THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S FECKLESS RESPONSE TO THE RUSSIAN INVASION.  —  It is impossible to think about the Russian assault on Georgia without feeling like a heartless bastard or a romantic fool.  Should we just let Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev roll their tanks into Tbilisi in recognition …

Did McCain Plagiarize His Speech on the Georgia Crisis?  —  A Wikipedia editor emailed Political Wire to point out some similarities between Sen. John McCain's speech today on the crisis in Georgia and the Wikipedia article on the country Georgia.  Given the closeness of the words and sentence structure …

The Front-Runner's Fall  —  For all that has been written and said about Hillary Clinton's epic collapse in the Democratic primaries, one issue still nags.  Everybody knows what happened.  But we still don't have a clear picture of how it happened, or why.

Olympics: Spain's eye-catching faux pas  —  Spain's Olympic basketball teams have risked upsetting their Chinese hosts by posing for a pre-Games advert making slit-eyed gestures.  The advert for a courier company, which is an official sponsor of the Spanish Basketball Federation …

Obama Wisconsin Radio Ad Attacks McCain Over Harley Quip  —  To our knowledge the Obama campaign didn't release it to the national press, but Team Obama is airing a new radio spot in Wisconsin — the home of Harley-Davidson — attacking John McCain over his recent quip at a biker rally …

New McCain Web Ad: “Hot Chicks Dig Obama”  —  The latest McCain Web ad takes the “Celeb” tag to a whole new low — it proclaims that “Hot chicks dig Obama”:  —  “We know he doesn't have much experience, and isn't ready to lead, but that doesn't mean he isn't dreamy,” says the announcer …

25 Hints You're Not Voting for Obama  —  Today's Rasmussen daily tracking poll has 80% of Democrats supporting Obama and 87% of Republicans supporting McCain.  There are still a healthy number of undecideds.  This conflicts with the stream of media reports that Obamacons, evangelicals …

Election 2008: Iowa Presidential Election  —  Race tightens in Iowa, but Obama Still Ahead 46% to 41%  —  John McCain has cut Barack Obama's lead in Iowa in half over the past month but still trails the Democrat 46% to 41%, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state.

More Fun With the Dumbest People on the Internet  —  It's been a while since I suited up and dumpster-dived in the Obama conspiracyverse.  In my absence, I reckon that the average IQ there has dipped by 20-25 points.  Take this latest revelation from Larry “Whitey Tape” Johnson. … Incredible!

MCCAIN'S MEMOS  —  In a sense the revelations of Mark Penn's ‘xenophobia’ memos is old news, a post-mortem on a campaign that was all-consuming three months ago and now part of history.  But seeing the memos beyond the message is instructive, highly instructive for another reason.

COKIE: HAWAII TOO FOREIGN FOR OBAMA  —  This is the sort of mind-numbingly banal observation that passes for political analysis these days.  Tut-tutting over the timing of Barack Obama's family vacation, Cokie Roberts yesterday on ABC's This Week added that Hawaii was not an appropriate destination: too foreign and too exotic.

Taking Back The Campaign Nominee  —  What the Obama campaign has lost sight of, I think, and what it needs to regain control of, is the essential message of his candidacy.  After the last eight years, we simply cannot risk a continuation of the same reckless, belligerent, argument-losing …