An update to my post from a week and a half ago. It’s going well.

• Keep issues alive.  As much as McCain tried to spin it into an umbrage-and-character play in the last two weeks, the bailout and the economy are going to dominate the agenda through Election Day.  I have never seen an opinion poll produce a zero per cent result in anything, ever, but that’s the percentage of Americans who think the economy is improving.  
• Play the ground game. I think this is Obama’s secret weapon. The Republicans have been energized by Palin, but as she fades, that may fade too.  Obama is just continuing to strengthen an already dominant organization.
• Run against the Republican.  I’m not seeing them do this.  It’s still personal about McCain and linking him with Bush, and now Palin with Cheney.  
• Let McCain flail.  Oh, my, this is working.  He is coming off increasingly poorly on the trail and the stump.  Without Palin he looks lost.  Missteps are making him furious in private and off-balance in public.  He’s pegging the gaffe-o-meter they built for Biden, and nothing he’s throwing at Obama seems to be sticking.  But brace yourselves; it will only continue to get uglier.
• Let Palin self-destruct.  Also working very well.  As Palin’s unknowns decline, her negatives mount, too,and McCain’s support declines linearly.  Again, this is mostly rope-a-dope for Obama; what damage she’s not bringing on herself with gaffes her campaign is bringing by fencing her off from the press.
• Court the press.  This is the first triumph, and will make for a very good September for Obama.  McCain’s campaign expected the press to regurgitate their half-truths and outright lies, and when they didn’t, they went apeshit.  Obama has been saturating the press with access and contact.  Biden’s given forty-five pressers to Palin’s, well, zero—and they notice stuff like that.  And McCain’s campaign is still trying to insulate the base from the long, slow, painful press vetting of Palin by telling them to disregard everything they hear in the “biased mainstream media.”  Joe Klein has had it.  So have Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin.  McCain has lost his base, and now only has hers.
• Side with the elites.  This is working.  Maureen Dowd couldn’t bring herself to say it in her own voice, so she borrowed Aaron Sorkin’s:  ”Where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence.”  And to show that the carousel has turned a half circle in the village, George Willactively makes the case that in this financial turmoil, McCain’s behavior demonstrate that he is “not suited to the presidency.” The actual Serious People are coming around to the notion that they can at least negotiate with Obama, though they disagree with him; with McCain, they may not even get to negotiate.

The polls are back where they were several weeks before the convention, but now pointing in Obama’s direction.  The coming weeks bring us the Stevens trial, whatever report the Alaska Legislature Council will bring, no doubt further bad news on the financial markets and the economy, and the everpresent likelihood of more tests of the administration’s competence, whether it be disaster response, terrorism, setbacks in battle, or another sex scandal.  Of course, McCain can run brutal, personal, vicious ads; Obama could suck in the debates or make a gaffe or two; or Nancy Pelosi could screw up the bailout package very, very badly.  There’s a reason we have elections and don’t just let the pollsters pick a President.

Just to keep track.

• September 24: McCain suspends his campaign as of Thursday in order to rush to Washington to work on the bailout rescue plan. As of 4pm 9/25 all McCain campaign offices are open, McCain ads are still running on television, McCain surrogates are making media appearances, Palin made a campaign appearance at Ground Zero, and McCain himself didn’t show up in DC until noon, when an agreement had already been announced.  GOP staffers said that McCain’s participation actually caused a day of delay.
• September 23: New York Times documents how Rick Davis, McCain campaign manager, was paid $15,000 per month through August 2008 by a lobbying firm on retainer to Freddie Mac to continue his work lobbying for it and other mortgage holders, contradicting McCain’s statement Sunday night that Davis “had nothing to do with them” after 2005.
• September 22: McCain campaign in screechy attack on New York Times asserts that Biden’s son is a lobbyist for the credit card industry (false), that Obama had a fundraiser at Ayers’ house (false), and that Wexler called Palin a Nazi sympathizer (false). When confronted with these inaccuracies, Goldfarb replied, “[You're] quibbling with ridiculously small details when the basic things are completely right!”
• September 19: Assertion that Frank Raines advised Obama on mortgage issues, implies Obama is entangled with Fannie May and Raines’ misdeeds.  Denied by both Raines and Obama; Raines had contacted Fiorina to correct it prior to the ad’s airing.  Fact is that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was a lobbyist paid by Fannie Mae.
• September 19: Assertion that Frank Raines and Jim Johnson payouts were with “your money.”  No, not really.  Not taxpayer money.  They were private, shareholder-owned companies.
• September 18: Claim that Obama intends to tax electricity, fuel oil.  No substantiation or defense at all; made up out of whole cloth.
• September 18: Vow that he would fire the head of the FEC.  Wait, he meant SEC. Wait, the Supreme Court said in 1935 the President cannot fire members or chairs of independent commissions.
• September 17: Claims Obama and Senate Democrats sabotaged immigration reform. Truth is that the Dems and McCain were on the same side; nativist Republicans killed the bill.
• September 16: McCain is qualified to handle the financial crisis because his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee “helped create the BlackBerry miracle”  and “oversees every part of the economy.” He’s a self-described computer illiterate whose Commerce Committee role specifically excludes banks, insurance, and investment oversight.
• September 15: Tucker Bounds defends campaign statements that Obama will “raise your taxes” with the argument that “his record says that he will”, therefore it’s OK to lie.  Even Fox News doesn’t buy that.
• September 14:Karl Rove states on Fox News that, “McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.”
• September 13: Virginia officials deny they provided crowd estimates to the McCain campaign for a September 10 rally that the campaign said was attended by 23,000 people.  Reporters estimated the crowd at a third that size. 
• September 12: On The View, McCain asserts, repeatedly, that Sarah Palin did not request any earmarks as Governor.  Palin actually requested $198 million in 2008. 

At some point NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and the other news networks will return to the daily work of telling America what they think it needs to know about the big wide world, after their three-day pause to remember their fallen compatriot Tim Russert.

I have no specific opinions about Russert.  The entire Sunday morning format leaves me cold; it’s a rotten way to inform an electorate.  The Cathie Martin memo that stated that Meet the Press was the “best format” for Dick Cheney to “control the message” is a clear sign that Washington journalism is corrupt at its core, as gorged on status and power as the people it is supposed to be holding responsible to the people.  But as for Mr. Russert himself, he neither wowed me nor offended me.

He leaves a bereaved and bewildered family, as do all who die young and suddenly. He leaves dear friends and colleagues who will be diminished by his absence.  So in a way I’m not surprised at the outpouring in the television media of remembrance, reflection, and celebration of his life.  He certainly seems to have earned it.

But on Thursday in Iraq, a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.

On Wednesday in Iraq, two U.S. servicemen were killed in separate incidents.

And in the five years of this war, 4,098 American troops have been killed in Iraq, along with nearly 500 in Afghanistan, dozens of U.S. citizen contract personnel, and hundreds of thousands of the people we have supposedly been liberating. 

Each of these deaths brings the same grief, sadness, anger, bewilderment, fear, and loss that Mr. Russert’s did.  What if television were to devote the same time to Pfc. Thomas F. Duncan III, of Rowlett, TX, who was killed in combat on June 9, and to the ones who died on June 8, and on June 7?

Gentlemen, we know you lost a friend and a colleague. Death is tragic, it is crippling, it is horrible.  This is why we do not seek war.  The next time you report a roadside bomb or overturned Humvee in Iraq, remember that the young soldier left behind the same grief and sadness you now feel. And perhaps, when you question the ones who put that young person and a hundred thousand others there, maybe you’ll ask why.

UPDATE:  Laura Flanders at firedoglake with a similar sentiment.