The jennifer miller nyc star love birthday

George Takei celebrates his marriage; Matt Damon and Wyclef Jean help
out in Haiti; Jennifer Hudson gets engaged: The Morning After

Warp speed, Mr. Sulu, to wedded bliss. Original recipe “Star Trek”
star George Takei, who have been together for 21 years, began planning
the wedding as soon as California’s Supreme Court overturned the
state’s ban on gay marriage.
Click “continue reading” to find out why Britney Spears’ next birthday
will be special, what Lindsay Lohan is saying about the presidential
race and why Amy Winehouse didn’t show up for her own birthday party.

BACK TO WORK Britney Spears’ comeback is full steam ahead. Her next
which will be aptly titled “Circus,” hits stores on Dec. 2, her 27th
birthday.

GEEK SQUAD Sci-fi web site io9 hastidbits about the new “Star Trek”
movie, “Fringe,” “Knight Rider” and “Heroes.” Spoiler virgins should
not click.

GETTING POLITICAL “Saturday Night Live” had to get through its season
premiere without Barack Obama, who postponed his planned appearance
out of deference to the situation in Texas with Hurricane Ike. Tina
Fey to play Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin,
alongside Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton, for a skit.
Pink, meanwhile, is weighing in on the race, expressing her for Palin.
“This woman hates women,” Pink said.

BACKLASH Sienna Miller’s antics with the married Balthazar Getty may
have been thefor some of her most devoted fans. Her top fansite is
closing down.

The Jolie-Pitt Foundation, started by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt,
made a to establish a center to help children in Ethiopia affected by
tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS.

Celebs including Jennifer Garner, Kate Beckinsale, Marcia Cross and
Julia Louis-Dreyfuss came out for a for Cedars-Sinai Women’s Cancer
Research Institute.

HONORED Sarah Silverman thanked ex-boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel, calling him
the man who “broke my heart” while accepting Creative Arts awards for
her satirical music video “I’m (bleep)ing Matt Damon.”
LAW AND DISORDER “Lost” star Daniel Dae Kim pleaded no contest to
charges in Hawaii.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR Jennifer Hudson has a new reason to sing love
songs. The Oscar-winning singer/actress got to David Otunga, who
appeared in the VH-1 reality show “I Love New York 2.”

BLOW OUT THE CANDLES Courtney Love threw a $300,000 party for daughter
Frances Bean Cobain, with the theme of “RIP Childhood.” Frances wore a
dress her late dad, Kurt Cobain, wore in a performance.

Loved ones threw a 25th birthday party for Amy Winehouse. Who didn’t
show up for it. She felt about the way she looked.

RIP Writer David Foster Wallace was found dead from an apparent on
Friday. The author of “Infinite Jest” was 46. His wife returned home
Friday evening to discover that he had hanged himself.

The gwen ifill wikipedia debate questions debates

[September 16, 2008] New study finds that as customer expectations
rise, online businesses neglect user experience at their own peril.
[September 12, 2008] High energy costs and the Presidential election
are hammering corporate IT purchases in the United States, though
interest in the iPhone is picking up. [September 9, 2008] But it
still has a long way to go. [September 9, 2008] But guess which player
was flat on growth and who’s feeling the pressure in Gartner’s latest
stats?

Liberal and conservative activist groups find common ground,
requesting debate footage be made available online and letting people
ask questions of the candidates.

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What could possibly make liberal public policy advocacy group
MoveOn.org and the conservative activist group American Solutions for
Winning the Future, headed by former Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich, come together for a common cause?

The answer: A desire to break the media’s hegemony over the
presidential debate process and democratize the questioning of the
candidates.

The efforts of the two groups and a number of supporters resulted in
the creation of the Open Debate Coalition. The coalition is headed by
Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig, an outspoken advocate of
progressive tech policy issues. The group also is supported by
MoveOn.org, American Solutions, Instapundit.com, Craig Newmark of
Craigslist fame, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, strategists from
Republican and Democratic candidates and the founders of political
blogs like RedState.com and OpenLeft.com.

