There's a fool claiming that undecideds have gone "sharply against" McCain in the wake of his selection of Sarah Palin as VP nominee.

The person relies on a sample of approximately 11 voters surveyed during the first day of the above-mentioned selection.

Add to that the fact that in a 11 sample, the margin of error is magnified to what, 80%?, That is, it becomes much larger than the usual 2.5-4% MOE existent in a sample of hundreds of voters.

Why do I mention the number "11"? Because the Rasmussen poll in question has a sample of 1000 voters divided into 3 days of polling, which gives you 333 total voters. Since undecideds are approximately 10% of the voters, it's safe to assume that the total sample of undecided voters was 33.

But only around 1/3 of those 33 undecided were polled on the day that Palin was chosen.

Someone might find a mistake in my math, but even in that case, the total number of undecided will be pyrrhic.

So my advice to TPM readers is: learn how to read polls; learn how to wait SEVERAL DAYS in order to assess the effect of an event in the race; learn math;  and while you are at it, tell Andrew Sullivan to find another job.

The Washington Post' Charles Krauthammer has spent his life agreeing with anything, good or bad, that major Republicans do or say.

This is why his following take on McCain's Vice-Presidential choice, Sarah Palin, comes as a big shocker:

The Palin selection completely undercuts the argument about Obama's inexperience and readiness to lead...
The McCain campaign is reveling in the fact that Palin is a game changer. But why a game changer when you’ve been gaining? To gratuitously undercut the remarkably successful "Is he ready to lead" line of attack seems near suicidal.

Some are criticizing Sarah Palin from Alaska, who could be chosen as McCain's VP, for being too inexperienced. But...inexperienced for what? Vice-president? The demands of a president are obviously harsher than those of a VP, who does much less.

Besides, we all know that Barack Obama's inexperience to be president isn't keeping Americans from preferring him over McCain.

Therefore, we shouldn't be hypocrites.

Attacking Palin for the ongoing investigation on her possibly abuse of power, her connection to Big Oil, etc., is another thing.

Take note, Maureen:

A Gallup poll conducted on Wednesday, August 27th found that 83% of all Americans (94% of Democrats) who watched the speech delivered by Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night at the Democratic convention in Denver rate it as excellent or good., as did "solid majorities of the Republicans and independents who tuned in."

Sweet.

The answer: not selfish at all.

Armed with the historical context not provided by the media (deliberately?), Media Matters' Eric Boehlert masterfully debunks the press corps narrative disseminarted by Maureen Dowd, the Boston Globe, the Wall Sreet Journal, Washington Post, etc., that by placing her name in the nomination at this year's convention, Hillary Clinton was selfish and sought to undermine Barack Obama, who in turn was a sissy (according to this one account by New York Magazine) by accepting Clinton's decision.

Indeed, Hillary Clinton just became the first competitive candidate to ever endorse her opponent months before the party convention. Neither Gary Hart nor Jesse Jackson were that charitable. As Boehlert notes, CNN's Keating Holland was one of the exceptions to the rule by accurately noting the following fact regarding Hart and Jackson in 1984 (my emphasis):

Neither man formally endorsed Mondale before the Democrats met in San Francisco, California, that year. But while there is no historical precedent for endorsing a candidate and then formally seeking the nomination at the convention, there is no party rule against it.

On 1992, Bill Clinton's rival Jerry Brown was even more confrontational, and on 1988 the bitter feud between Walter Mondale and Jesse Jackson prompted Mondale to state: ""I don't care what Jesse Jackson does. I'm going to this convention and I'm going to win."

Moreover, bloger Marc Ambinder, with high sources within the Obama camp, noted that, ""reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated" and that "multiple sources in both campaigns have described the negotiations as relatively free of acrimony."

Go read the article, and see for yourself how the media tried to manufacture dissent in the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Pundits -- who usually resort to "group think," that is, a common theme they all decide to recite in unison -- refuse to even entertain the possibility that Hillary Clinton may not be interested in running for president again.

Nowadays one of these agreed-upon themes is: "Ambitious Hillary wants to run again in 2012". We hear this not only in mainstream and right-wing outlets but some liberal blogs as well.

But beware of the punditocracy, for its members are the same idiots who doubted Al Gore when he denied having aspirations to run in '08.

On May 2006, for instance, The New York Times' Frank Rich went as far as calling Al Gore a liar for denying he would seek to be come president again; in addition, Rich claimed that the movie An Inconvenient Truth was nothing but "fearmongering" aimed at helping Gore reach this goal.

There's even an ingenious bit of fearmongering to go head to head with the Republicans' exploitation of 9/11: in a worst-case climactic scenario, we're told, the World Trade Center memorial "would be under water." Given so blatant a political context, the film's big emotional digressions — Mr. Gore's tragic near-loss of his young son and the death of his revered older sister from lung cancer — are as discomforting as they were in his 1992 and 1996 convention speeches.

