What I noted about McCain's speech (aside from its dry, awkward delivery) was that in its attempt to portray McCain as this bipartisan 'maverick' it failed, ringing completely hollow given the three days of arrogant mockery, sarcasm, and lies from the folks like Romney, Giuliani, Graham, and Palin leading up to it. How can you run as that kind of candidate when your party so blatantly defies you in that regard? And as for the shot above, as Talking Points Memo notes, looks like one of his houses. McCain's speech, AFTER THE JUMP... Reactions from Jeffrey Toobin and former Bush speechwriter ...

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 4th from 12:44 to 14:59:

• Citizen Crain: Last night’s lies - The bottom line is that the Republicans believe that the road to victory this November is a continuation of lying to the American people. I just hope that enough Americans have wised up by now.
• Sex Education as Liberation | The American Prospect - We've been inculcating young people into America's hypocritical, schizophrenic "present system." We ask them to conform to either one of two views —

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From Talking Points Memo…  Peggy Noonan, Chuck Todd, and Mike Murphy get caught actually speaking their minds over a live mike.  Problem is, what they really thought wasn’t quite the same thing as what they were telling their NBC audience they really thought… Oy … Live Mics Are Such Dangerous Things Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of [...] ...

Talking Points Memo picked up on this conversation caught on a live mic after Republican pundits Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy thought they were off the air with MSNBC host Chuck Todd. Here's a short transcript. Longer one at TPM. Watch (and listen), AFTER THE JUMP... PN: It's over. MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good. CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too. PN: Saw Kay this morning. CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this -- MM: They're all bummed out. CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the ...