Lessig’s open letter to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama
(D-Ill.) calls for the open availability of all of the footage from
their three debates — the first of which is this evening — and for
allowing citizens to ask questions of the candidates instead of just
the moderators.

There are three debates scheduled between McCain and Obama. Tonight’s
debate is scheduled to take place in Oxford, Miss., and will be
moderated by Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of “The
NewsHour” on PBS. A second debate is slated to be held Tuesday, Oct.
7, in Nashville, Tenn., and will be moderated by Tom Brokaw, former
evening news anchor for NBC News. The third debate will take place
Wed., Oct. 15, in Hempstead, New York, and is scheduled to be
moderated by Bob Schieffer, CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent
and host of “Face the Nation.”

Additionally, there will be a debate between their vice presidential
running mates, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Md.) and Gov. Sarah Palin
(R-Alaska) on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008, in St. Louis, Mo., moderated by
Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent on “The NewsHour” on PBS.

The job of choosing questions is typically left to the media host.
During the primary debates, there were loud complaints from the
Republican side that the hosts were asking tougher questions of
Republicans than Democrats, and even setting them up for
embarrassment.

In other debates, like the CNN/YouTube debate for the Democratic
candidates, some questions were submitted online, but they were panned
as gimmicky and not particularly informed.

Above all, many find the debates boring, so rigid in their rules as to
eliminate any chance for real sparks unless a candidate steps in it,
like the infamous Lloyd Bentsen/Dan Quayle “You’re no Jack Kennedy”
exchange in 1988.

“These are not debates. They are candidates getting up and reciting
sound bites that their consultants told them to say,” said Dave
Kralik, director of Internet strategy for American Solutions. The
2004 Presidential debates had 34 pages of rulings down to the most
ridiculous of minutiae. “There should be no rules, no moderator. Go
back to a real debate and see who can really hold their own.”

“When you have 30 seconds answers on issues like the future of the
Iraq War, you can’t answer that in a substantive way. It demeans the
office of the President when you reduce a debate on the issues to the
level of ‘Survivor’, ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ and ‘Are you
Smarter than a Fifth Grader’?” said Kralik.

Adam Green, director of strategic campaigns for MoveOn.org, said his
group also advocates the beginning of a change in the debate process.
The two advocate a “bubble-up” Internet technology, in which citizens
can submit questions and vote up or down on other people’s
submissions.

Then the debate moderator can take the top 25, cull the overlapping
questions, and draw from that. It would have the effect of being more
substantive than the silly at the CNN/YouTube debate.

“This is aimed at preventing overly gimmicky questions from being
asked,” said Green. “The public takes these issues seriously.”

Kralik concurred. “What we’re advocating is that people will ask
questions no moderator will ask. Individuals rank and vote on the
questions and you allow the wisdom of the crowds to rank and choose.”

It’s not like any major work needs to be done, either, Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG) has a product, Google Moderator, which has a section for the
2008 debates. There is a separate effort, called also dedicated to
filtering out the best questions for Presidential candidates.

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The gwen ifill denver obama people speech

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For a mere voter-observer, it was frustrating to watch the over-
determined and utterly predictable spectacle that is the party’s
nominating convention lumber to life tonight in Denver. Our excitement
at Barack Obama’s rise, from his incandescent keynote speech at
this convention four years ago, to his unlikely early victories and
impossible triumph in the interminable primary, led us to believe that
something, everything, had changed, and that perhaps even this hapless
ritual might be transformed into a better version of itself. But it
was not to be, at least not yet. Just as the opening ceremonies of the
Bejing Olympics went all North Korea on us despite extraordinary
individual feats, the first night of the Democratic National
Convention insisted on flogging us with Ken Burns without realizing
that it had everything it needed in Malia and Sasha Obama.

