To begin with, let’s get a snip of this morning’s op-ed up on National Review:

Arlen Specter belongs to a type familiar to Congress: the time-serving hack devoid of any principle save arrogance. He has spent three decades in the Senate but is associated with no great cause, no prescient warning, no landmark legislation. Yet he imagines that the Senate needs his wisdom and judgment for a sixth term. He joined the Republican party out of expediency in the 1960s, and leaves it out of expediency this week.

Indeed. At the end of the day,what we have here is the second in a line of what will be many ‘victims’ of what are now being called the Tea Party protests. The first, I think, was John McCain.

Now, you’re going to be hearing, over the next weeks and months between now and the mid-term elections, how the supposed GOP swing to the extreme right has cost the Republicans the 2008 election. These charges have come from such as Lindsay Graham and Ramesh Ponnuru, among others, and of course from staunch Democrats, who it would appear are simply pulling themselves up on any available handhold. Specter, in particular blames that factor on his leaving the party. But it’s not so. In truth, the movement of the party for the time that Specter has been in office, has been to the left… The exception… Reagan.. being their wildest success. That leftward march since Reagan has damaged the party, and the country and culminated in the GOP losses in 2008. The Tea Parties have been a [...]

Journalists from three major newspapers that endorsed John McCain — the Washington Times, the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News — have been booted from Barack Obama’s campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race.

The Washington Times reported Friday that it was notified of the Obama campaign’s decision Thursday evening — even though the paper has covered Obama from the start.

That from Fox, today. However you look at this, and the WFTV and KYW incidents and a half dozen others we’ve mentioned on BitsBlog, it’s clear Obama cannot deal with any opposition.

It’s as the executive editor of[...]

These are interesting times.  I can’t believe America is considering the following resume to be leader of the free world.
National experience:  143 days
Executive experience:  none
Administrative experience:  none
Foreign Policy experience:  none
Economic experience:  none
Our country is so adrift, so desperate for ideas that we will actually consider a neophyte for President!  He prances around on stage, derides [...]

Question of the Night:  Why should we trust either one of you?
Good question.  In typical politico style, I heard both candidates answer in this manner:  “Blah, blah, blah, yak, yak, yak”.
I don’t know how I would have answered the question if I were either McCain or Obama.  There’s nothing in either of their past to [...]

Well, we all wanted a town hall (actually, we wanted a bunch of them), so here we are.

What should we expect?

First of all, here at TCR, we plan to have live blogging once again. I’m hoping that CoverItLive has their act together this time. I never heard back from them after Thursday night’s debacle, and I really don’t want to through that again. Regardless, join us here Tuesday at 9:00 PM Eastern as we bring you analysis as it happens.

With regard to content, I’m not sure what to expect with the audience and questions. Lynn Sweet from the Sun-Times tells us:

A short while ago it was announced that John McCain would participate in the debate planned tonight at the University of Mississippi.  Both McCain and Obama are getting ready to fly out of Washington shortly.
McCain believes, evidently, that enough progress is being made that he can afford to take some time away from this crisis.  [...]

Does it not bother anyone that Senator Obama’s response to the biggest financial crisis in the world in nearly 80 years is to say “If I can be helpful, I’m available”???  Is that what someone who wants to be the leader of the free world should be saying?
Barack’s still has a responsibility as a Senator [...]

John McCain today announced he is suspending his campaign while he works in Congress to resolve the current economic crisis.  He also asked that the debate scheduled for this Friday night be postponed.
Here are John’s remarks made today in New York City (courtesy of the McCain-Palin campaign):
America this week faces an historic crisis in our [...]

Friday night, September 26, will be the first formal debate between John McCain and Barack Obama.  The event will be held at the University of Mississippi, and will be hosted by Jim Lehrer.
Thankfully, Lehrer is already established enough that he won’t try to be another Tim Russert.
At this point, I think it’s helpful to resurrect [...]

Two-hundred and sixty-five miles and eight hours after leaving Des Moines, I got back from the McCain-Palin rally the airport in Cedar Rapids, Iowa absolutely pumped about the campaign!

I left with a couple of friends (Andrew and Michael) at 5:30 AM.  After a stop for breakfast, we arrived at the shuttle parking area at around [...]