It seems the bloom is off the Palin rose:

With the vice presidential candidates set to square off today in their only scheduled debate, public assessments of Sarah Palin’s readiness have plummeted, and she may now be a drag on the Republican ticket among key voter groups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Tonight’s heavily anticipated debate comes just five weeks after the popular Alaska governor entered the national spotlight as Sen. John McCain’s surprise pick to be his running mate. Though she initially transformed the race with her energizing presence and a fiery convention speech, Palin is now a much less positive force: Six in 10 voters see her as lacking the experience to be an effective president, and a third are now less likely to vote for McCain because of her.

Just the other day, with the kind of foresight that led him to declare the economy “fundamentally sound” just before a market collapse, McCain insisted “I think the American people have overwhelmingly shown their approval” for Palin, excepting the “Georgetown cocktail party” circuit.

Either McCain is once again badly out of touch or the Georgetown party circuit has become rather vast.

Question: What did McBush say to himself this morning?

Shades of Mission Accomplished:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

The rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I’ve never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I’m not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn’t want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”

McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up.

“That’s not leadership. That’s watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause.

Leadership is taking credit for the non-achievements of others who actually worked hard at a problem and had a shot at solving it until Johnny McBigmouth flashed back into town and injected politics into bipartisan negotiations.

McCain is such a fucking Maverick he claims credit not only for things he had little or nothing to do with, but also for things that never happened.

More on McMaverick’s awesome leadershippery: Not a single member of Arizona’s House Congressional delegation voted in favor of the bailout bill McCain claimed to champion.

More Awesome McCain Leadershippery! After taking credit for engineering the compromise that failed primarily because House Republicans — and every member of McCain’s own delegation — voted against the bailout bill, McCain shows leadership by having his campaign blame the other guy!

Nothing says “leadership like “The Buck Stops Over There!”

John McCain, recovered from Friday night’s anger-fest, lashes out at Obama:

In his first public appearance since Friday night’s debate, McCain said Democrat Barack Obama advocates tax-and-spend policies that “will deepen our recession,” and voted against funding for equipment needed by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just 12 days ago, McCain maintained that the fundamentals of our economy were sound, and denied that we were anywhere near a recession. If he had clue one about economics, or was even capable of truthfully recounting Obama’s proposals, he might have a little more credibility.

In the early days of the economic crisis, McCain seemed uncertain how to react. His first response was to say the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Then he backtracked, saying the workers form the foundation of the economy and they are strong. Then he called for a blue-ribbon commission to study the root causes of the debacle on Wall Street. Then he called for the ouster of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, with each shift drawing ridicule from Obama.

But now he’s back to basics: lying about Obama’s tax proposal and claiming Obama’s economic proposals, which he doesn’t understand, will make the recession, which he not only doesn’t understand, but which up until recently he didn’t believe existed, worse.

But we can trust him because, you know, he’s so maverick-y. Or so he keeps on telling us.

McCain runs this ad on Friday:

CNN Airs these poll numbers last night:

Who did the best job in the debate?

Barack Obama 51
John McCain 38

Who would better handle Iraq?

Barack Obama 52
John McCain 47

Who would better handle the economy?

Barack Obama 58
John McCain 37

CNN Runs this headline on Saturday: Round 1 in debates goes to Obama, poll says

Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Obama did the better job in Friday night’s debate, while 38 percent said John McCain did better.

CBS airs this story Friday Night: Poll Results Suggest More Uncommitted Voters Saw Obama As Debate Winner

Thirty-nine percent of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. Twenty-four percent thought John McCain won. Thirty-seven percent saw it as a draw.

Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight. Thirty-two percent said their opinion of McCain got better.

Sixty-six percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. Forty-two percent think McCain would.

Forty-eight percent of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. Fifty-six percent think McCain would.

And FiveThirtyEight reports this snippet from the internals of the CBS Poll:

EDIT: The CBS poll of undecideds has more confirmatory detail. Obama went from a +18 on “understanding your needs and problems” before the debate to a +56 (!) afterward. And he went from a -9 on “prepared to be president” to a +21.

Hubris can really be a bitch.

According to a McCain ad running on the WSJ’s website today, hours before the debate even began.