Something felt wrong from the beginning; not just the self-conscious
mawkishness, but something deeper, lurking under the dead end of
identity politics. It was as if the worst tendencies of the 1980s had
come out to make one last attempt to stifle the future. Race vs.
gender. And the hall was haunted by other specters of past
presidential failures: Ted Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Howard Dean, John
Kerry, Howard Dean. I’m sure we’ll see Al Gore soon. There
is something inside American liberalism that forgives too much and
gives up too soon. A compensatory, defensive liberalism that refuses
to win. Is the Obama campaign a real political movement, or just
another empty promise? Having gotten our attention, will Obama
Democrats, like their predecessors over the last 30 years, find a way
to lose?

This time, the stakes are just too high. Barack and Michelle Obama
realize this. They are real leaders, not empty vessels that must be
filled up with platitudes, and tonight showed that the Democratic
establishment hasn’t yet figured that out. Watching Michelle
Obama give that speech was like watching a great miler run through
tapioca. I think she came through anyway, but why put your best
through that?

If American voters again decide that they want someone in the White
House who appeals to their worst selves, who they can feel
“comfortable” with, the Obamas will lose. But if they
agree with Michelle Obama that “the world as it is just
won’t do,” then this spectacle is just a distraction. In
his speech at the convention in 2004, Barack Obama invoked “the
true genius of America” without irony or cant. If that genius
survives, it needs to rise now, and push aside the party faithful.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

The principal drama of the conventions is the relation between the
press and the politicians. This entire spectacle is built for and
caters to the media and the media cannot get enough of it. This year
Wolf Blitzer and CNNhave set themselves up in the middle of
everything, right down on the floor rather than suspended above it.
CNNpundits James Carville, et al. wear black Madonna headpiece mics so
that they can hear themselves and each other above the din. They look
like astronauts in New Guinea.

After eight years of Bush/Cheney-style bunker mentality and press
blackout, the conventions are orgies of access, and the MSMis bleary-
eyed and gooey with the surfeit.

Last night, the stage belonged to the Clintons, and they showed (if
anyone remained unconvinced) just how masterful they are at this kind
of stagecraft. Chelsea introduced her mother with a film that almost
managed to make Hillary look hip, and Hillary gave the best televised
speech of her life, artfully intercut with close-ups of weeping women
delegates and extreme close-ups and reaction shots of Bill Clinton
(often even in splitscreen) laughing, loving, earnestly rapt, and
tearful. The words said “Vote for Obama,” but the images
said “Look you now upon the President and First Gentleman who
could and should have been, and weep.”

I’m writing to you from inside a machine for producing words and
images. If anything happens here at the Pepsi Center that is not
recorded, it is a wasted act, a kind of sin. Everyone here is divided
into use-groups, indicated by the colored tags hanging from their
necks. Security forces check the tags constantly to insure compliance.

First, there are the Politicians, the stars, the reason we’re
all here. Some of them are so important that they don’t even
wear tags. Their images are so ubiquitous and recognizable that they
transcend the need for secondary identification.

Next comes the Designated Crowd, also called delegates. Their job is
to dress extravagantly and react enthusiastically to everything the
Politicians do. They must act as if they’re on-camera at all
times, even in the most supposedly private of moments, because when
you become part of the Designated Crowd, you sacrifice your identity
and image to the greater Image.

The Press is here to record and interpret every act and gesture of the
Politicians and the Designated Crowd. The Press is divided into Word
People and Image People, and in this setting, the Image People have
the upper hand. The Press is also divided into the Mainstream Media
and the Bloggers. The MSMhave whole buildings (called Media Pavilions)
dedicated to their every need or want. They have lounges and cafes and
bars. And they have degrees of unlimited access. Some of them have
such recognizable images that they have themselves become stars: Wolf,
Anderson, Katie, Cokie, Matt. One sees them on the Floor, perfect and
motionless, until the cameras roll and they spring to life.

