Sarah Palin is headed to debate camp in Sedona while Joe Biden is getting help from Hillary as he preps for Thursday night’s big event. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

I’ve seen several articles over the weekend arguing that Barack Obama’s recent move up in the polls is due to the renewed attention on the economy, particularly the financial crisis which has taken on a renewed urgency over the last ten days. I don’t doubt this is true to a substantial degree. But looking at the arc of the tracking polls, particularly the second half of last week, I’m wondering if a big part of the gap isn’t due to McCain’s increasingly erratic and craven behavior — the now almost legendary campaign ‘suspension’ non-suspension being the best example.

The McCain camp is saying that veep debate moderator Gwen Ifill will have to answer for herself if she asks too many foreign policy questions Thursday night:

The Justice Department Inspector General just released its 300+ page report (.pdf) on the US Attorneys purge scandal. We’ll be combing through it and posting the key findings and new facts at TPMmuckraker, but it’ll go a lot faster with readers helping out.

So head over to TPMmuckraker and direct us to the best parts of the report as you find them. Just give us the page number in the comments section and we’ll pass it on to readers.

The key takeaway from the IG report is its call for the Attorney General to name a special prosecutor to continue investigating the reasons behind the U.S. attorney firings.

The reason? A lack of cooperation from witnesses outside the Justice Department:

[T]here are gaps in our investigation because of the refusal of certain key witnesses to be interviewed by us, including former White House officials Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and William Kelley, former Department of Justice White House Liaison Monica Goodling, Senator Pete Domenici, and his Chief of Staff. In addition, the White House would not provide us internal documents related to the removals of the U.S.Attorneys.

So the stonewalling continues, including from the White House, and has succeeded in thwarting not only Congress but the DOJ Inspector General (and the Office of Professional Responsibility, which conducted its investigation jointly with the IG).

What specifically should a special prosecutor look at? Possible obstruction of justice and perjury:

We recommend that a counsel specially appointed by the Attorney General assess the facts we have uncovered, work with us to conduct further investigation, and ultimately determine whether the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of Iglesias or any other U.S. Attorney, or the testimony of any witness related to the U.S. Attorney removals.

More here.

Could CBS really still be sitting on the most embarrassing parts of the Couric/Palin trainwreck interview?

Attorney General Michael Mukasey this morning has named Nora Dannehy, a career federal prosecutor who is the acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut, as special prosecutor to investigate the U.S. Attorney firings.

Greg Sargent got in touch with the folks at CBS to see if they’re going to be airing more Palin-Couric interview footage. Turns out they are, during the lead up to the debate.

We’ve been debating internally the propriety of referring to Nora Dannehy, whom Michael Mukasey appointed this morning to investigate the U.S. attorneys purge, as a “special prosecutor.” The New York Times uses the phrase, as have we intermittently.

But the truth of the matter is that the term “special prosecutor” has a specific meaning in DOJ regulations. Nora Dannehy has not been appointed pursuant to those regs (neither, as I understand it, was Patrick Fitzgerald, even though he was often referred to as “special prosecutor” in the Plame case).

Under the DOJ regs, the attorney general is to appoint a special prosecutor when:

(a) That investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney’s Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances; and

(b) That under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.

You would certainly think those circumstances present themselves here and virtually scream for an outside attorney to lead this case. But the attorney general has concluded otherwise.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), for one, isn’t happy with the attorney general’s decision to keep the investigation in-house.