her firing of the state's Commissioner of Public Safety.

So it seems that that school in North Hollywood that the McCain campaign accidentally used as a speech backdrop instead of a picture of Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital is about to release a statement.

From TPM Reader TH ...

I think there's a connection between the mansion-cum-middle school picture and the lousy speech prepared for McCain. It has to do with the stress that Palin's nomination puts on the GOP ticket, on the resources she necessarily diverts from McCain. Whatever you think of the Palin speech, whether it was cynical or alienating to anyone outside the base, it was solidly written. I'd even say well written. McCain's wasn't. It was decidedly second rate, not just badly delivered but clumsily written (except for the part about his POW experience, which I assume he has on file: that worked). How did that happen? Everyone knows McCain is a bad public speaker, so one would assume his campaign would it least give him a rock solid text to work from. But I suspect the campaign only has so many first-rate people on hand, and all of those people in the McCain campaign were tasked with taking care of Palin, leaving the top of the ticket to the second-stringers.

As noted below, it seems like we may have solved the mystery of the bizarre mansion they had up behind John McCain last night on the big TV screen that on TV made it look like a green screen. We're digging in to confirm. Click for the whole story.

I've been wondering about this phrase from McCain's speech: "We have to catch up to history." So much was going on tonight at the office that I didn't get a chance to really focus on it. In the back of my mind, though, I was thinking, what does he even mean?

But is this really a catch phrase you want to be using if you're an older guy who doesn't use email and hasn't learned how to log on to your own website?

I mean, John, we're already here, speak for yourself.

A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? As I noted below, the TV close-ups only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions.

Well, several readers have written in to tell me that the building is actually the main building on the campus of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. And sure enough, this page on the school's website makes it pretty clear that they're correct.

You can compare below ...

(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Readers JR and EK for cluing us in.)

Late Update: I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.

(ed.note: Special bonus snark: That's not stock photo keyword searching we can believe in.)

Greetings Folks --

As I'm sure a lot of you have seen we've had some problems this week with reader blogging and comments, principally delays but also server errors and the double posting that can result from the combination of the two.

So I wanted to take a moment to explain what's going on and what we're doing about it.

Read more »

(Publisher's Note: I want to give a shout out to the TPM staff. At the moment we have ten full-time employees, each of whom has put in two weeks straight of something like 15 to 18 hour days on convention nights. David Kurtz and Ben Craw in Denver and St. Paul and the rest of the crew working out of TPM HQ in New York -- Justin Elliott, Andrew Golis, Eric Kleefeld, Kate Klonick, Zachary Roth, Greg Sargent, Lila Shapiro and Al Shaw. And interns John Davisson, Ezra Deutsch-Feldman, Daniel Gatti and Rachel Slajda. As we grow, we're developing new ways to expand the scope and comprehensiveness of the coverage we provide for events like these. We've learned a lot these two weeks, which we'll be applying in our debate and election night coverage over the next two months. And I've been really happy with the results. I hope you've enjoyed our coverage. -- jmm.)

I wasn't sure what to expect from this speech tonight. But I was pretty sure, as high-stakes conventions speeches almost always end up being, that it would be good. But I really don't think it was. It certainly wasn't bad. He didn't say anything embarrassing or have any real flubs. But the truth is that John McCain does have, at least for a critical five years of his life, a compelling story. And for a relatively brief period of the speech, toward the end, he spoke about it powerfully. But there wasn't that much of it. The rest of the speech, when condensed to its essence, seemed to be that he'll turn the page on the Bush era by continuing all of Bush's policies.

Among the surprises, perhaps the biggest one was that it actually wasn't a very good speech. Not in the sense of delivery, but the speech itself, the speech-writing. There wasn't a clear theme, though it approached on toward the end. Most of it was a fairly tired recital of Republican boilerplate. Did they really devote like ten minutes to charter schools? It was much, much too long for the speaker. I really think they could have given him a much better speech.

Another surprise? What happened to the days when the Republicans were the masters of stagecraft and theatrics. They had him up with there with a set that on TV looked like the notorious green screen from the speech in New Orleans. Even Karl Rove, on Fox, pointed it out.

And when they panned out to see what the audience in the convention hall saw, it was some unidentified mansion. Like maybe a house they're putting in an offer on? Weird. No idea what that was about.

I'll have more thoughts tomorrow. But I thought the delivery was acceptable but tired. The speech itself let the candidate down. I can't imagine the folks at Obama HQ didn't look at each other and say, "Okay, we can deal with that."