The lowest caste of all is the Bloggers. They are image-less drones,
crammed into crowded warrens in tents, outbuildings, and basements,
plugged into their pitiful terminals, eating scraps falling from
above. They exist at the outer edges of the Machine for Producing
Words & Images, closest to the Unwashed, the Irrelevant, the People.

As we approached Mile High Stadium on the press bus at 3pm, we looked
out to see tens of thousands of people walking in columns, filling the
roads, elevated highways, and bridges, streaming toward the arena. We
were told that some of these people started walking five hours ago, to
get here on time. Inside, the tv networks were already set up on
platforms erected around the stage. Security was relatively light, and
our Brooklyn Rail credentials got us all the way inside, onto the
field, where we stayed for the entire spectacle.

Over the next six hours the scene inside the stadium gradually
changed, but it was clear from the beginning that this gathering was
very different from those at the Pepsi Center the previous three
nights. Down on the field, politicians and celebrities mixed freely
with the press. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and John Lewis all held
court, surrounded by a gaggle of cameras and microphones. Gwen Ifill
and Judy Woodruff were busy interviewing and being interviewed. At one
point, it seemed that everybody was interviewing everyone else, except
Charlie Rose, who strolled around smiling, taking it all in.

As the stands began to fill up, the most enthusiastic celebrators came
down closest to the field and began dancing, waving signs and banners,
and chanting. Some groups developed elaborate routines that caught the
attention of the photographers and tv people on the field, and the
tables turned: the stands became the stage. The mood was buoyant and
expectant. Everyone was having a good time.

Up to now, this convention has consisted of roughly 5,000 delegates
and 20,000 media people. Today, these groups are outnumbered two-to-
one by more than 50,000 regular citizens, who are more diverse in age,
color, and class, reflecting the demographic shift in the electorate
that might just make an Obama presidency possible.

At about 5:30, will.i.am took the stage to do a version of his
“Yes We Can” sampling YouTube hit, and the crowd came
together. Looking at them, I realized that this was no conventional
political party crowd. These were new people, coming into something
they had no doubt was their own. They weren’t asking for
anything. They were claiming, and were here to celebrate, what was
theirs.

I don’t think the Democratic Party, per se, gets this. They are
proceeding as if this is just another campaign, and that’s fine
with the Obama people. They need the Democrats. But this time, to win,
they’re going to need something else.

When the film about Obama’s life began, this capacity crowd of
84,000 fell absolutely silent. Not a sound. And when their candidate
appeared on stage, they erupted, causing the stadium to shudder under
our feet.

This was not the best speech Obama has given. It wasn’t even the
best speech given at this convention. There was little in the speech
that he hadn’t said before in the campaign. I think “No
Drama Obama” (as his staff calls him) actually took something
off of his delivery, in order to keep things real and play against the
spectacular setting. After all, this speech was not primarily for the
people in the stadium. It was for the record nearly 40 million people
at home who tuned in to see it.

But this in no way lessened the effect on the crowd at Mile High. When
Obama spoke of the debacle of the last eight years of American
politics and said “We’re better than this,” people
knew he meant them. They don’t love him because they think
he’s better than them. They love him because he makes them want
to be better themselves. And they know that it’s no use blaming
Bush/Cheney and Co. for what’s happened to our country. They
were just doing what they do. But we need to recognize and mourn what
we did and didn’t do to stop them, and we need to make sure it
doesn’t happen again. Obama says “Enough!”

Al Gore is right about one thing. The real power in this country is
afraid of an Obama presidency, and will do their best to prevent it.
The only way to overcome that is through sheer political will,
extremely effective communication, and the force of numbers.

