Plenty of late-breaking thoughts on the first debate around the sphere today, including my own minor submissions. But the one that’s worth your time to read is Pete Wehner’s thought process on the overall challenges the McCain campaign faces - here’s his third point, but you should read it all over at Commentary:

What helps a campaign immeasurably is when the charge it makes seems to fit the person against whom the charge is being made. So, for example, the Bush strategy in 2004 to make John Kerry appear to be a flip-flopper and haughty was aided by the fact that it played to a pre-existing (and largely accurate) view of Kerry.

The difficulty Senator Obama presents is that his demeanor and countenance seem to act as a shield against the charge that he is, in terms of his policies and political philosophy, quite liberal and on the extreme end of the political spectrum. Senator Obama’s voting record certainly shows that to be the case. But the way he carries himself — combined with his post-primary, head-snapping shifts in policy — are designed to make Obama appear as a centrist. I don’t for a moment believe he is; Obama’s political career, taken in its totality, makes him the most liberal presidential candidate since George McGovern. But Obama has shown himself to be a nimble candidate, against whom it is difficult to land clean blows.

In addition, Obama came across in the debate as mostly agreeable, repeatedly saying “I agree with John” on this or that. I think that was an effective tactic; it gave Obama the patina of being bipartisan and a man ever in search of common ground. In fact, Obama has complied, in the words of Joshua Muravchik, “one of the most partisan of all voting records.” But once again, his style and manner send a different signal.

Potentially, the most lethal political charge against Obama is that he is a deeply liberal/ideological figure who has associated with radical individuals in order to advance his political career. The question is whether Obama’s countenance and personal style make those charges seem far-fetched; or whether the McCain campaign can convince voters that Obama’s appeal is at its core fraudulent and his new-found centrism a mirage.

I have some sympathy with the task faced by Team McCain; telling a campaign what needs to be done is much easier than actually carrying it out. That’s why it would be useful for more commentators to actually have had some experience in governing and political campaigns, which tend to be more complicated and difficult than pontificating.

I’m no fan of Congressman Roy Blunt, but purposefully lying about what any Congressman says is pretty low, especially when it’s of the “let’s cut out the first four words and last eight words of this television quote to make it seem like he’s saying the opposite of what he just said” variety.

Which happens to be what the Obama campaign just did:

REP. ROY BLUNT: Clearly, yesterday, his position on that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from finalizing.

“Congressman Blunt just confirmed what’s been clear since John McCain rode into Washington at the eleventh hour – Senator McCain’s political theatrics succeeded only in stopping a bipartisan deal. During the most serious economic crisis of our time, we don’t need erratic posturing, we need steady leadership to protect American taxpayers and put our economy back on track,” said Obama-Biden spokesman Bill Burton.

Here is the full quote from MSNBC:

REP. ROY BLUNT: I do think that John McCain was very helpful in what he did. I saw him this morning, we’ve been talking with his staff. Clearly, yesterday, his position on that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from finalizing that no House Republican, in my view, would have been for, which means it wouldn’t have probably passed the House. Now, Democrats are in the majority. They can pass anything they want to without a singe Republican vote, but they don’t seem to be willing to do that. I’m pleased we can have negotiations now that get us back towards things that we think can protect the taxpayers better, create more options, and frankly be better understood in the country than the plan—the path we were on a couple of days ago.

Yeah, that’s kind of…you know…the opposite.

Note: Head on over to FRCAction to view streaming video of this weekend’s conference.

You want proof about how successful the Sarah Palin pick has been in coalescing and motivating the socially conservative base of the GOP? Look no further than the subdued schedule today at the FRCAction Values Voter conference in Washington, DC.

A year ago, the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit propelled Gov. Mike Huckabee to unforeseen heights among grassroots evangelicals. This year, both Barack Obama and John McCain were invited to speak - the word is that organizers expected a video from Obama, and a speech from McCain or his running mate - but neither is expected to appear now. It’s instead a schedule with the odd (Lou Dobbs), the apolitical (Joe Gibbs), the political (Michael Steele), the aging (Phyllis Schlafly - surprisingly chipper), and the hilariously ironic (Newt Gingrich - sorry, smart as he is, his presence at Value Voters events brings on laughter for me).