Yes, for all of you who've written in, we also just saw Tom Ridge slip and say "Because John Bush, er, John McCain is his own man."

10:15 PM ... Green Screen!!!

10:19 PM ... Green, Baby, Green!

10:23 PM ... I'm so glad President Bush is president. Now, let's win this election and get this country back on track.

10:26 PM ... I loved the part with the ritual slaughter of the protester. That rocked. That was the best thing since the Lord of the Flies interlude between the Rudy and Palin speeches last night.

10:33 PM ... Can we bring in a few shrinks on that one. This is a guy most known for having a bad temper and getting into a lot of fights. He's known for it.

10:35 PM ... I won't stand for Obama shilling for the oil companies! Enough!!! Four years of Obama oil-shilling is enough! Also, Enough!

10:38 PM ... Can we get Palin back?

10:40 PM ... It's astonishing that he's giving this whole speech from memory.

10:44 PM ... Did anyone else notice this? A few lines back I think he called for abolishing unemployment insurance. Here's the line: "I know some of you have been left behind in the changing economy and it often seems your government hasn't even noticed. Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That's going to change on my watch."

10:46 PM ... I remember back in '64 when Barry Goldwater first said 'Drill, baby, drill."

10:50 PM ... TPM Reader PT: "What are the odds Governor Palin drops McCain from the ticket? After a performance like this, it's a serious question."

10:53 PM ... I'm trying to be objective in this. But this seems pretty feeble, no? What actually surprises me is that the speech itself, not the delivery but the speech, doesn't seem that great. A lot of laundry list stuff.

10:57 PM ... They/he should have started with biography. Much more compelling than the boilerplate that made up most of the speech.

11:01 PM ... I question the wisdom of not letting anyone in the auditorium under 50.

11:02 ... Nothing brings so much happiness as betraying all the ideals you said you believed in to try to take advantage of your last chance to be president.

11:08 PM ... I'm insulted that McCain uses a lifeless speech to hide his lack of specific policy proposals.

That was a pretty powerful video. But they left off the part about how that guy died ... what, six years ago?

From the Boston Globe blog ...

One of the most enduring taboos in American politics, the airing of graphic images from the September 11 attacks in a partisan context, died today. It was nearly seven years old.

The informal prohibition, which had been occasionally threatened by political ads in recent years, was pronounced dead at approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers' subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.

The September 11 precedent was one of the few surviving campaign-season taboos. It is survived by direct comparisons of one's opponents to Hitler.

My God, John McCain's never become a Washington Insider? My God. Hero, war hero, Maverick, any of them I could buy before that one. You could only say that if you've never lived in DC.

They left out the part about how John was married when they started dating.

Very cogent on Palin's mockery of 'community organizers' ...

Gauge-Howey Indiana poll: McCain 45%, Obama 43%.

I watched a lot of Obama's convention. But I don't remember this level of personality cult gushed up around him.

Palin increased funding for infrastructure in Wasilla without raising taxes? Wasn't the money from the federal earmarks?

The original Maverick asked Karl Rove if he could pick Joe Lieberman for vice president. Karl said no. The Maverick said okay.

Identity politics certainly has its shortcomings on the left. I've pointed it out in various contexts. But like in so many things, there's nothing compared to the cartoonish excess of identity politics when practiced by the right. Supporters of Hillary aren't just encouraged to vote for McCain because of Sarah Palin. They obligated to. An off-hand remark by Barack Obama and he's playing the race card. But from what I can tell, these jokers aren't even pretending. It's sexist to accuse Sarah Palin of lying daily about her purported opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere. And there's no end of raging about all the journalists who are saying Palin shouldn't be vice president when ... who's saying that. This is actually a deeper pattern worth exploring. Right-wingers can't handle CNN so they create Fox. And the funniest thing is that a lot of them actually think the two are basically equal.

I thought President Bush ordered the surge.

From Jake Tapper ...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sent out a fundraising solicitation today that charged that "the Obama/Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain."

I asked spokespeople of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee just which "Obama/Biden Democrats" they're referring to.

The response I got was that Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski erroneously attacked Palin as a supporter of Pat Buchanan.

That's it. That's the evidence.

An attack on Palin herself.

Someone tell me when the free ride's over.

Thanks

Sarah Palin's Unitary Theory of the Alaska Governorship.

Palin: Community service is for losers and freaks.