If "An Inconvenient Truth" isn't actually a test drive for a presidential run, it's the biggest tease since Colin Powell encouraged speculation about his political aspirations during his 1995 book tour. Mr. Gore's nondenial denials about his ambitions (he has "no plans" to run) are Clintonesque.

Compare Rich's words to those used later that year by Washington Post's Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts, while reporting on Al Gore's plan to train volunteers to help him spread his global warming message:

Will they all wear earth tones? Take turns kissing Tipper onstage? Recite his crafty non-denial denial of interest in the '08 race?

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Granted, Hillary has not denied or confirmed a future run for the presidency, but that's because no one has asked her, and we are 4 years away from 2012, and if lack of confirmation is relevant, why doesn't the media just shut the hell up instead of trying to read the Clinton's minds over and over again?

There is also the added benefit of having a juicy, manufactured gossip to talk about for years to come, which increases traffic to political opinion websites.

In short, pundits are stupid and unoriginal. They robotically repeat the same Standard Script in order to drive their point home.

In the wake of a speech that even Obama supporters seemed to be satisfied with, Maureen Dowd managed to find the ex First Lady's presentation flawed and selfish.

The New York Times' columnist mostly quoted snippets of words by Hillary supporters, Bill Clinton, Hillary's suit color and Ed Rendell.

In the comment section assigned to her piece, most strongly disagreed with Dowd's take:

Dolph T, from New Mexico, wondered if Dowd wrote the column before watching the speech:

Which came first, watching the speech or writing the article?

HRC came through big time and this convention is now united behind Obama. Just deal with it on its own terms and not your preconceptions.

AG from Seattle, observed:

Talk about weird. What must it be like to have a mind filled with such cynicism. As is so often the case, Ms. Dowd invents a negative spin for everything.

Clinton did everything tonight but look into the camera and tell all the pundits point blank, "Read my lips. I want Barack Obama to be president." But that didn't fit the story Ms. Dowd wanted to write.

There's still time for you to post your own comments:

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/08/27/opinion/27dowd.html?s=1&pg=2

Everyone knew by reading news articles from last week, that Ted Kennedy would speak in the Democratic convention. Even I predicted it during one of my past blog entries.

National Post called it "The worst kept secret."
I also predicted that ultra-dramatic TPM'ers would pretend to have wept while listening to Ted. Well, here he is. The first TPM drama queen who "wept" because a politician who was expected to speak in a convention spoke:

Teddy made me weep and reminded me why I am who I am, why I do what I do, what direction this country needs to go, and why it is an imperative that Senator Obama be elected in November.

So this blogger apparently wants us to believe that yesterday was the first time that he heard Senator Kennedy speak about the direction the country needs to follow. Give me a break.

You guys need to learn how to control your sissiness. I swear I can't count with the fingers of my hands the number of times Obama supporters claimed to have cried for trivial things. I remember a person in the Democratic Underground who claimed to have cried after listening to Geraldine Ferraro's words to the effect that Obama owed much of his success to his race. Ferraro crossed the line and her comments were offensive, but come on.

I want each of you to also honestly answer this question: Did you cry when you heard the much anticipated speech by Kennedy? You know the answer is no, but you will reply to my diary saying "yes", because you love drama.

The similarities between "doctor Anthrax" Bruce Ivins and the alleged assassin JFK assassin are striking:

Both are accused of killing several people, but neither lived long enough to defend themselves.

Both were in turn assassinated, but the perpetrators (Jack Ruby and allegedly, Ivins himself) conveniently died as well.

In both cases, government agencies flip flopped on key events: The FBI at first concluded that Oswald had fired three shots, all of whom had struck John F. Kennedy and Governor Connelly. Then the Warren Commission, seeking to fix the FBI's stupid conclusion, complicated matters by issuing its improbable theory that is now known as the  "magic bullet" theory.

On the "Anthrax doctor" case, the FBI has had to come up with contradictory stories seeking to paint Ivins as the culprit, prompting Salon.com's Glen Greenwald to express disbelief in its conclusions.

Even the mainstream, right wing-leaning, intelligence agency-friendly Washington Post has called for an independent investigation on the matter, despite rushing to conclusions by calling the evidence against Ivins "compelling."

Let's be vigilant against any attempt by the powerful  to use innocent people as patsies.

For a wealth of information on the apparent framing of Bruce Ivins, read Greenwald.

It seems that we are being led to believe that Ted Kennedy is too ill to appear at the convention, in order to report his imminent appearance as a "shock" from the "lion" who is the bravest man in the whole wide world.

Kennedy is one of my favorite senators, don't get me wrong. But I hate phoniness. Whether it's Hillary with her fake sniper story, McCain with his fishy "cross in the dirt" story and Obama  borrowing words from Patrick Deval or his NAFTA double-speak, Politicians have proved to be fakes who love to play games with their constituents.

At this moment, Ted Kennedy is not hospitalized. He's walking and talking; therefore, if he speaks at the convention, it will not be a display of bravery...

And TPM'ers know this, but they are itching to write blogs claiming to have "cried" upon seeing the "unexpected" and "improbable" speech by the Massachussets Senator.

Get real, people.