The gwen ifill meet the press mccain obama john

Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., shakes
hands as he arrives at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Sunday,
Sept. 21, 2008. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

McCain says economic crisis worst since World War II … Obama pledges
deep cuts in spending to fix economy … Obama and McCain attack each
other in new television ads … Biden calls for stronger voice for
National Guard within the Defense Department … McCain suggests NY
Democrat Cuomo could be SEC chief … AP-Yahoo Poll: Blacks, whites
still see society through different lenses

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Republican John McCain on Monday called for
greater oversight of the Bush administration’s proposed bailout of
U.S. financial markets, saying the massive $700 billion plan being
crafted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson needed broader
supervision.

“Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money
been concentrated in the hands of one person. This arrangement makes
me deeply uncomfortable,” the presidential candidate said at a rally
here. “We will not solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a
plan that has no oversight.”

McCain praised Paulson and said he had spoken to him several times
over the weekend. But the GOP presidential hopeful nonetheless called
for a bipartisan oversight board to supervise the proposed bailout, to
be led by Warren Buffett or another widely respected business leader.

McCain suggested his one-time rival for the GOP nomination, former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
be part of the effort as well. Both men made multimillion-dollar
fortunes in business before entering politics.

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama
moved to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in a roiling
economy, vowing on Monday to slash federal spending on contractors by
10 percent and saving $40 billion.

Urging members of his own party to be just as fiscally tough as the
most conservative Republicans, Obama said the $700 billion economic
bailout plan proposed by the Bush administration and congressional
leaders is forcing a renewed look at federal spending.

As president, Obama said he would create a White House team headed by
a chief performance officer to monitor the efficiency of government
spending.

“I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every
government program just because it’s there,” Obama said at a rally in
Green Bay. “We will fire government managers who aren’t getting
results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money
and we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to
improve efficiency across every level of government.”

Obama focused tightly on the economy in recent days, and he has urged
Democrats and Republicans to join forces to approve a bailout of the
troubled financial industry that not only saves the industry but
protects taxpayers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John
McCain are criticizing each other in television ads announced Monday.

McCain portrays his Democratic opponent as a product of corrupt
Chicago machine politics. Obama says McCain’s proposal to deregulate
health care could have disastrous effects like the deregulation of
Wall Street.

The commercials come as the two candidates are locked in a tight race
with six weeks until Election Day. Both campaigns say they are airing
as part of national buys, meaning they aren’t targeted to battleground
states and are probably meant to drive negative news coverage of each
other as much as reach key voters directly on television.

The Obama spot shows photos of McCain with President Bush and quotes
an article written by McCain in Contingencies Magazine that argues for
more deregulation of the health care industry just “as we have done
over the last decade in banking.”

McCain’s ad begins, “Barack Obama: Born of the corrupt Chicago
political machine.” That’s an inaccurate statement — Obama wasn’t a
machine candidate in the state Senate or in the U.S. Senate primary.
However, he has been backed by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and other
establishment Democrats since he got the Senate nomination in 2004 and
has worked with them.

BALTIMORE (AP) — The National Guard deserves a stronger voice within
the Defense Department, given its role in the war on terror,
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Monday.

Addressing the annual conference of the National Guard Association of
the United States, Biden noted that more than half of the veterans of
Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom are guardsmen
and reservists.

With citizen soldiers carrying such a burden, Biden said Lt. Gen.
Craig McKinley, slated to become the first four-star general to head
the National Guard, deserves a seat at the table with the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.

“Tell me why there’s any rational reason why you shouldn’t have a seat
at that table,” Biden said, speaking one day after Republican
presidential candidate John McCain addressed the group.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Republican John McCain has said he could use New
York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the product of a family with deep
Democratic Party roots, to head the Securities and Exchange Commission
in his administration.

“We have a number of investigations on cases we are now doing on Wall
Street with the SEC, so I don’t think it would be appropriate for me
to comment at this time,” Cuomo said Monday at a news conference in
Syracuse. “I’m happy doing what I’m doing as attorney general. There’s
a lot to do. We are making progress.”