The basketball court line got the headlines. But Barack Obama's statements today on camera were, I think, exactly right. Brush off the insults, turn every question back to John McCain. He's running against John McCain. Don't get distracted.

When he's right, he's right. Chris Matthews is, as I write, whacking away at the GOP spinners claiming all the press criticism saying Sarah Palin shouldn't be vice president because she's the mother of young children. Who said that?

Convention speech as passion play?

Rep. Lynn Westermoreland (R-GA): Obama's too "uppity."

As you know, despite earlier promises to the contrary, Sarah Palin is now refusing to cooperate with the trooper-gate investigation. Her lawyer now says she will refuse to be deposed unless the head of the current investigation relinquishes control and hands the investigation over to the state Personnel Board made up of three of Gov. Palin's appointees. We've been trying to see whether Palin's argument has any merit under Alaska law. And the former Alaska Attorney General we just spoke to told us, in essence, that it's a bunch of bunk.

Not surprising, since the whole gambit is an effort to push any depositions out past the election.

I've posted links below to a couple focus groups on the Palin speech last night. If you've seen others, either in press write ups or discussed on cable news, can you send them along?

Fired Alaska Public Safety Commissioner at the center of trooper-gate scandal says Palin is not telling the truth.

I'm certainly not saying this will be the across the board response. And self-identified Republicans loved Palin's speech. But a focus group of Michigan independents did not like it.

Late Update: Focus groups of female undecideds in Nevada didn't seem to like it either.

You'd think Dan Balz would be a little gun-shy after getting burned on that first Palin vetting story. I guess not.

I know I'm swimming upstream against a stiff current. But I'll stick to my first impression. I think Mike Allen is nuts to call the Palin speech a grand slam. For partisan Republicans, absolutely. It's a bad year for Republicans and the desire for something or someone to get excited about is palpable. And they got it. But there's only so much more consolidating of the Republican base McCain can do. As good as her delivery was, I really don't think this was a speech that spoke to the issues that are driving the election this year. I don't think it's a slashing attacks against liberal elites kind of year. And as much as politics is about gut reactions and instinct, I don't think ignoring any discussion of the economy this year works. Finally, fundamentally, I do think this is a change election year. And I don't think that was a change speech. Not a convincing one.

As I said, I could totally be wrong. Just my opinion.

Also significant, while the networks have gotten distracted about the kid nonsense, Palin has a serious issue with a lot of on the record lies -- on a serious front with trooper-gate and on a lighter front with the repeated lies about the bridge to nowhere.

Through August, as the McCain campaign laid down a blanket of harsh and denigrating ads diminishing Obama and the Obama camp receded into the background with little clear message defining the election for up-for-grabs voters, I felt increasingly concerned about the course of the race. After this, I don't feel that way.

Late Update: I just saw James Fallows' take on this. I think he's got it right.

Everybody has seen that Campbell Brown interview of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds that the McCain campaign got so upset about. But there was another Brown interview with the McCain camp's Michael Duhaime over the weekend that was almost as rough and had the same sarcastic defensiveness from the McCain yakker. You can see the tone get set in this earlier encounter ...

Starting tomorrow, the Democrats can and must come back hard on this issue of "reform". McCain/Palin reform is just ... well, there's nothing. It's an overused phrase but it is all rhetoric. Not only has their party been in power for 8 years. But every policy pushed by John McCain is the one embraced by George Bush. Economic policy, tax policy, Iraq policy, social issues, Bush style politicking, everything. I'm not sure how many people agree with me. But I think the rhetorical 'reform' of McCain/Palin is like a big, imposing and very brittle vase. A few good hits and it'll break apart in a thousand pieces.

They've been in power for eight years. They support all of Bush's policies. And they say they're bringing reform? Smack it with ridicule and an undertone of contempt and it will fall right apart.

Anybody notice anything odd about this part of the transcript of the Palin speech released to the press?

Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more new-clear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.

Is Sarah Palin really comparing herself to Harry Truman since he only served as vice president for a few months?

11:06 PM ... This really does put the party in party rally.

