An article from outside the US first. The world's verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for is an editorial in the Manchester Guardian by Jonathan Freeland. Obama has stirred great excitement in many countries in the world. Palin even more than Bush, scares them for her views on many issues including religion, natural resources and foreign relations. They feel she is not being held to the same standards that other candidates would be. In a telling comment, he says,

If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift.Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for.

I fear he is right. The US cannot go it alone in the world. We live on the same planet.

Gail Collins writes humorous columns that get to the heart of the issue. Todays titled Misery Loves Democrats is no exception. It is a long way to November. As I have pointed out as well, the popular vote means far less than the electoral college vote. What happens in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are far more important. Obama has in some ways disappeared from the new to be replace by Palin. This is both good and bad for Obama. I remain convinced that many of the people, especially women, who support her now will, as they learn more about her, move back to Obama.

Like many, I have also been watching the startup of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It appears that Collins has as well. She notes, "Calm down. Remember, that 17-mile-long Swiss particle collider that people were afraid would create a black hole that swallows the Earth? It started operation this week. And so far, no planet-eating black holes. So you see, things could be worse." Alas, they only ran the beam in one direction and at far less than full power. There is still a chance that the earth will get consumed by a black hole yet with the result that the election year politics is moot. Anyway, the LHC could defrost a pizza in 30 nanoseconds. How is that for news you can use?

More dirty tricks by Republicans seem to keep coming in every day. Now, there is one from Mississippi where the governor and secretary of state have hidden, in defiance of law, the senatorial election where a Democrat has a chance of winning a seat in the Senate now held by a Republican. This is not the only example by any means. They have distorted Obama's views on sex education with a shameless fiction. They have twisted a FactChek.org report about Obama and attacks on Palin. They have stated that Obama called Palin a pig when he clearly did not and even went so far as to demand an apology for it. (See yesterday's blog.) The list goes on, and on, and on, ....

I never dreamed that McCain would stoop so low. I thought he was a man of some integrity despite the Keating scandal of 1989. It may eventually be his undoing too. The Democrats are not taking it without comment as they did last time. While there have been some instances where the press has been lazy and let comments go unquestioned, there are many more where they have hit back to correct what are clearly lies and distortions.

I am reminded of the McCarthy hearings in 1950. Much like McCain, McCarthy stretched the truth about as far as he could in his search for communists. McCarthy attempted to smear a colleague of the Army's lawyer, Joseph Welch. Welch ended McCarthy's career with a brief comment as reported in the history of the US Senate. "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness." When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

McCain and Palin seem bent on repeating McCarthy's cruelty and recklessness of that era and have lost all "sense of decency" as well. There goal is to politically assassinate Obama; not defeat him on issues. They have few, if any, issues on their side. They only have smears, lies, and racism on their side. Will the pubic wake up in time? For the sake of our nation, I hope it will.