McCain is wooing Democrat and moderate voters in part by promising a
bipartisan administration if he’s elected president. “I’ve admired
Andrew Cuomo,” he said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS’ “60
Minutes.”

It shows that a substantial portion of white Americans still harbor
negative feelings toward blacks. It also shows that blacks and whites
disagree tremendously on how much racial prejudice exists, whose fault
it is and how much influence blacks have in politics.

One result is that Barack Obama’s path to the presidency is steeper
than it would be if he were white.

More whites apply positive attributes to blacks than negative ones,
and blacks are even more generous in their descriptions of whites.
Racial prejudice is lower among college-educated whites living outside
the South. And many whites who think most blacks are somewhat lazy,
violent or boastful are willing or even eager to vote for Obama over
Republican John McCain, who is white.

Democrat Barack Obama holds a slight edge over Republican John McCain
— Obama has 48 percent to McCain’s 44 percent — among registered
voters in the presidential race, according to the latest Gallup Poll
daily tracking update.

John McCain held a town-hall style meeting in Scranton, Pa, before
joining Sarah Palin at a rally in Media, Pa.

“We cannot give a blank check to Washington with no oversight and
accountability when no oversight and accountability is what got us
into this mess in the first place.” — Barack Obama, on the nation’s
economic crisis.

Undecided voters and those who say they might switch candidates
preferred Democrat Barack Obama to be their child’s schoolteacher over
Republican John McCain by 18 percentage points, according to an AP-
Yahoo News survey.

The gwen ifill meet the press debate debates presidential

More than three weeks before Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Gov. Sarah
Palin, R-Alaska, were set to meet in St. Louis for their Oct. 2 vice
presidential debate, Biden was already predicting a messy fight.

“She’s going to make it as personal as she can. She’s going to take a
lot of straight lefts and jabs at me, she’s going to try to get me to
respond in a personal way,” Biden told a Chicago audience. “That’s not
my style. I’m not going to do it.”

Throughout September, staffers and allies were prepping candidates for
the three presidential debates and the one VP debate that could
produce the decisive moments within a tight struggle. Biden, for
example, tapped Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to stand in for Palin
during debate rehearsals. Despite sharp ideological differences with
Palin, Granholm bears some similarities to the candidate: She is a 49
-year-old governor with three children. (Palin, 44, is a first-term
governor with five children.)

Considering Biden’s 30 years in the Senate, and previous presidential
runs, Palin faces a formidable match. Saint Louis University political
scientist Ken Warren compared the contest to another epic battle: “The
vice presidential debate will attract a lot of interest because of
David, so to speak, going up against Goliath.”

In the center ring, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz., are facing the weightiest political bouts of their careers as
well: three televised debates on Sept. 26, Oct. 7, and Oct. 15. As the
debates unfold before an estimated 70 million viewers (more than any
other televised event outside the Super Bowl), how will the candidates
spar? What should viewers look for, and how will they know who wins?
And what does a candidate’s debate performance say about the kind of
leader he or she might be?

For those with ringside seats or living room views, here’s a guide to
the matches of the year.

Television viewers watched presidential candidates slug it out live
for the first time in September 1960, when Vice President Richard
Nixon and Sen. John F. Kennedy met for the first of four televised
contests dubbed the “Great Debates.”

The Kennedy/Nixon match-ups revealed at least one thing about
televised contests: image matters. Nixon, who appeared pale and
slightly unshaven, was also recovering from a knee injury that left
him fatigued and thin. Kennedy, who had spent the first two weeks of
September campaigning in California, appeared tan and fit.

Many who heard the first debate on the radio declared Nixon the
winner. But by the end of the fourth televised contest, Kennedy’s
visual style and political substance delivered a one-two punch that
Nixon couldn’t match. Kennedy and others later attributed his narrow
victory in November partly to his debate performance in September.