11:07 PM ... A few other thoughts. You'll notice that Rudy Giuliani apparently ran too long and they had to drop the Palin mini-movie that was supposed to introduce her speech. Normally people get fired for goofs like that. They didn't want Rudy's blood and iron speech the day after Gustav so they bumped it until tonight. Big mistake. He positively dripped with a kind of curdled anger, the origin of which is difficult to grasp. But he actually seemed to get angrier and angrier as the speech progressed -- off chopping his hands around, baring his teeth. I know the people in the hall loved it. But I think a lot of people will see it as whacked. Rancid. Curdled. Palin's speech ended up being much more partisan than I expected. But that was added to by the fact that she had to start her speech while the auditorium was still awash in the teeth-gnashing froth ginned up by Rudy's speech. I've seen political events that I totally got and others that I thought I got but was totally wrong about. So who knows? But take this as a sign that the McCain campaign has abandoned an effort to compete for swing voters and go back to the base energizing strategy that worked for President Bush in 2004. The numbers make that look like a tough proposition. But I think a few months from now, everyone will agree this was a mistake.

With Rudy's speech, to riff on the brilliance of the immortal Molly Ivins, I think I preferred this speech in the original German.

On a more serious note, I think it will eventually be clear to people that the Republicans made a major mistake putting Rudy in prime time. Given the state of the campaign, they have to take the fight to Obama. But you need to choose the right person. Rudy comes across as curdled and angry. Great for rousing diehards. But I don't see this speech working with undecideds.

10:27 PM ... What's weird is that Rudy seems to get genuinely angrier the longer the speech goes on.

I will admit he's got the Joseph Goebbels hand gestures down pat.

Back when Mike Huckabee said the "first thing we have to do as a Republican party is stop being a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the corporations" ...

In a bit we'll have the passage in Huckabee's speech tonight that seemed slightly in tension with these earlier remarks.

Massachusetts venture capitalist and governor Mitt Romney is lashing out against the "eastern elite".

Now demanding change from the liberalism of the last eight years.

Calls Democrats party of Big Brother after embracing torture and domestic spying.

"Tyrannosaurus appetite of government unions" ... rolls off the tongue.

It would appear that John McCain has embraced the Russia-is-next-to-Alaska theory of why Sarah Palin isn't as lacking in foreign policy experience as she seems.

From a new interview from ABC ...

Alaska is right next to Russia. She understands that. Look, Sen. Obama's never visited south of our border. I mean, please.

...

Gov. Palin knows the surge has succeeded. She's the commander of the Alaskan National Guard. He said that Iran was a tiny problem. He's never visited south of our border. He has no experience on these issues.

She has been in charge and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities. Sen. Obama has never had a position of responsibility to do with many of those responsibilities. I'm proud of her vision. I'm proud of her strength.

It's sad that it's come to this.

Needless to say, Gov. Palin has no commander authority over the Alaska National Guard whatsoever in any cases tied even remotely to national security.

Washington Independent digs up example of Palin crowing about bagging a pricey earmark.

This earmark, of course, was one John McCain singled out as egregious pork.

From some reader ...

Conveniently, Gallup released new numbers this afternoon that allow us to quantify the divergent trends you've fingered. In the three days following Palin's selection, McCain brought his level of support among Republican women up five points to 90%, and eliminated his nagging gender gap. But that's just within the GOP. Independents and Democrats reacted to Palin's selection by turning to Obama - and his gains have more than offset McCain's, leaving him with a substantial lead.

I think we've now arrived at my favorite moment of the campaign -- when Steve Schmidt, the Rove protege who now runs John McCain's campaign lashed out at the "old boys' network" that runs the media.

Palin aide, who had agreed to testify in trooper-gate probe, clams up, refuses to testify.

Just watch (the voices are Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan) ...

And if you're interested, the transcript ...

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PN: It's over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

Since there is widespread agreement that the children of candidates should not become topics of campaign debate, it behooves us to note that the McCain campaign has almost singlehandedly made Sarah Palin's daughter a central figure in the Republican convention.

It was the McCain campaign that announced Palin's daughter's pregnancy. That alone might be understandable since it appears a supermarket tabloid was about to print the story. But it was the McCain campaign, entirely on its own, that dished up unsubstantiated claims about maternity tests and all sorts of other lurid nonsense that had never been seen in print anywhere. And now the McCain campaign has staged a ceremonial laying-on-of-hands on the tarmac in St. Paul in which Sen. McCain has given his official blessing to the young couple and embrace of Bristol's boyfriend Levi.

You can see brief video of the event here ...

Let's be clear about what's happening here. Overwhelmingly, reporters are pressing eminently reasonable questions -- her role in troopergate, her lack of experience, her connections to the AIP, her history of earmarking and lobbyists, etc. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is going absolutely non-stop about Palin's daughter. It is unmistakable.