Maybe what McCain meant when he claimed that he was going to “suspend his campaign” was “I’m going to suspend the Time-Space continuum” thereby permitting himself to view the results of the debate in advance. Pretty heady stuff for Mr. World Saver.

This Johnny McStraighttalk is a volatile guy. Yesterday, he wasn’t going to the debate, but pledged to stay in Washington until bipartisan legislation addressing financial failures was passed. No deal was reached, and McCain proved at best useless in reaching a consensus between the parties, and at worst injecting his political ambition into the negotiations contributed to a total breakdown after a deal had reportedly nearly been reached.

Now, he’s not only going to Mississippi without accomplishing a fucking thing in Washington and without “suspending” his campaign (despite his vows to the contrary), he’s also declaring victory in advance, like some kind of Conjurer or Crystal Ball Gazer.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that McCain will proclaim himself the winner tonight, no matter how indifferently he performs. More, he’ll run an ad that looks exactly like the one above! Then maybe he’ll “suspend” his campaign again, and go on 4 or 5 talk shows and talk about what a piker Obama is.

Clearing through my inbox, I found this message from McCain Campaign Manager/Fannie Mae Lobbyist Extraordinaire Rick Davis dating back a week or so:

The First Debate

Team,

Last week, John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin gave two electrifying speeches at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota - the most watched convention speeches in history! Thousands of you attended McCain Nation convention-watching parties all across the country in support of our ticket and we thank you for your support.

We’re in the midst of a busy fall season with just over 50 days left until Election Day. The first presidential debate will be held Friday, September 26th, at the University of Mississippi. And after months of running away from John McCain’s joint town hall meeting invitations, Senator Obama will finally have to face John McCain one-on-one.

So Obama will have to face John McCain mano-a-mano at last!

Unless, of course, McCain decides he’s not ready and succeeds in weaseling out of the debate.

According to the Colorado Independent:

The regional spokesman for John McCain in Colorado accidentally sent the campaign’s internal talking points on the candidate’s plans to suspend his campaign to its entire Colorado media list, instead of a list of key volunteers, Wednesday afternoon, PolitickerCO’s Jeremy Pelzer report

The memo, titled “TALKING POINTS: SUSPENDING THE CAMPAIGN,” includes a list of points the campaign wants emphasized, and includes this warning from Kise: “Please do not proactively reach out to the media on this.”

McCain’s plans to stop campaigning — and a proposal to cancel Friday’s debate with Obama — had already been widely reported Wednesday afternoon.

But it gets better:

Told by a reporter that the e-mail had been sent to him and others in the media, Kise said, “F*ck, tell me I didn’t send it to the wrong list.”

Kise said the talking points were meant for McCain volunteers.

The putative Statesmen McCain trying to orchestrate spin for his self-described bipartisan gesture of supposedly “suspending” the campaign — through talking points his staffers are to deliver to the press in order to get favorable image.

Despite McCain’s assurances Davis’s connections had been severed 3 years ago.

New York Times:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

~~~

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said.

Naturally, John McStraighttalk was on top of this situation, just as he was clued in to the economy last week when he declared it “fundamentally sound.”:

From 2000 to the end of 2005, Mr. Davis received nearly $2 million as president of the coalition, the Homeownership Alliance, which the companies created to help them oppose new regulations and protect their status as federally chartered companies with implicit government backing. That status let them borrow cheaply, helping to fuel rapid growth but also their increased purchases of the risky mortgage securities that proved to be their downfall. . . . On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and The Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about that tie between Mr. Davis and the two mortgage companies by saying that he “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Nothing other than the firm Davis owns receiving $15,000 a month until the mortgage giant went under, when no one else working there apparently had any contact with it.

McCain camp’s response: snivel and whine about the press, without addressing the facts. Vintage Bush administration, 2005. Right Blogostan’s response: continue to act as the GOP’s witless echo chamber.

But it is McCain strategist Steve Schmidt who later emerges with his ass flayed:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

~~~

But as he went on to list a series of stories he thought reporters should be writing about Obama and Biden, in almost every instance he got the details wrong.

Schmidt criticized the press for the relatively sparse coverage of the fact that one of Biden’s sons, Hunter, is a registered federal lobbyist.

“His son is a lobbyist for the credit card and banking industry,” Schmidt said.