The funny thing about social conservative conferences is how completely unnecessary they’ve become in the post-Palin universe. These rooms are populated by the grassroots heads of a hundred different organizations whose role has been significant when the Republican Party needed to sell a lackluster ticket or a less than appealing policy to a depressed evangelical base - many of these folks had to sell Harriet Miers against people who swore they were vile tools of Satan, and Lord knows that wasn’t that fun. But that’s all unnecessary in the aftermath of the Palin choice. Her stickers and buttons are everywhere - I don’t see a McCain sign in the whole place, but everyone’s wearing “Palin Power” or “I heart Palin” buttons; young and old, they’re smiling, they’re eager, they’re exuberant.

(Gratuitous plug: I still haven’t seen any PalinFacts.com gear, but I did hear people quoting them when I was on the escalator. If you want some yourself, head over to the Little Known Sarah Palin Facts store.).

Whether McCain wins in the fall or not, these people have found their new inspiration for the next generation of political activists. Barack Obama could’ve come here himself today, with a light shining down from heaven, and he wouldn’t make a dent in this crowd.

Give these people a champion, and reap the immediate political benefit. Had McCain chosen, say, Joe Lieberman, today’s conference would’ve been a huge event - you’d have had to convince all the folks in this room to be on board with a pro-choice Democrat on the national ticket, that the possibility of an Obama presidency would be just too much for them to bear. Had Palin fallen on her face on the national stage, they might have needed it, too.

But not any more - especially not in the wake of attacks from the media horde that makes these folks circle the wagons faster than you can say Clarence Thomas. These aren’t people who need selling - they’re full bore for the woman. No wonder McCain wants to travel with her, as the hardworking Anne Kornblut reported today: he’s smart enough to realize a good thing.

Well, time to tour the place to find some fun Christian swag. The celebrities here are random and confusing, unless Robbie George counts. I’ll let Leon tell you his Stephen Baldwin story, I just can’t match it. Too bad I’m busy tomorrow - missing out on Shohreh Aghdashloo. I hear if you pronounce her name correctly, she won’t destroy your soul with one look of her cavernous eyes.

I wrote about Andrew Sullivan’s descent into madness here. But Sullivan shows no signs of stopping even as his colleagues at The Atlantic recoil in horror. In fact, he keeps digging a deeper hole, now claiming that what happened to John Edwards was a different issue entirely because he wasn’t running for president any more, but Sullivan’s own baseless and profoundly insulting attacks on Sarah Palin and her family are justified, because he alone must stand up for investigatory journalism into this political unknown. And he will stand on his couch, hold his laptop aloft, and scream that we don’t have the full story about Trig Palin’s birth until someone in the condo upstairs complains to the super.

You would shame the man, but he has none left to invoke.

Yesterday Moe and I with his colleagues in respected corners of the news media who had disparaged Sarah Palin, relying on the rantings from the foulest corners of the blogosphere as the basis for their articles. Douthat’s disappointment - along with that of his colleagues McArdle and Goldberg - turned slowly into outrage over the course of the day, as it became clear that much of his frustration was directed at the worst offender of them all: Andrew Sullivan.

Sullivan is on the extreme edge of the assault on Palin - even as Campbell Brown and others have drastically scaled back their attacks on Palin as they realized their allegations were either unfounded, irrelevant, or significant stretches of fact, Sullivan continues to beat the drum. He repeats rumor and innuendo as established truth, but even worse, insists that every tabloidesque rumor be met with immediacy by Palin herself. It’s more than a little pathetic: Andrew Sullivan, once one of the most brilliant wits of the neocon blogosphere, now occupies that darkened zone of the tabloid preacher - the streetcorner pamphleteer who cries to all who will hear, “The Government will not respond to my writings the existence of extraterrestrials among us, and THIS LACK OF DENIAL PROVES DEFINITIVELY THAT THEY ARE HERE!”

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Here’s tonight’s biopic video of Sarah Palin. It’s all right, I guess - but the voice seems off. I think it’s John Voight, who’s been around here a bit as a supporter of McCain.

It’s funny: in the McCain set up, Robert Duvall is the patriotic video voice, Voight the inspirational video voice, and Powers Boothe is the “Be afraid. Be very afraid. Vote McCain. Or the world will burn” voice.

I like Powers Boothe.

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – [my campaign has] a budget of about three times that just for the month.”

“This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word “victory” except when he’s talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger … take more of your money … give you more orders from Washington … and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy … our opponent is against producing it.”