The public discussion of the Palin nomination has settled into two contending storylines -- Palin as trainwreck of a poorly vetted nomination and Palin sending base conservatives and right-wing evangelicals into ascending heights of reactionary delirium.

But this is not as big a contradiction as it may appear.

The race to date has been characterized by two key facts.

First, the Democratic base is bigger than the Republican base. The number of self-identifying Democrats is substantially larger that the number of Republican-identifiers.

Second, contrary to what we might have imagined earlier in the year, Republicans have already been substantially more united behind McCain than Democrats have been behind Obama. I would not have predicted that. But the polls have been extremely consistent on this point.

In other words, the GOP 'base' was already substantially united behind McCain, subjective measures of intensity notwithstanding. The people who will win the election for McCain are disaffected Democrats and independents. In the context of 2008, a juicing-the-base strategy is a recipe for a respectable defeat, not victory.

Late Update: Here's David Kurtz's video update just filed from St. Paul on how GOP convention-goers are warming to Sarah Palin ...

From an insider and longtime friend of the site ...

Either McCain's vetting process was a complete sham. Or his press operation is the worst in modern presidential politics history. Or some unholy blend of both.

Campbell Brown isn't the story - people are underestimating her, as they always have. No, the story is that Tucker Bounds went on national television without material to answer what is maybe the simplest, most straightforward follow-up question any reporter can ask: "What's your evidence for that assertion?" And I suspect that the reason they canceled Larry King is not to punish CNN (it doesn't work that way) it's that they still couldn't come up with an answer to the question by the time his show aired.

Now look at this comment from McCain honcho Steve Schmidt to Katie Couric last night: "Members of this campaign went to off-the-record lunches with reporters today, and they were asked if she would do paternity tests to prove paternity for her last child. Smear after smear after smear, and it's disgraceful and it's wrong. And the American people are going to reject it overwhelmingly when they see her."

First of all, that's the first time I've heard anyone in the campaign/political press throw out the notion of paternity tests. So Schmidt is to blame for bringing that issue into the mainstream. If anyone is smearing the candidate, it's Schmidt. This is as cynical a tactic as I've ever seen in politics.

Secondly, how can it be a "smear" if it was during an off the record lunch with McCain campaign aides?

Thirdly, hey, colleagues, you're on notice: Steve Schmidt does not respect "off the record." Watch your backs, my friends.

It didn't take long. We've already brought you news of the official investigation into Gov. Palin's firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Steve Branchflower, the lead investigator, began trying to arrange a deposition of the governor days before her veep selection. And despite claiming executive privilege to shield requested emails, up until that point Palin had promised full cooperation with the probe.

Now, however, she is refusing to submit to questioning by Branchflower unless he and the legislative committee that appointed him agree to relinquish control of the investigation and turn it over to a state review board made up of three Palin appointees.

Yesterday, Palin took the unusual step of having her lawyer, Thomas van Flein, file an ethics complaint against her with the state's Attorney General. This, she hopes, will lead the AG to give the investigation to the aforementioned state personnel board. Unless that happens, and Branchflower agrees to close down his investigation, she will refuse to testify.

There's quite a tear-jerking piece in the Post by Howard Kurtz today about the McCain campaign's wailing about the media treatment of their botched veep roll-out ...

Sen. John McCain's top campaign strategist accused the news media Tuesday of being "on a mission to destroy" Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by displaying "a level of viciousness and scurrilousness" in pursuing questions about her personal life.

In an extraordinary and emotional interview, Steve Schmidt said his campaign feels "under siege" by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child's parentage.

...

Schmidt, a former spokesman for President Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talked openly about his frustrations in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the McCain camp is in the middle of the worst media "feeding frenzy" he has ever seen.

Schmidt, by the way, is one of the most hard-boiled GOP operatives and Rove proteges around. I guess he and his McCain colleagues missed the whole Rev. Wright episode, Clinton impeachment episode and, what, maybe twenty other episodes over recent years.

It's also notable that while virtually all the aggressive questioning of Palin has been on her troopergate scandal, her manifest lack of qualifications, ties to a political party that embraces secession, etc. Schmidt focused on stories that if you look closely were actually never written. Yes, there was a storm of speculation on blogs. And maybe reporters followed up with inquiries. But who published any of it? Think about that for a second.

The McCain camp is using the rumors about Palin's family as a cudgel to beat back entirely legitimate questions -- which may amount to a feeding frenzy -- about Palin's political record, alleged pattern of abuse of the power of her office and political associations. When you see Steve Schmidt getting weepy, believe me, you're getting played.

