Just a word about the usual excrescence from Karl Rove this morning. Obama knows this lipstick thing is a cynical, knowingly dishonest attempt to push the news cycle one more day into triviality before Palin has to actually face real scrutiny, and we have our first chance to see whether she is who she says she is. It's a desperate tactic to run out the clock or to find a way to navigate the now-tsunami of evidence that Sarah Palin is unfit for the vice-presidency on account of her total lack of knowledge or expertise in foreign affairs, the thinnness and extremism and recklessness of her public record as mayor and governor, and the obvious and most important fact that she clearly cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

Obama mustn't let these schoolyard tactics unbalance him. He hasn't in the slightest, so far, mind you, a feat of astonishing mental and psychological calm. My advice for what it's worth: Hang in. The facts are on your side and the issues are overwhelmingly in your favor. They're trying to force you to blink. Don't. Hysteria will end at some point.

Patience and steel.

Patience and steel.

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