Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Sunday already? Oh, and I have it on good authority that Michael Phelps is part dolphin.

Frank Rich: The main reason the polls seem close (they really aren't tied, Obama is ahead) is because the press won't tell the public about the real McCain. Here are some examples (long article) and they aren't pretty.

David Broder: Well, I must say, the Obama campaign is impressively calm and businesslike. Not like the other Democratic campaign this year. No siree. Not at all.

Chuck Todd: A commenter re Saddleback:

Our political commentary summed up in a blog entry.
One candidate was more thoughtful and authentic so the other one won.
Urgh.

Guess which candidate was which.

Alan Wolfe: Saddleback was important.

Politically, the joint appearance is good news for both candidates--but better news for Obama.

Christopher Caldwell: Obamicans? Bullshit. A bunch of washed-up has-beens.

There has been a former assistant secretary here and a former deputy secretary there. But not a single prominent conservative with either an ongoing political career or a continuing affection for the Republican party has yet chosen to back Mr Obama. The endorsement of General Colin Powell, for instance, or Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska senator, would be an election-shifting coup. Unless and until that happens, Obamacans will be a media phenomenon, not a political one.

Tim Rutten:

Jerome Corsi, author of a pitiful new slam on Obama, is the product of a publishing industry that feeds off extremism.

Jake Tapper: Assisting ABC into political irrelevance, let's go over why Obama is at fault and not Corsi.

Much of what Corsi writes in his book is demonstrably false, irresponsible, and feverishly conjured. The book is indefensible, as are Corsi’s many bigoted remarks about Arabs, the Pope and others.

But the Obama campaign got a little greedy in their refutations.

First of all, on the front of the response, is a labeled stamped "Brought to you by Bush/Cheney Attack Machine."

Of course, Corsi is totally independent of Republican smear politics (noted is the Matalin imprint.) He said so. End of thought process.

Colbert King: Corsi isn't the only practitioner of the divisive.

It's clear from the memo exactly what type of politics Penn would practice.

What is unclear, though, in an increasingly diverse and multicultural America, where merit and not lineage or class should be deciding factors, is why the salons of Washington, the boardrooms of corporate America and the doors of foreign governments are open to such a divider and fear-exploiter as Mark Penn.

It's fair to ask about his roots in basic American values. Why do business with him?

added

BBC:    

By contrast, it was Barack Obama who made much of his Christian beliefs and how they would underpin his presidency. And the audience appreciated this too.

Yet Mr Obama had the harder time. America's conservative Christians traditionally vote Republican and - even though they are less enthusiastic about John McCain than, say, George Bush - the majority still look likely to support him come November.

Mr McCain was, as it were, preaching to the converted, and drew many more cheers, quite a few laughs and louder applause.

   However, this huge voting group (one estimate suggests 1 in 4 American adults call themselves born-again Christians) is fragmented as never before.

   Some 12% of them, according to opinion polls, say they are undecided. That is a lot of votes and Mr Obama and Mr McCain both know that.