Compare and contrast ...

One of the fun things about running TPM is that over time we're building a cadre of TPM alums out reporting for other news organizations. And this week, TPM alum Laura McGann, who broke the Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) house deal story for TPMmuckraker last year, is up on location in Alaska reporting on Sarah Palin. You can see her running series of posts here.

David Kurtz just caught up with famed GOP dirty trickster and hatchet man Roger Stone who explained how he'll be "taking the wood" to Obama over the next eight weeks.

Is the RNC blue screen an homage to the McCain green screen speech?

Why did Fred Thompson accuse Barack Obama of not opposing infanticide?

Think I'm exaggerating? Look at his words ...

And we need a President who doesn't think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade.

And McCain approved it.

We're getting ready to watch Joe Lieberman sing his song of love to John McCain and the Republican party. So we thought it might be a good moment for a stroll down memory lane. Through the kindness of strangers, we've been given access to the Joe for Prez 2004 archives. So as Joe gets ready to mouth the GOP's talking points, we'd like to bring you this short clip reel of Lieberman just four short years ago ...

From TPM Reader BJ ...

On the RNC website they have a clock that shows the time: "Since Joe Biden's last gaffe". Perhaps the Democrats should put up a clock of their own, the time: "Since Sarah Palin last took questions from the media".

In all seriousness, I'm curious why the fact that the McCain campaign has been keeping Palin (the Vice Presidential nominee of their party) in virtual isolation isn't a larger part of the media narrative? To my knowledge she has made only two public appearances since the announcement, giving the same speech twice. Her scheduled appearance today (a speech sponsored by a Pro-life group) at the RNC was cancelled.

With only sixty days until the election, isn't it fair to ask the McCain campaign when Vice Presidential nominee of their party, and someone who's views we know little about, is going to be allowed to take questions from the media? Or do they feel that the American public doesn't deserve to know her views and that we should just vote for their ticket because they say she's a good person?

David Kurtz reports from inside the Xcel Center. Sure are a lot of empty seats ...

So if John McCain decides he needs to heave Sarah Palin overboard, just how would the mechanics work and how easy would it be? Josh Green talked to the experts and found out just how it would work.

Like I said earlier, I think the chances of this happening are remote. Because as bad as making a stupid veep pick is, admitting it would be far more damaging. And the evangelicals would probably desert him en masse. Still it's fun to know how it would work.

From TPM Reader DS ...

Why is everyone letting the McCain camp get away with saying Palin's selection somehow breaks the "glass ceiling" as Kay Hutchison just did on MSNBC. There has already been a female nominee for VP. The Democrats broke that one nearly 25 years ago.

Putting the screaming headlines aside, Ed Kilgore explains why Sarah Palin's ties to the Alaska Independence Party matter.

If he can't stand up to Larry King, how can he stand up to ... well, anybody?

After Campbell Brown's interview with McCain's spokesman Tucker Bounds last night, McCain is pulling out of an interview tonight with Larry King.

We'll have more shortly.

Here's the 'offending' interview in question ...

Todd Palin, husband of Sarah, was a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party from 1995 through 2002. That's the information we just got from the Alaska Division of elections.

Probably not coincidentally, 2002 was the first time Sarah Palin ran for statewide office in Alaska.

McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis: "This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

From Bloomberg ...

Former Texas Senator Phil Gramm, who stepped aside as John McCain's campaign co-chairman in July after an uproar over comments that those worried about the U.S. economy are ``whiners,'' today revisited that sentiment.

``If you're sitting here today, you're not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner, so I'm not worried about who you're going to vote for,'' Gramm told supporters of McCain at a Financial Services Roundtable event in Minneapolis on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.

With the proviso that tracking polls are very sketchy indicators of of where a race stands, today's results from Gallup and Rasmussen appear to show a clear trend. Gallup has Obama moving to 50% for the first time ever, with an 8 point margin over John McCain (50% - 42%). Meanwhile, Rasmussen has Obama at 51% with a 6 point margin when 'leaners' are factored in (51%-45%).

I cannot stress too much that tracking polls are very volatile, susceptible both to statistical news and ephemeral wobbliness in candidate support.

But in line with a number of regular polls out in the last 24 hours, they show a clear trend. Obama's bounce appears to be continuing and expanding during the RNC. And if you look closer at the numbers, the trend is not so much McCain losing support as a clear movement of hitherto undecideds into Obama's column.

