Rolling Stone takes a look at Mr. McCain.

From WaPo ...

Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

She fibbed about Darfur too. She supported divestment about as much as she killed the Bridge to Nowhere.

Sarah Palin is accusing Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists." But isn't her husband a former member of a political party which has treason against the United States as its central tenet?

Answer: yes.

Gov. Palin's going to be making a campaign stop in Omaha?

Republican state legislators, at the behest of the McCain campaign, have now filed an emergency appeal with the Alaska Supreme Court trying to shutdown the 'Troopergate' investigation. The plaintiffs (echoing the Bush v. Gore decision) claim "the plaintiffs and Alaskans will suffer irreparable harm" if the Branchflower report is released, as scheduled, next Friday, October 10th.

Bear in mind, the people in charge of the investigation moved the release date up so as not to have it released on the eve of the election. That was the original schedule long before Palin was chosen as veep nominee. And the GOP lawyers the McCain campaign sent to Alaska have succeeded in having almost all the parties connected to Palin refuse to cooperate with the investigation. So it's not completely clear just what Branchflower is going to be able to come up with, either inculpating or exculpating.

But this is an opportunity to refocus our attention on something that has been lost in the nonstop coverage of Palin's campaign trail lies and botched interviews: her record in Alaska strongly suggests she lacks the character to be trusted with high office. Though the troopergate scandal is tied narrowly to Palin's firing of Alaska's top cop, Walt Monegan, the heart of the story is about a private vendetta that Palin tried to settle using her new powers as the chief executive of the state of Alaska. Thwarted in doing so, all evidence suggests she fired the public official who refused to execute her plan.

Nor is it the only example. Both as mayor and governor, Palin has shown the tell-tale signs of a politician who hires cronies and fires or blackballs critics. This part of Palin's record gets deep in the weeds. So it's not as flashy as the boffo interviews or and irresistible as the straight-up lies she's been caught in. But we need no closer example than the Bush administration to know that people like this are dangerous and corrosive to our public institutions.

From TPM Reader PM ...

Speaking of McCain's temper, does anybody remember the whole 2006 ethics reform matter. I have been thinking about this for days, ever since the first debate. I didn't remember all the details at first, only that McCain had responded to a cordial, inoffensive letter from Obama with some unhinged rant. At the time Obama's star was definitely rising and I remember thinking this old guy is mad as hell that he is being shown-up by this "young upstart". Perhaps it was even more calculated than that. Certainly in 2006 McCain already had this election in mind and the word presidential was being applied to Senator Obama. I felt at the time it was a preemptive smear, trying to knock Obama down a few pegs before he became too much of a threat. Thank God for Google, a search for "Obama McCain letters" brought up this:

Link

I didn't remember Obama's reply but upon reading it all I could think was how consistent it was with the sort of campaign he has run. Unfortunately it would seem McCain has been consistent as well.

Check out the link and relive the early days, when the bile was just beginning to rise.

This was McCain's response to Obama's pretty anodyne letter ...

I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics, I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's efforts to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness.

You can really see the kernel of this campaign's psychodrama (in more than one sense of the word) in this first exchange. Here from February 2006 are some more thoughts I had then about what was going on.

Why did the Couric interviews go so badly for Palin? As Palin herself explains to Fox, it was because she was "annoyed":

She gets another chance to provide her reading list, too. It includes ... The Economist.

Not just a rhetorical question. What do you think has John McCain so angry? It's like anything could send him over the edge. Look at the video (the McCain vids start about 30 seconds in). Send me your thoughts ...

From the "you can't make this up" file, a McCain foreign policy adviser claimed today that the candidate's decades-long interest in Latin America is exemplified by the fact that he had a girlfriend in Brazil 50 years ago while he was in the Navy:

Speaking at an Americas Conference panel discussion Friday on the next U.S. president's Latin American policy, McCain advisor Richard Fontaine started out by mentioning an old Brazilian flame of McCain's, who recently emerged in the press.

''Talking a little about his personal experience, he was famously born in Panama and has traveled all over the hemisphere for many years.'' Fontaine said. ``In fact, I saw, I guess it was last week, that his old girlfriend in Brazil has been found from his early days when he was in the Navy and was interviewed. She's a somewhat older woman now than she was then, but it sorta speaks to the long experience he has had in the region -- in the most positive terms.''

Fontaine was referring to former model Maria Gracinda Teixeira de Jesus, who recently gave an interview to O Globo saying the former sailor was quite the kisser. According to McCain's memoirs, `Faith of My Fathers,` they met in 1957, when his ship, the USS Hunt docked in Brazil.

''I called him John but also my darling and my sweet coconut,'' she said. ``He was a great kisser. I liked it so much that I bought a book to learn how to kiss myself.''

She goes on to say that if McCain wins the election, she'll send him a telegram.

Fox gives Sarah Palin a second bite at the Supreme Court question she flubbed so badly with Katie Couric:

You get sense that if Cameron had interrupted her at any point there, she would have had to start her answer all over again from the top.

Nearly 100 percent of the McCain campaign's TV ad spending is now going to attack ads, TPM Election Central reports.

Great catch from Krugman: The Reagan quote Palin used at the end of the debate came from a 1960s recording he made for the AMA for doctors' wives to play at coffee klatches to rally opposition to that totalitarian evil: Medicare.

Late Update: The Reagan audio is here.

Sarah Palin says she learned that the McCain-Palin campaign was conceding Michigan to Obama when she read about it in the newspaper this morning:

Bonus Flub Update: And, yes, as readers have pointed out, Carl Cameron mistakenly identifies Palin as the Democratic nominee for vice president.

The House just started voting on the latest version of the bailout plan. Stay tuned ...

Late Update: The vote hasn't been gaveled yet, but looks like it will pass by a comfortable margin.

Later Update: It passes 263-171 (final number subject to change).

Latest Update: Still not clear if a majority of House Republicans came on board. We're double checking that now.

McCain Lost the Caucus Update: A majority of House Republicans voted against the bailout this time around, too. That's not leadership we can believe in.

Last night Sarah Palin told Joe Biden, "You had supported John McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly until this race."

Not true, as we detail at TPM Election Central.

It was more joint press conference than debate, but if you were, say, watching the baseball playoffs and missed it, we bring you an abbreviated version of the veep debate, in all its glory, you betcha:

An interesting case brewing in Michigan. A local GOP official there just filed suit against an indy media outlet for libel for reporting last month that the GOP was going to use foreclosure rolls to disqualify potential voters in November.

This is the (alleged) lose your house, change your address, lose your right to vote scam we reported about a couple of weeks ago.

That's a big can of worms for the GOP to be potentially opening up to discovery. We'll be watching this one very closely.

Late Update: Who's paying for the lawyer representing the GOP official? The lawyer declined to tell TPMmuckraker, but he did refer us to the Michigan Republican Party ...

Charles Krauthammer (yes, THAT Charles Krauthammer) calls the race for Obama.