A week ago, from far and wide, the followers came to the mountaintop to glimpse Barack Obama in his moment of glory. And the New Adonis did not disappoint.

The event was an act of soaring political grandeur, inspiring the devoted flock to call out in hallelujahs. Yet in the speech itself, try and find it you may, but there was no phrase particularly memorable, no quotable line.

Do not hold that against his speech. It is not what Obama said that mattered.

The lasting image of Obama’s speech will be the spectacle itself: a Super Bowl halftime show without a game score to go with it (unless it is New Democrats 0, Neo-Old Democrats 1). No one is prompted to such an equivalent force of emotion, the tears of joy, at the idea of President McCain. At least, no sane person. But sanity itself is an act of rebellion in a civic universe where the political pageantry surrounding a man who has accomplished such meager political crumbs and done so little in life is enough – more than enough – to carry a candidacy based on the unassailable purity and goodness and untapped power of that one man all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania.

What Sarah Palin came the Twin Cities to say tonight mattered. It mattered because it proved she was not merely chosen for her gender, for her looks, for her style, or for the historic mark she represents for the Republican Party. She was chosen because of her beliefs - because she’s taken on the hordes of corrupt bureaucrats and pork swilling politicians, even those in her own party, to achieve what she believes is right. It’s because on the most crucial test for any politician - will you stand up, despite all the forces arrayed against you, for what you believe to be right? - Sarah Palin passed, and Barack Obama has that nagging Incomplete.

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Well, that’s one way to rebut a rumor.

The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin’s five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said.

As blackhedd posted earlier: The foul denizens of Obama’s online base, who find the very idea of Sarah Palin as a strong feminist conservative mother absurd, engaged in the worst kind of putrid mudslinging over the past few days, suggesting in no uncertain terms that her daughter was the mother of Trig Palin. Of course, those of us who laughed at the baseless suggestions of the child-hating left (she’s not fat enough! they shriek) now know that to be impossible. We also know that McCain himself knew of Bristol’s pregnancy - which had to have made this past 48 hours all the more frustrating for the campaign. For all these reasons, it’s good to have this announcement come now.

We’ll see how the media inevitably bashes this young woman for her choice in the coming days, in the wake of covering up the John Edwards love child for 2+ years, and botching the story when it came out as they bent over backwards to avoid criticism. Nah, that wasn’t bias.

But it’s fitting that in this moment, one of the toughest a young woman can face, Bristol Palin has chosen on her own to take the right path. This baby is not a “punishment,”, as Obama so famously said; it is not an object to be destroyed, as Obama argued for in the Illinois State Senate; he or she is a human life, one worthy of receiving the love of a mother and father. And we rejoice in the knowledge that a family will receive this blessing into the world.

Have no doubts about this: Bristol Palin is brave. Braver than any of the hideous bloggers, hiding in their anonymity, who throw muck at her mother and who will doubtlessly revile her decision. Braver than the foes of the right to life who would offer her a knife and a vacuum to end this minor inconvenience. Brave enough to know that it’s not enough to talk about doing the right thing - it’s doing that right thing when the moment calls for it the most.

We thank her for making this choice now - her child will thank her forever.

We send our strongest prayers and best wishes for Bristol Palin, for her future husband, for her child, and for the entire Palin clan.

[addendum by haystack] If Barack Obama had his way, the news would be about the loss of another innocent life rather than this nonsense and child-like “journalism” being spewed from the likes of the Washington Post about “shotgun weddings.”

There’s crass, and there’s class. Here’s Sarah Palin’s comments from the same WaPo article:

“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us,” said Sarah and Todd Palin in a statement. “Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

Sarah Palin is class personified…and she is 1/2 the reason Obama has already lost this election.

Wow, what a coup by McCain. I didn’t know he had it in him.

Following on Jonah’s heels:

Sarah Palin makes this election about three things for John McCain:

• -Energy: She’s our best spokesperson on this issue, hands down.
• -Life: She’s HARDCORE pro-life, and she’s lived it - as we all know, giving birth to a Down’s Syndrome child.
• -The War: Palin’s eldest son enlisted on 9/11 anniversary. Now both members of the GOP ticket have sons serving in the Middle East.

What a shock, and what an excellent way to reclaim the momentum in this campaign.

FOX News confirms.