I'm not sure why pointing out the credibility of John Lewis is helpful to McCain's chances

We have the perfect "label" or "tag" for this bit of McCain news, via CNN:

Sen. John McCain said Monday that Rep. John Lewis' controversial remarks were "so disturbing" that they "stopped me in my tracks."

Lewis, a Georgia representative and veteran of the civil rights movement, on Saturday compared the feeling at recent Republican rallies to those of segregationist George Wallace.

"That's not from some, quote, party official, that's from one of the most respected people in America. It's unfair. It's unfair and it's outrageous," he said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Dana Bash.

Can you guess? All together now:

"Oh if you become VP, Oh it's Canada for me!"

There's alot of concern among voters as to whether Sarah Palin has what it takes to lead. This song sums up their feelings.

Diagramming Sarah Palin's Sentences

I recognize this Slate article is both mean and unfair. (Anyone who has ever transcribed a verbal interview with anyone recognizes how totally syntactically fuzzy conversational speech is.) However, I love diagramming sentences—and, honestly, these are some choice (tortured) specimens.

Branded!

Can you technically even be a "maverick" and espouse something other than a classically liberal, progressive ideology?

That's the question posed by John Swartz in this NYT's column that delves not just into the etymology of the term—which began with a 17th Century member of the Maverick family, who "got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants"—but also the current low opinion the Maverick family has of McCain and Palin using their family name today.

McCain's POW Secrets [October Surprise!]

Sydney H. Schanberg, the longtime New York Times reporter and editor and Newsday columnist -- and author of "The Killing Fields" -- has written a 9000-word investigative piece on John McCain and his longstanding efforts to, as Schanberg asserts in his lede, "hide from the public stunning information about the live Vietnam prisoners who, unlike him, didn't return home."

[Via Editor & Publisher]

Sarah Palin VP Debate Corrections

Obvious: The top general in Afghanistan is not Civil War General George Brinton McClellan [via TPM]

Not-So-Obvious: She does not seem to have supported Alaska's divestment from Sudan. [via ABC]

I Can't Take This Campaign Anymore

Transparency (defined as an amount of public disclosure sufficient to limit officials from abusing state mechanisms for their own interest) is a hot topic in government ethics. Opening meetings to the media and private citizens, publicly releasing budgets and financial statements, and providing referendums on laws, rules and decisions—these are all seen as government gestures toward being transparent.

This is a different kind of transparent: