Nailing jelly to a wall: is it possible?

We can only hope. After John McCain failed to blow his head off last time, we despaired that we’d ever get to see the Bruckheimer-quality conflagration we paid good money on beer to watch. But coming off a weekend calling Barry a terrorist and a liar and a bad tipper, we expect the Psychogeezer to show us the Right Stuff that destroyed three jets.

And so we open tonight’s Live Blog/Open Thread/Snuff Film with the anticipation that we’ll be witnessing history, finally putting to rest Richard Nixon’s 48-year record as America’s Sweathog. Whatever your drinking game, make sure you save a bottle for the post-meltdown celebration.

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Asperse, belittle, besmirch, blot, blotch, blur, calumniate, cloud, corrupt, daub, defame, defile, degrade, denigrate, derogate, lambaste, maculate, malign, mar, minimize, slander, smudge, smutch, soil, spatter, splotch, stain, sully, taint, tarnish, thrash, trounce, vilify, John Sidney McCain III.

Our Presidential Debate Liveblog/Open Thread/Slime Geyser erupts at 8:45 p.m. Eastern.

McCain calls Obama a liar [AP]

Ho-lee shit. The electoral-vote chart we’ve been following for months just spiked. This is the chart that averages state polls over the past week, and only counts those where either candidate leads by at least 5 percent.

The strong states, not the close races.

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Speaking of war heroes, let’s take a moment to honor the late Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Marine from our corner of the country who smothered a grenade with his body in Fallujah, saving the lives of his fellow troops.

President Bush himself honored Sgt. Peralta in a 2005 Memorial Day speech, saying he “understood that America faces dangerous enemies, and he knew the sacrifices required to defeat them.”

One sacrifice he didn’t know: Four years after his death, Sgt. Peralta would be denied the Medal of Honor because he was crazy.

For about, let’s say, ten seconds.

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What’s that you say about Barry not knowing how to attack?

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal — the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.

The Obama campaign’s new “Keating Economics” website launches today with a splashy movie set to premiere at noon Eastern — a documentary that promises to remind everyone what the fuss was about back in 1991.

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“The New York Times obscures its true intentions — to undermine the candidacy of John McCain and boost the candidacy of Barack Obama — under the cloak of objective journalism.”
– McCain campaign, September 24,
responding to reports its campaign manager’s firm
was on the payroll of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

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