Americans wouldn’t see another televised debate until 1976, when
President Gerald Ford challenged Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter to
a contest that became famous for a Ford blunder: The president was
panned for quizzically declaring that the Soviet Union didn’t dominate
eastern Europe. Ford’s mistake revealed another axiom of televised
debates: one-liners matter. Subsequent debates would confirm that a
single comment could define a candidate—for better or worse.

In the 1984 presidential debates, President Ronald Reagan cleverly
squashed concerns over his age (compared with his younger Democratic
opponent Walter Mondale) by quipping: “I am not going to exploit, for
political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

When vice presidential candidate Sen. Dan Quayle loosely compared
himself to Sen. John Kennedy in the 1988 debates, his opponent,
Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, delivered a devastating comeback:
“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” Quayle and Vice President George
H.W. Bush easily won in November, but Quayle fought credibility
questions for the next four years.

Other debates proved that subtle cues matter: President George H.W.
Bush ignited a firestorm when he glanced at his watch during a debate
with Democratic candidate Bill Clinton in 1992. Bush battled the
perception that he was bored.

Vice President Al Gore’s public perception suffered after a debate
against George W. Bush in 2000 where Gore sighed loudly during Bush’s
remarks and aggressively stepped into his opponent’s space. Campaigns
took note: Manners matter too.

These days, campaigns spend months focusing on rehearsing a litany of
possible questions with candidates, all while poring over the lessons
of the past.

Debate organizers at the Commission on Presidential Debates have been
planning this year’s contests for nearly two years. The nonpartisan,
nonprofit organization has managed general election presidential
debates since 1987, determining the site and format for each contest.

Negotiating teams from each candidate’s camp met to hammer out final
details ahead of the debates. In mid-September, representatives from
the Obama and McCain camps agreed to switch the topic of the first
debate to foreign policy and national security, sending hosts at the
University of Mississippi scrambling to adjust preparations. (Neither
side revealed the reasons for the change, but both sides likely gained
something they wanted in the deal.)

When the dust settled, so did the final schedule: The candidates would
debate foreign policy and national security on Sept. 26 at Ole Miss in
Oxford, Miss. The vice presidential candidates meet on Oct. 2 at
Washington University in St. Louis to debate foreign and domestic
topics. The second presidential debate comes in a town hall format on
Oct. 7 at Belmont University in Nashville, and the final round takes
place on Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., where Obama
and McCain will debate domestic issues.

Each debate will last 90 minutes (with no commercials) and feature a
single moderator, who will introduce a question and allow each
candidate to answer. The moderator will follow up over the next 10
minutes in a conversational style, allowing the candidates to interact
with each other.

There’s one formatting exception: the town hall debate. This event
will feature a group of some 120 undecided voters enlisted by the
Gallup Organization using telephone screening a few days before the
debate. The participants will bring at least two questions they’d like
to ask the candidates. The moderator will review the questions to
cover the widest possible range of topics, but will not change the
voters’ wording.

With dozens of undecided voters asking virtually anything they want,
this night promises to be one of the most revealing for viewers, and
most challenging for candidates.

The enormous task of presiding over a fair fight falls to four lone
moderators chosen by the commission.

Jim Lehrer, a 30-year veteran of television news and anchor of PBS’
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, will host the first debate. Lehrer has
been called “America’s moderator” for good reason: During the last
five presidential elections, the longtime journalist and author of 18
novels has moderated 10 of the nationally televised debates.

What makes Lehrer such a popular choice? “He gets out of the way,”
says Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Northeastern University
in Boston. “You don’t want a moderator who thinks the debate is about
him.”

Schroeder, author of Presidential Debates: 50 Years of High-Risk TV,
told WORLD that well-informed, low-key moderators work best in general
election debates when viewers need to focus on the candidates and the
issues. He thinks the remaining three moderators are good picks: NBC’s
Tom Brokaw, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, and Washington Week
host Gwen Ifill, who will moderate the vice presidential debates.

