Barack Obama enlists law enforcement to crack down on opposition ads. Really. Governor Blunt of Missouri objects. Is there a civil rights lobby? Where is the ACLU?

And that’s not all the pro-Obama anti-speech goons are up to.

You knew the House GOP was not getting all they wanted if they needed a press release warning about the danger of putting in a slush-fund for ACORN into the Paulson bill. And yes, Obama did work for ACORN at one time.

David Broder thinks Barack Obama accepted John McCain as the “alpha male.”

Regional media in battleground states continues to discover the Stanley Kurtz-Annenberg Challenge story.

When Mickey Kaus begins a sentence with “I’ve just heard Chris Matthews make three seemingly insane points in rapid succession. . .” don’t you immediately think “Just three?” ?

And they are insane: “1) McCain somehow defamed soldiers or America or something by worrying about whether they “died in vain”; 2) It was surprising that Obama didn’t make a point of the specific economic problems of African Americans; 3) It was an incredibly winning, decisive moment when Obama laughed after McCain (somewhat effectively, I thought) compared his inflexibility to Bush’s. … That’s not even getting to the official MSNBC obsession with whether McCain looked at Obama when he criticized him.” You sort of wish if MSNBC were going to go to the trouble of becoming the Politbouro of the Left that they’d do a smarter job of it. Can’t they subcontract their coverage out to Josh Marshall or someone?

Plenty of conservatives are concerned about Sarah Palin. Unless this is a clever plot to lower expectations for the debate, the McCain team should revisit their approach to how she interacts (or doesn’t) with the media. At some point she has to put voters’ minds at ease. A non-horrible performance against Joe Biden (who himself can be quite horrible) would be a good start.

If the Obama camp is going to whine that McCain’s comments that their candidate “doesn’t understand” is some sign of disrespect ( hint: McCain doesn’t respect your guy on national security so get over it) pehaps they should tell The One not to interrupt, laugh when McCain is speaking and call his opponent by his first name. Respect is what other people pay The One, you see.

Obama for Prime Minister and McCain for President? Since they are running for the latter job then McCain seems the better cast.

Maureen Dowd is not amused by the debate: “Obama did a poor job of getting under McCain’s skin. Or maybe McCain did an exceptional job of not letting Obama get under his skin. McCain nattered about earmarks and Obama ran out of gas.”

Megan McArdle: “Barack Obama just stated that meeting with crazy authoritarian leaders without preconditions “doesn’t mean you invite them over for tea.” Coffee, perhaps. An afternoon lemonade. But no tea for Ahmadinejad until he stops with the nuclear weapons nonsense!” Hope she doesn’t get accused (by her blog-mate/beagle-phile, among others) of falling into the neo-con Zionist conspiracy of fear-mongering– particularly if she keeps writing things like this: “McCain stands up for nuclear energy. This puts a spring in my step and a song in my heart. I have to give him credit; when he has a bee in his bonnet, he is often willing to stand up for things, like free trade and immigration, that freak voters out. ”

If you thought the Right was tough get a load of this from The Nation: “If, God forbid, foreign policy had to be the deciding factor in choosing between Barack Obama and John McCain, then last night’s terrible showing by Obama would make me a Ralph Nader voter in a heartbeat. Obama’s performance was nothing short of pathetic, and only a Democratic-leaning analysts and voters with blinders on could suggest that Obama won the debate. More important, he utterly blew a chance to draw a stark contrast with John McCain on America’s approach to the world.” We’ve come a long way since “Yes We Can” rock videos I suppose.

The real Left certainly is more critical –more honest? — than the Democratic-establishment types.

Should he get windshield wipers for those teleprompters?