Everyone I speak to is panicked. No one expected the Republicans to re-hire Karl Rove and run plays straight from his book. Leonard links to TPM:

What can we do? We’ve got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They’ve both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country.

This is about what I came up with laying in bed last night. It’s really depressing; McCain is turning this from a race about issues and intelligence to a TMZ paparazzi race.

Here are a couple more links for you, pointing out what should be semi-obvious points, if the media was actually speaking out instead of buying in:

• Let’s say McCain wasn’t lying about earmarks. They are still only 1% of the budget. Even if he was intent on slashing them, it can hardly be called “change.” And let’s be honest — no one expects the president to be able to change this.
• The rest of the world supports Obama.
• A chart that shows how McCains tax plan works versus Obama’s. If you make more than 100,000, McCain will cut your taxes. Boy, that helps most people!
• Still unsure? Plug in your details and find out exactly how much you would save under Obama.
• The Palin interview is tonight. but it sounds like Gibson will softball her, which is absurd.
• And the ad the Republican’s are running? The one citing Factcheck? Yeah, Factcheck says McCain is lying and using their information in a “less than honest” way. Classy, McCain.
• Two awesome, awesome Daily Show clips: the first showing how hypocritical the Republicans are in terms of the sexism complaints; the second on how “original” McCain’s nomination speech was.
• Oh and Fox News is now claiming they never tried to tie Obama to Muslim anything. It is, of course, a lie. Do they really believe that no one has tapes of this stuff? Or a memory?

More soon, I’m sure.