Back early in the Bush administration, Sarah Palin and Jack Abramoff shared a lobbyist.

I think TPM Reader JL may be on to something ...

Just a thought, and I doubt I'm the first to think it. Watching that surprising video of Cambell Brown taking Tucker Bounds to the cleaners', I wondered if perhaps what I was really seeing was a mainstream press that is furious with McCain for having embarrassed them. Even if Palin drops out by the end of the week, and Pawlenty or Romney or whomever gets on board and we begin take two of the entire thing, I can't imagine that the press will have retained their abiding love of McCain. After all, they're the ones who nurtured his straight-talkin'-maverick image, and now he has appeared to throw it in their faces. They probably had reporting packages ready to go for all of the other VP possibilities, and nothing for Palin. So it wasn't just the GOP brass McCain was flipping off with this pick--it was his "base," the media. My overall sense of yesterday's coverage was that covering him just wasn't any fun anymore. And those feelings might well last into November.

I think the reason may be slightly different. A lot of Washington reporters have spent a decade loving John McCain. Just a few days ago a friend of mine who was once among the courted explained to me just how different and successful McCain was in the courtship. Off the cuff, frank, entirely accessible. Because of all that, a lot of these people got heavily invested in the maverick and straight-talker image. I'll be honest: back in 2000 and probably until 2002 I was pretty invested in it. Why a lot of people have held on through the last half dozen years of contrary evidence is another question. But the Palin pick is that paradigm-breaking piece of evidence that takes you from 'maverick' to 'reckless' or worse. And claiming that Palin has 'military command' experience as head of the Alaska National Guard gets you from "straight talker' to 'bullshit artist'.

I think you get a feel for the breakdown in this exchange between CNN's Campbell Brown and McCain's Tucker Bounds last night on CNN ...

As some of you know I keep an eye on the political futures markets at Intrade.com. And I've been wondering whether they'd open a contract on whether Sarah Palin would make it to November, let alone the White House. And sure enough, here it is. Still a long shot at 15% odds of it happening. But up 12 points so far today.

For what it's worth, even though I hinted that I thought we might be going there over the weekend, we should not underestimate the massive forces standing in the way of canning Palin.

The consequences of what I think everyone can now see was a bad decision are huge. The consequences of admitting it was a mistake are something like catastrophic. Much of the remainder of the campaign, I think, would devolve into a picking over of just what McCain was thinking. So while McCain's strategy is based on running on his purportedly superior judgment, much of the campaign coverage would focus on his demonstrably bad judgment.

Also, a very big deal, though not quite as big, would be the effect on conservative evangelicals. Putting Palin on the ticket seems to have finally brought many of them squarely into the McCain camp. Tossing her overboard could be lethal with this critical Republican constituency.

They're in a tight spot.

Late Update: 8:54 AM ... Now it's at 18.

In one of the stories yesterday about Palin's hiring of a lawyer -- which we now find out she's having the state of Alaska pay for -- I noted that her new counsel, Thomas Van Flein, asked the lead investigator in the case to turn over all witness statements and documents produced so far in the probe. That struck me not as a good-faith request but rather an effort to get into a fight over process and thus gum up the investigation until after the election.

And sure enough, today's Anchorage Daily News provides plenty of evidence that that is what's happening in spades. Though to this point Palin has said she would cooperate fully with the investigation, Van Flein is now challenging the standing of the entire inquiry. He claims that any investigation should be handled not by the legislature but by the state Personnel Board which, conveniently, is made up of the governor's appointees.

Van Flein is also charging that the state senator charged with overseeing the investigation is on a partisan witch-hunt. "Our concern is that Hollis French turns into Ken Starr and uses public money to pursue a political vendetta rather than truly pursue an honest inquiry into an alleged ethics issue," Van Flein told the ADN. To which French rather persuasively responded that the charge of partisanship rang at least a little hollow since the investigation was instigated and authorized by a committee dominated by Republicans (though it's only fair to note that Palin is not beloved by all Republicans in the state).

And finally that deposition that the investigator is trying to arrange with Gov. Palin? Seems she may be too busy running for vice president to make time for that. From the ADN ...

Branchflower [the lead investigator] hasn't been able to set up an interview with Palin. French said the state will fly Branchflower to wherever Palin is on the campaign trail if needed.

"Clearly the governor's new political role will make it more challenging for her to make time for this investigation," French wrote. But Palin needs to be interviewed sometime in September, he said.

