This Week's Political Roundup

Richard Cohen, Washington Post: "But what about Palin? Can you imagine the reaction of the press corps if Clinton had given the audience a "hiya, sailor" wink? Can you imagine the feverish blogging across the political spectrum if Clinton had claimed credit for stopping a bridge that, in fact, had set her heart aflutter? What if she had shown that she didn't know squat about the Constitution, if she could not tell Katie Couric what newspapers or magazines she read or if she had claimed an intimacy with foreign affairs based on sighting Russia through binoculars?

Ah, but the scorn, approbation and ridicule that would have descended on Clinton -- I can just imagine the Journal editorial -- have been withheld from Palin. Much of the mainstream media, grading on a curve suitable for a parrot -- "greed and corruption, greed and corruption, greed and corruption" -- gave her a passing grade or better. I agree with Palin. It's the mainstream media that flunked."

Dana Milbank, Washington Post: "McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, 'Sit down, boy.'"

Joe Biden, DNC VP Nominee: "That is not patriotic and it will stop, it will stop in an Obama-Biden administration! Enough! I've had it up to here! Don't lecture me on patriotism! I'm dead tired of being taken advantage of. I'm getting tired of it."

David Letterman: "So now, in an attempt to save his [McCain's] campaign, they’re talking about coming back. You see what I’m saying? So we said, 'Sure, we would love you to come back.' And even on the phone, he said, 'I’ll bring…Sarah.' But they’re being squirrely. Politicians can be squirrely. Because we have a date picked. We do this show every afternoon at 5:30. He wants to do the show at 5. So one –- we have no guarantee he’s going to show up, period. And we’ve kind of already rearranged our schedule on his behalf to save the economy, right? By getting that big-headed kid in here to talk about the politics. You know what I’m driving at? I just don’t know if we can trust him. And by the way, I don’t need to remind you that the road to the White House runs right through here."

Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show: "As you may have noticed, there's a really scary economic meltdown happening in much of the world right now. As you may also have noticed the Republican presidential ticket seems more frightened of Barack Obama than it is of consecutive 700-point stock market drops and whole country is turning up bankrupt."

Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: "Get the (bleep) back to work! For (bleep)'s sake!" (just watch the video, eh?)

John Cleese, as read on Countdown:
"An Ode to Sean Hannity:

Aping urbanity

Oozing with vanity

Plump as a manatee

Faking humanity

Journalistic calamity

Intellectual inanity

FOX Noise insanity

You're a profanity

Hannity."