Ya gotta love Krauthammer (that's just an expression. I don't). Today, in the Washington Post, he says that he has lost his one-time respect for Barack Obama because Obama has a problem with the racist campaign being run against him.

Dr. K says it's all in Obama's head. Krauthammer, a Canadian, doesn't much believe that racism is a factor in our politics. Yes, it once was. But no more. Now things are good and blacks who complain about racist slurs are just faking their outrage.

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Have you noticed that rightists of all stripes (mostly white on white) love to call Obama "Barry." Go to any right wing website. If they are not calling him Hussein, they care calling him "Barry" or "Barry Hussein."

The source for "Barry" is Obama's admission than in high school he used the name Barry because it was more American than Barack. This is a pattern all minorities know well. In college, I knew a guy called "Irving Weiss" (real name). One fall, I returned to school, saw Irv, and called him by his name. He said, "I'm Jim now." And after awhile, that is what we called him.

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Winning is out of the question for McCain now. He lost all three debates and,in the course of a few months, became something of a joke to most Americans. Pretty amazing for the American hero.

No matter what happens now, he goes down as one of those marginal figures in our political history who was discredited, lost, and disappeared.

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An excellent piece in the New York Times reveals something about Sarah Palin that I did not know. She became mayor of Wasilla, in part, by using hints about the supposed Jewish ancestry of her opponent, the incumbent mayor, a fellow Republican named Stein. Palin turned a municipal election into a Christian crusade.

From the New York Times: "The traditional turning points that had decided municipal elections in this town of less than 7,000 people -- Should we pave the dirt roads? Put in sewers? Which candidate is your hunting buddy? -- seemed all but obsolete the year Palin, then 32, challenged the three-term incumbent,...

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This is nice.

Almost immediately after I posted about the AIPAC Iran blockade bill here, Hill offices started getting contacted by TPMers (and others who read the post elsewhere).

This just demonstrates how the web has changed everything. In the old days, nobody but AIPAC types would have known about the bill and it would have been quickly approved. Now the web allows all of us to shine a light on activities that used to go on behind closed doors.

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You have to marvel at the Times for keeping neocon columnist Bill Kristol on its op-ed page. He's not smart, he writes poorly and he's nothing but a GOP flack.

Today's column urges McCain to get rid of his campaign staff and run as the great guy he is. It's typical Kristol, all simplistic strategy, no discussion of issues. Why does Kristol care who wins? One, because the neocon drive on Iran will collapse without McCain. And, two, only a GOP administration will employ his friends.

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