The markets opened strongly today, convinced that the international financial crisis was being addressed.  Anyone care to bet the house on where the averages will be in three weeks?

McCain is down in the polls right now, but not out as Walter Shapiro
notes.  McCain's best arguments have the additional advantage of being true, to steal an old line from Henry Kissinger:

1.  Obama has a history of terrible judgment when it comes to friends and allies --Ayers, Dohrn, Rezko, Wright and ACORN to name just a few-- and he must staff 3,000 senior jobs in the federal government that will touch almost every aspect of every American life;

2.  He doesn't understand the war and will imperil the fragile stability and emerging victory in Iraq;

3. Allied with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the most left-wing government in American history will do enormous damage to both the short term and the long term economic growth of America via soaring taxes and protectionist anti-trade policies, precisely at the time when a robust growth agenda is necessary to recover from the financial panic; and

4.  The American military will be defunded and demoralized as under Carter and Clinton;

5.  The Obama-Pelosi-Reid troika will target the estates of the Greatest Generation via a renewed death tax.

John McCain needs to make each of these points over and over again between now and elecrtion day.  He's not a great candidate, but he is a great American, known and trusted, experienced and ready to lead.  He will close and it will be close, though every engine in the MSM boiler room is working overtime to persuade you otherwise.