Van Flein said the investigation is "bad timing" in the middle of a presidential campaign. He said he couldn't guarantee her availability this month.

If witnesses aren't available, French wrote, he'll ask the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, to issue subpoenas.

Buckle up.

TPM Reader ES ...

Someone ought to look into McCain's actions of late -- going all in on un-vetted Sarah Palin; betting on the impact of Gustav; even staking a claim on Iraq the way he did.. And I'm sure there are more. Betting on a position to take AGAINST Bush. Then FOR Bush. They seem suspiciously like the actions of a compulsive gambler. It's a way of thinking. Go all in and then hope to draw an inside straight. My guess is someone smarter than me could put together and entire profile. But he acts like an addict - and he keeps doing it again and again and again.

I'm not 100% on board with this readers list. But his overall point is right on the mark. My list wold be Georgia, Palin and Gustav. Politically at least, McCain's Georgia high-wire act clearly worked for him, the substantive irresponsibility notwithstanding. Palin is turning into the white water rapids of presidential picks. And the decision to all but cancel and then try what I imagine will be a cold start on Tuesday ... well, I don't discount the huge challenge Gustav's extremely untimely arrival created for McCain and the GOP. And it did seem like there was a chance that if Gustav had been an epically catastrophic event and he gave his acceptance speech while simultaneously helping to shore up a levee or rescue cats from roofs in flooded neighborhoods, it could even have turned into a political coup.

But in each of these cases you do have a pattern of high stakes gambles, with limited information available to make a reasoned decision and a pattern developing of an erratic style of leadership lurching from one crisis to the next. I'm sure a lot of Republicans can see that too.

We've already had a number of threshold moments in John McCain's on-going descent into ignominy. But surely this has to be another. John McCain just hired Tucker Eskew, the guy in charge of sliming him back in South Carolina in 2000. Apparently, he'll be in charge of prepping Sarah Palin for her role as McCain's running mate -- which, when you think about it, may be McCain's ultimate payback.

As Eric Kleefeld just quipped, what is he gonna do? Accuse Barack Obama of fathering two black children?

I was skimming through the reader comments on Greg Sargent's featured post. And this commenter makes a really good point: how many elected Republicans have you seen on TV as surrogates for Gov. Palin? Sticking up for her, defending her? Anything?

I'm told Lindsay Graham was on one show. And I know that Kay Bailey Hutchison was on one of the networks the day she was selected. But I think she said she really didn't know much about her.

This isn't just a rhetorical question. There's a lot of tv I don't get to watch. But I don't have a sense I've heard much from elected officeholders. Not really much of anything. And it's pretty striking once it's pointed out.

Who've you seen?

I just saw McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds on CNN with a new line on Gov. Palin's foreign policy experience: McCain and Palin have more combined military command experience than Obama and Biden put together.

(ed.note: We're actually getting a flood of emails from readers noting the whole interview in which CNN's Campbell Brown performed what amounted to a live vivisection of Bounds on live television. It was pretty rough.)

Late Update: Okay, when we went back to the tape. And the whole thing was so brutal, we decided to bring you the entire foreign policy segment of the interview. The portion noted above comes at the end. This one's really must-see ...

Earlier I noted Andrea Mitchell's reference to reports that the McCain camp had just sent a team of GOP lawyers up to Alaska to do what I guess you'd call a post-vetting of Sarah Palin. Now George Stephanopoulos appears to have more. George says the McCainers are sending a "rapid response team of about ten operatives that includes lawyers" to do the aforementioned deeper vet. A lot of attention is being given to Gov. Palin's daughter's situation. The much bigger deal is the expanding trooper-gate investigation, the fact that Palin lied in her Friday speech about her purported opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, her apparent former membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and more. Individually, you can come to your own judgment about how consequential these stories are. What they show pretty clearly now -- in addition to the news that the McCain campaign is only now sending in a vetting team -- is that John McCain didn't do any serious vetting of Palin before he invited her to join his ticket and, he hopes, become Vice President of the United States.

Fundamentally, of course, this is about John McCain. And the real issue here is what this slapdash decision says about his judgment.

USAToday/Gallup: Obama 50%, McCain 43%.

We had heard hints of this. But just moments ago, Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC said that Republican lawyers are currently doing a vet of Sarah Palin up in Alaska. We'll get you the video shortly. But it seems that the really deep vet of Palin started after her selection was announced.

NBC: Palin lawyers up in trooper-gate probe.