Barbecue Media

The McCain campaign has become nothing less than a well-financed whisper campaign -- a desperate, dishonorable tabloid operation on the same level as the thoroughly debunked trolls who spread lies via forwarded e-mails.

The mainstream media consensus -- and we know just how wrong the consensus usually is -- is that Palin's speech has consolidated and galvanized the conservative base.

McCain is showing the signs of being too old for the gig, and his recent history of forgetting things (whether simple details like the number of houses he owns, or more complicated facts like Sunni vs. Shia) ought to be the source of some serious panic inside the Republican loop.

The barbecue media script for this election has crow-barred Sen. Obama into the incongruous frame of the exotic effete elitist, irrespective of the fact that, on all counts, he's absolutely none of those things.