A great post by Andrew Sullivan on “McCain’s Integrity“:

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush’s war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.

By now you probably could tell that I am rooting for Obama. I was going to wait until the debates to make up my mind, but I simply have enough of the little games McShame and his McMILF are playing. I am sick of all the lies, hypocrisies and the mean attacks they have put on to get the votes. Most important of all, McMILF’s evil speech is still creeping me out. Although she is running for VP, you’ll never know. You’ll better pray for McCain’s health if he’ll get elected. I can’t even begin to imagine her in power. And no, I am not a misogynist. I would back Clinton any time.

As for Obama, I like the way he stays focused even though McCain tried to make some distractions with the lipstick and the sex education. Now that is the president we need.

When McCain used the line, “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” on Clinton’s health care plan, it was fine. When Obama used the same line applying toward McCain’s political policies, it’s offensive and disgraceful to Palin. Damn, these people sure knows how to smear words.

McCain’s new ad, which attacks Obama on kindergarten’s sex education, is unbelievably despicable. It amazes me how someone could reach that low to win an election.

Update: Here is a fact check from Margaret Talev:

[T]he legislation allowed local school boards to teach “age-appropriate” sex education, not comprehensive lessons to kindergartners, and it gave schools the ability to warn young children about inappropriate touching and sexual predators.

McCain must not want to teach kids to be cautious of sexual predators.

Time‘s Michael Kinsley:

Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 21/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska’s government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.

In her RNC speech, Palin attacked Obama with a startling statement:

Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.

Obama striked back:

First of all, you don’t even get to read them their rights until you catch ’em. They should spend more time trying to catch Osama bin Laden and we can worry about the next steps later. My position has always been clear: If you’ve got a terrorist, take him out. Anybody who was involved in 9/11, take ’em out… If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.’ We don’t always catch the right person. We may think it’s Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it’s Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president… Don’t mock the Constitution. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest that it’s not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.

Wow! He gets it.

Damn! This chick lies her ass off.

A creepy video on “Sarah Palin’s Churches and the Third Wave.”

Hendrik Hertzberg’s New Yorker piece, “Let It Rain,” points out the mean spirit in Palin’s speech:

According to Time, Palin’s acceptance address was drafted—by a former Bush White House speechwriter—before she was chosen and then retailored to fit her. Like almost every major speech at that Convention (Mike Huckabee’s being an exception), it substituted sarcasm for humor in its sneers at Obama. “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” she said. “Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights,” she said, a little chillingly. “Listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the state senate,” she said. This last was simply false; Obama’s legislative record, both in Illinois and (given its brevity) in Washington, is impressive. (Also, it’s McCain whose books have been “authored.” Obama wrote his.) But the speech was well crafted and more than competently delivered, with even its most mean-spirited lines accompanied by perky smiles and wrinklings of the nose.

The GOP has been criticizing Obama for lack of experience, yet when CNN‘s Campbell Brown questioned McCain spokeman Tucker Bounds regarding to Palin’s experience, he badly fluffed his way out. The McCain’s campaign got so upset that they canceled McCain’s appearance on Larry King Live. Brown punked them.