But Hunter Biden’s lobbying clients don’t include any banks or credit card companies. He did work, as a vice president and then as a consultant, for MBNA, a Delaware-based bank and credit card giant to which Biden had close ties. But he does not appear to have lobbied for the firm.

“Steve Schmidt lied — or just got it flat wrong,” said Biden spokesman David Wade. “Hunter Biden has never — never — been a lobbyist for the credit card or banking industry.”

Schmidt attacked Obama for his ties to William Ayers, who has spoken of his role in 1960s anti-war bombings committed by the Weather Underground.

“What we know for sure, and is beyond debate and argumentation is this: Senator Obama said that William Ayers is a guy that lives in his neighborhood. We know that that is a disingenuous and untruthful answer,” Schmidt said.

“Senator Obama began his political career in its early stages raising money at Ayers’ house,” he said.

Obama did hold a 1995 campaign event at Ayers’ house. It was not, however, a fundraiser, and Ayers did not contribute money to Obama’s first campaign, according to Illinois records.

~~~

Asked about the series of errors, McCain aides could not provide evidence to back up Schmidt’s assertions.

One McCain aide, Michael Goldfarb, said Politico was “quibbling with ridiculously small details when the basic things are completely right.”

Another, Brian Rogers, responded more directly:

“You are in the tank,” he e-mailed.

If you’re going to hold a conference call to accuse the other side of telling lies, it is a good idea to have some grasp on the facts, and to not be completely full of shit yourself. Crying like a lil’ bitch when the untruthfulness of your accusations are called out only adds to the spectacle of contempt for honest discourse and a free press. McCain must be wondering what happened to the days when any scrap of bullshit he cared to fling out was accepted with submissive eagerness. What happened to McCain’s Press Gimp?

McCain confused about Spain’s allegiances. TPM:

We wanted to give you an update on the post below where we described Sen. McCain’s latest gaffe in which he seemed to suggest that he might not be willing to meet with Spanish Prime Minster Zapatero because he is among those world leaders who want to harm America.

The story is already getting picked up pretty quickly in the Spanish press. And the way it’s being interpreted in the Spanish press is that McCain got confused about the fact that Spain is a country in Europe, rather than a rogue state in Latin America.

Our review of the audio suggests the same conclusion. In the interview, McCain is asked about Hugo Chavez, the situation in Bolivia and then about Raul Castro. He responds to each of these with expected answers about standing up to America’s enemies, etc. Then the interviewer switches gears and asks about Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. And McCain replies — very loose translation — that he’ll establish close relations with our friends and stand up to those who want to do us harm. The interviewer has a double take and seems to think McCain might be confused. So she asks it again. But McCain sticks to the same evasive answer.

More here, here, and a transcript here.

Well, we’ve heard the interview now. And John McCain either doesn’t know who the Prime Minister of Spain is, thinks Spain is a country in Latin America, or possibly both.

In case, you haven’t seen our updates from last night, yesterday John McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. And in the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American leftist leader from South America.

After the interviewer presses him a couple times on the point and tries to focus him on the fact that Prime Minister Zapatero isn’t from Mexico and isn’t a drug lord either McCain comes back at her saying, “All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.”

Then there’s a moment of awkward pause before she says. “But what about Europe? I’m talking about the President of Spain.”

McCain: “What about me, what?

Interviewer: “Are you willing to meet with him if you’re elected president?”

McCain: “I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not.”

At this point, the interviewer gets tongue-tied presumably because she can’t get over McCain not knowing what Spain is.

So we have a reformer who’s spent 26 years in Washington without much reform, and a supposed Great Leader who either doesn’t know Spain is a European ally or can’t tell Zapatero from Zapata or Chavez.

McCain is a guy who never cared for homework, not at Annappolis, not even now as he runs for President. He’s being interviewed by the affiliate of a Spanish radio network, and doesn’t know who the Prime Minister of Spain is, or care enough to prepare for the interview, even minimally.

Yet he likes to make snap decisions, unless an economic meltdown is looming. Then he’ll appoint a commission.

MORE: It just occurred to me — maybe it’s just that McCain hasn’t gotten over the Maine yet. . . .

For many of his generation, this was truly a devastating event.