There was a lot of discussion last night online, on TV, everywhere, about the new McCain ad (you can check it out over in The Media Bar) aired in response to Obama's thirty-minute infomercial. McCain's ad ends by saying that Obama is "not ready . . . yet."

This seemed to stump a lot of the pundits. I'm not entirely sure why. I thought the "yet" was a direct appeal to independents and undecided voters -- the ones most likely to decide the outcome of the election. Most of the independents and undecideds like Obama and, push come to shove, might vote for him based on their like of him alone. The McCain ad is an acknowledgement of Obama's appeal and popularity, and McCain is attempting to reassure those who are swayable by telling them that during this scary time they don't have to feel bad or guilty for not voting for Obama this time around. Yes, he is a great guy, and he will get his turn. Just not yet. Vote for me because I'll make things safe, and then Obama can have his turn in eight years. Jason Zengerle, over at The New Republic blog "The Plank," voices a similar sentiment.

I think that little line tagged on the end of the ad (" . . . yet") is also an acknowledgement that the negative ads are often boomeranging right back to McCain. He has to attack Obama, but can't keep risking the votes he needs most. With one little word, McCain can simultaneously foment his base's fears (of the world, in general) and tap into the lingering doubts of those voters who like Obama but worry about his youth.

In a review of Religulous over on The New Republic, Damon Linker, discusses the views taken by Bill Maher in the film:

Maher hilariously exposes astonishing levels of ignorance and parochialism among the earnestly pious Americans he encounters in his travels around the country . . . Religulous achieves the rare feat of blending stiletto-sharp cultural criticism with farce . . . Maher and director Larry Charles are highly adept at ridiculing their fellow citizens. Anyone who has seen Charles' last film (Borat) is familiar with his directorial style: put ordinary Americans on camera, ask them a few questions about their beliefs, and then stand back as they reveal their vapidity.

Borat did this beautifully, but he did it with ulterior motives. Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of Borat allowed different kinds of people to bounce off of their perceptions of the character he meticuloulsy created. The laughs that punctuated each of Borat's cultural missteps unfurled our, the audience's, prejudices against outsiders. The people in the film weren't the joke -- the audience members were. Maher attempts what looks to be a similar tactic.

Yet Maher has loftier ambitions than laughs. He wants to save the world from the idiocy he unearths in the American heartland, and he believes the best way to fulfill this aim is to mercilessly attack religion and all those who adhere to it. And that's why the film, like so much written by critics of religion in recent years, must ultimately be judged a failure . . . [Because] Maher takes on simpletons and extremists instead of seeking out theologians and other thoughtful believers to explain and defend their beliefs . . . Not only is this approach to religion intellectually fraudulent and morally sloppy--equating as it does scientifically literate believers with God-intoxicated scriptural literalists--but it is also asinine as a practical strategy

But Maher's only appears to be the same tactic. Instead, Maher's attempt, like his other comedy, is targeted against the people he is engaging, not the larger issue. Where Borat pushed us to reevaluate our views, Maher uses unsophisticated thinkers to make us feel good about ourselves. He commits this same mistake in his HBO show when he tells two black guests to stop arguing because he doesn't like to see "black on black fighting." Or when he refers to Sarah Palin as a "stewardess." I am often uncomfortable watching Maher's fumbling, although I do appreciate the platform he gives to his panel members. And while he is a good liberal, his talent never seems quite up to the task at hand.

Linker goes on to discuss how people like Richard Dawkins commit similar moral crimes in their efforts to underscore the dangers of religion, but, on that point, I could not disagree more Linker. Dawkins' book The God Delusion summarizes beautifully and compassionately the wrongness of religion in a manner Maher could learn from. Preaching to the choir never works, but there are people out there who need and deserve a preacher other than Bill Maher.

With the stock market roller-coastering daily, Paulson and Bernanke giving hourly updates on the state of the economy, Suze Orman traveling to every single show on television to try to soothe the panic out of everyday people, the causes and consequences of the bailout keep getting more and more confusing. We can and should blame Wall Street greed. We can can should blame the Republican worship of free market. But we also should be able to look at the the problem from a slightly different angle.

Over at the New Republic, Alvaro Vargas Llosa discusses how it all happened, for him, in "Myth Busters." He writes that University of Texas professor Stan Liebowitz "chronicles the long march toward what we could call the Mortgage State, starting with the creation of the Federal Housing Administration in 1934 and all the way to the norms that made Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae acquire substantial loans given to people with weak credit."

Again, it's difficult to undestersand exactly what's going on right now, but this gives us one more tool to aid our comprehension.

The New Republic has an amazing piece on Sarah Palin. In it, Noam Scheiber offers the most comprehensive interpretation of the Palin persona and phenomenon that I have seen or heard yet. Her folksiness is a weapon, but not necessarily in the "I'm a good ol' boy" way of Bush. Bush knows who he is and has been -- he is the embodiment of American royalty.

In her version, Palin's unrelenting folksiness exists in response to a genuine fear she has of others. Not "The Other." Not the black man or the gay woman or the brown Muslim. No. A fear of others who might be better, stronger, faster. When we watch her speak or listen to her debate, we get to cheer her heartfelt attempts to move beyond her birthright and into a bigger world of more and better. For those of us born far outside of royalty, we, even when we disagree with her absolutely, we can't help but root for her.

Contrast this to Obama's coolness, which exists, I think, partially to mask his own belief that he is just slightly better than everyone else. Thankfully, he is.