From TPM Reader BS …

How long after the election before John McCain shows “contrition” for how he campaigned?

Late Update: TPM Reader ST thinks we’ll be waiting a long time …

McCain will never apologize. This is his last shot, and he knows it. Maintaining his viability after embarrassing losses is what all of the previous apologies were for. Should he lose, he will no longer have any viability to protect, so he will switch to a shrill defense of his actions until the day he mercifully fades from the public eye.

Some absentee ballots in one upstate New York county list Obama as “Barack Osama.”

Not even the Fox News poll could find Ayers having an effect on support for Obama.

Earlier this afternoon I wrote about the ACORN story and the right’s effort to lie to people and fool them into thinking this has anything to do with voter fraud. This email just came in from TPM Reader DW …

McCain’s team has been pushing it on reporters today and just put out one of the most obvious web videos yet.

I say “obvious” because the implication of the 24/7 Fox coverage is made blatant. It’s transference. It’s saying to white voters, “we know you’re angry about the economy. Don’t blame Wall Street. Blame the n—–s.”

McCain’s going to lose, and he knows it. This is a 90-second ad aimed at the base who are watching Fox News. But he’s setting up a large proportion (maybe the majority) of the GOP base to believe that scary blacks stole the election for Barack Obama. He’s stoking race hatred. He is scum, and if in 10 years his name isn’t synonymous with Lester Maddox and George Wallace than historians won’t have done their job.

It’s really true. The essence of McCain’s campaign now appears to amount to prepping McCain’s base to believe they didn’t really lose the election. The election was stolen from them by Barack, his army of gangsters and black street hustlers, and possibly Osama bin Laden too.

From the Tampa Tribune …

The U.S. Secret Service is looking into reports that a crowd member yelled,”Kill him!” while Gov. Sarah Palin was talking about Sen. Barack Obama during her Clearwater rally Monday.

The incident reportedly occurred after Palin questioned Obama’s patriotism because of his acquaintance with William Ayers, a Chicago university professor who was an anti-Vietnam War radical in the 1970s.

Apparently the only public evidence of the “kill him” shout is a Washington Post news story Tuesday by reporter Dana Milbank, who covered the rally.

Milbank later was quoted in an interview with the Politico Web site as saying he thought the shout may have been a reference to Ayers, not Obama.

A few points are worth noting here. Milbank appears to be the only direct source for this. We’ve had numerous angry audience members, cries of ‘terrorist’ and ‘treason’ and so forth. But this was definitely one of the most inflammatory. Perhaps Milbank misheard. Let’s hope so. Regardless, it makes sense to look into it and find out just what happened.

(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader MH for the tip.)

From TPM Election Central …

The McCain campaign is now broadening their attack on Obama’s past association with William Ayers to include Michelle Obama — even though McCain has repeatedly said spouses should be off limits during the campaign.

The attack? Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’ wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as well.

That’s the entire attack. We wish we were joking. But we aren’t.

Read the rest of the story here.

Obama’s critique of the people yelling “Kill him!” and “Terrorist!” at McCain-Palin rallies is an attack on the good, god-fearing people of America, according to McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers:

“Barack Obama’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about. He dismisses hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo.

“Even worse, he attacks anyone who dares to question his readiness to serve as their commander in chief in chief. Raising legitimate questions about record, character and judgment are a vital part of the Democratic process, and Barack Obama’s effort to silence and shame those who seek answers should make everyone wonder exactly what he is hiding.”

Here’s Tucker Bounds, another campaign flack, picking up the same talking points a short time ago on MSNBC:

Note at the very end where Bounds claims that the McCain camp’s latest TV ad about Ayers is really an ad about the economy. Really.

At a rally late today in Minnesota, John McCain addressed the heated comments, including calls to violence, coming from some supporters at his rallies this week:

“I am enthusiastic and encouraged by the enthusiasm and I think it’s really good,” McCain said. “We have to fight and i will fight but we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments and I want to be respectful.

Here’s the (updated longer version) video of a portion of McCain’s remarks:

Late Update: Ana Marie Cox is on the ground at the rally and reports:

Indeed, [McCain] just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, “I’m scared of Barack Obama… he’s an Arab terrorist…”

“No, no ma’am,” he interrupted. “He’s a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements.”

Later Update: In the expanded version of the video above, I don’t hear any reference to terrorist when the woman calls Obama an Arab.

The Republican-dominated panel overseeing the Trooper-Gate probe just voted unanimously to release the report by its independent investigator.

Here’s the report (.pdf).

The report finds that Gov. Sarah Palin “abused her power” in violation of Alaska law. That’s the key finding. It also finds that while the refusal to fire Palin’s former brother in law was not the sole reason Palin terminated her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, it was a “contributing factor.”

How’s McCain’s veep-vetting process looking right about now?