Joe Biden: Where's the Meat?

Free Ms. Mooseburger! Can't wait to see her face some tough questions on the economy and quizzed on world affairs. Free her now! (McCain has restricted her interviews)

Swamp: He said he was impressed with what he heard Wednesday night, but also had questions about what he didn't hear. And he dismissed as "Rovian'' the attacks that Palin made against Barack Obama. Of Palin's suggestion that the presidency is not a personal "journey,'' Biden said: "Talk about a guy [Obama] who's had a journey. This is a guy who knows what he's about.

Biden, the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee, said in an interview aired Thursday on CBS' "The Early Show" that the convention address by his Republican counterpart "was a skillfully delivered political speech with confidence and directness and so I think she did what she was supposed to do. I was impressed.

"I was also impressed by what I didn't hear in the speech,'' he added. "I didn't hear ... the phrase middle-class mentioned, I didn't hear a word about health care. I didn't hear a single word about what we're going to do about the housing crisis, college education, all the things that the middle class is being burdened by now.

This morning on ABC, McCain's tax guy says the middle class doesn't need a tax cut. They plan to keep the tax cuts for the rich, who will create the jobs for the rest of us. In theory.
More from waPo:

Barack Obama's top political adviser called Sarah Palin "a skilled politician" but said her speech last night mirrored the rest of the Republican convention in producing "an awful lot of heat and no light."

Speaking to reporters aboard Obama's campaign plane, David Axelrod said the candidate watched snippets of Palin's tough performance and wasn't surprised by the barbs, including the mocking descriptions by Palin and former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani about Obama's early career as a community organizer.

"Senator Obama is taking the whole thing in stride," Axelrod said. "I don't think he expected gingerly treatment. This is what politicians do when they don't have a record to run on."

He added, "What are they going to talk about? Eight years of peace and prosperity? It is phenomenal when you think about it, that we're into the final day of the convention and not one serious word about the state of the economy, not one serious word about where they would lead. We've heard again and again that John McCain was a prisoner of war, for which we all honor him and respect him. But heck, we knew that before the convention."

Obama camp respects Paln:

WaPo: But the speech did get the Obama camp's attention. "We respect her," said Axelrod. "She's a skilled politician, as she proved last night. She's deft going on the attack. For someone who makes the point that she's not from Washington, she looks very much like she'd fit in very well there."

McCain's Karl Rove's Third Term

Paul Krugman at the NYT points out that Karl Rove is back!

Many in the media have cowed to McCain, suggesting that it's wrong to question how McCain's "experience" as a war hero qualifies him to be president.

Krugman says that what we're getting is Karl Rove's push for persona over policy. It's all about manipulation and phony scandals. Will Americans be manipulated again? Some will.

But I think we've reached the tipping point, where most of us know better. Remember, Rove brought us George Bush.

McCain has no policies, especially on economics. We need to question his experience, not just take it for granted that military service makes you a good president. I'd still like to hear McCain's strategy on "winning" the war. Why haven't the media pressed him on his plan? What does "winning" mean?

NYT: What General Clark actually said was that Mr. McCain’s war service, though heroic, didn’t necessarily constitute a qualification for the presidency. It was a blunt but truthful remark, and not at all outrageous — especially given the fact that General Clark is himself a bona fide war hero.

Yet the Clark affair did reveal something important — not about General Clark, but about Mr. McCain. Now we know what a McCain administration would represent: namely, a third term for Karl Rove.

It was predictable that the McCain campaign would go wild over the Clark remarks. Mr. McCain’s run for the White House has always been based on persona rather than policy: he doesn’t have ideas that voters agree with, but he does have an inspiring life story — which, contrary to the myth of the modest maverick, he talks about all the time. The suggestion that this life story isn’t relevant to his quest for office was bound to provoke a violent reaction.