Obama leads on foreign policy; Bush eventually follows; and McCain is too proud to admit he was wrong.

With a hurricane bearing down on Galveston, I’d be remiss in not recommending to the uninitiated Erik Larson’s 2000 book on the great Galveston hurricane of 1900, which killed more people than any other single natural calamity in U.S. history. Isaac’s Storm is an easy and engrossing read; I raced through it on a transatlantic flight. Worth your time.

This is not the most consequential answer Sarah Palin has given Charlie Gibson so far, but it’s indicative:

GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?

PALIN: I have not and I think if you go back in history and you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer.

If you look back at the 10 vice presidents since 1960 — Johnson, Humphrey, Agnew, Ford, Rockefeller, Mondale, Bush, Quayle, Gore and Cheney — which of those would not have met a head of state before becoming VP?

Based on their pre-veep resumes, only Agnew jumps out as a possible candidate for Palin-level isolation. But I’m curious about this. Would Palin be the only veep in the last half century to have had no contact with a foreign head of state before taking office?

I’ll update this as readers offer new info.

Late Update: On it already, ABC News’ Lisa Chinn reports every veep in the last 32 years has met a head of state before taking office.

Rep. Zack Wamp (R-TN), on Palin’s performance with Charlie Gibson:

Governor Palin is confident, smart, disciplined and while not yet totally prepared on the issues, she clearly is getting there….The country likes her so she will get a pass or two. If she holds up beyond that, she could be a transformative woman in American history. If not, we will all be disappointed.

That’s not an endorsement we can believe in.

More details from an informed reader …

There’s a bit more on Georgia and Ukraine and NATO. What Obama and Biden favor is for NATO to offer these two countries accession to the “Membership Action Plan” (or MAP), a process set up in the late 1990s to help aspirant countries prepare for possible membership in the Alliance. MAP isn’t a promise of membership, and the last members to join NATO were in MAP for nearly a decade. It would take at least as long for Ukraine and Georgia to become members of NATO, not least since one of the criterion for membership is that there are no territorial disputes involving the country that is requesting membership…

A lot of mumbo jumbo on NATO accession procedures, this. But here’s the kicker: What Palin said is that Ukraine and Georgia should become NATO members now. Not even Bush is arguing that. (He, too, favors MAP.) McCain was with Bush on this until recently and, I assume, if asked still is. Palin didn’t know the distinction, and is suggesting that these countries get into NATO tomorrow. She may not realize that this is a decision that NATO members need to make collectively, all 27 of them, which won’t happen, given that MAP was denied the countries just a few months ago…

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It’s become pathological. John McCain just claimed on TV that Sarah Palin has never requested an earmark for her state — when actually her state gets more earmarks than any other state in the country. And this year she asked for $197 million worth of them herself.

Even the AP couldn’t ignore his lying — even though they phrased it in their own anemic way. “When pressed about Palin’s record of requesting and accepting such money for Alaska, McCain ignored the record and said: “Not as governor she didn’t.”

For the record Palin requested $197 million this year and $256 million last year. Per capita, that’s $288 this year and $376 last year.

To give you some perspective, Palin herself requested at least ten times the dollar value of earmarks as most states get total every year.

How can we trust a liar as big as John McCain?

I’m using the L-word. So that may come across as a slashing blog remark.

But let’s slow down and look at the facts that are not being disputed. John McCain is telling lie after lie. Not off the cuff remarks that can be excused as accidents or flubs but the same lies consistently and many of them. Serial liars are never trustworthy people — that is a truism. But it also demonstrates a deeper character flaw. A normal job applicant would be disregarded out of hand after such a record became clear.

In the midst of this all-consuming presidential race, it’s easy to forget that there’s a whole other national battle going on: The war over Congress.

So we’re unveiling a new feature over at TPM Election Central — daily roundups devoted entirely to the Congressional races, designed to give you an overview of the national Congressional map and to spotlight interesting stuff going on in individual contests.

TPM’s own Eric Kleefeld will bring you two of these each weekday, one in the late morning, and one in the early evening, and our first is up. Take a look.