Schroeder says television journalists are logical choices because of
their familiarity and ease with the medium: “For all these
moderators—as well as for the candidates—these are the
largest audiences they will ever face in their entire careers. You
can’t be nervous.”

When the cameras finally go live on debate night, it’s hard to imagine
the contenders won’t fight nerves. For both McCain and Obama, the
debates are the culmination of more than 18 months of relentless
campaigning. For McCain, it’s a pinnacle he’s tried to reach for eight
years.

Each candidate will have a different task: Obama will aim to convince
voters he’s experienced enough to handle the presidency and that
McCain represents an extension of the Bush administration. McCain will
aim to convince voters that his policy plans are different than Bush’s
and better than Obama’s.

In order to succeed, both candidates will need to bring the same
thing: mastery of the issues. With no low-brow campaign ads or
accusatory press releases for at least 90 minutes, the debates will
test the candidates’ grasp of the issues and the validity of their
proposals. “You can’t fake it,” says Schroeder.

Just days after the stock market took its deepest plunge since 9/11,
viewers will listen for concrete answers to growing economic problems,
and moderators will press candidates beyond their usual talking points
on the economy and a range of issues. Schroeder says voters should pay
attention to whether candidates are giving thoughtful answers: “I
think it’s a little disrespectful to the audience to just give the
same old sound bites they’ve been giving all along.”

Rosanna Perotti, chair of the political science department at Hofstra
University, site of the final debate, told WORLD that viewers should
also pay attention to how the candidates carry themselves for clues
about their leadership skills: Are they thinking critically? Are they
making good judgments? Do they handle pressure well? “Citizens are
looking for someone who exhibits the qualities necessary to be a good
president,” she said.

On Oct. 7, viewers will apply those same questions to the vice
presidential debates, a contest that may be watched by as many viewers
as the presidential events. Though vice presidential debates have
played a less significant role in the past, Palin’s dark horse entry
may draw more viewers than usual. (Her speech at the Republican
National Convention drew more television viewers than Obama’s address
at the Democratic convention.)

Schroeder says viewers will tune in with one major question in mind:
How will Palin perform? Given the governor’s brief time in the
national spotlight so far, predictions are difficult to make. “Maybe
it’s a smart strategy to save it all up for the debate,” says
Schroeder. “But it really puts a lot of pressure on her to come
through with the goods on debate night.”

Biden faces pressure, too, as he debates a woman who is highly popular
within her party and beyond. George H.W. Bush faced criticism in 1984
for appearing to patronize Geraldine Ferraro in the vice presidential
debates. “I don’t think Biden is going to fall into the same trap, but
he’s still in fairly uncharted territory,” says Schroeder.

As each of the four candidates faces a piece of uncharted territory in
the final rounds of the elections, Perotti says she hopes viewers will
rely on a well-worn path: “I hope people actually listen to what
they’re saying.”

First-ever televised debates. Vice President Richard Nixon, recovering
from a serious knee injury, looks pale and thin. Sen. John F. Kennedy
looks fit and tan. Radio listeners declare Nixon winner. Television
viewers favor Kennedy. Kennedy wins election by narrow margin.

President Gerald Ford debates Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter.
Electrical power fails during live debate. The candidates stand on the
Philadelphia stage in silence for 27 minutes.

Independent candidate Ross Perot debates George H.W. Bush and Bill
Clinton. Perot is the only third-party candidate ever allowed in
nationally televised, general election debate.

Sen. Barack Obama becomes first African American in a general election
debate. Gov. Sarah Palin becomes second woman to participate. —

Tell schieffer vote in gwen ifill married

“Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer considered retiring
last year, but CBS executives persuaded him to stick around, promising
an exciting presidential campaign.

“Man, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Schieffer
said by phone from Washington D.C., earlier this month.
“It’s exciting. We know it’s close and you know
it’s a cliche, but it’s historic, too.”

‘We used to think Joe Biden had a great, interesting story. Then
[Sarah Palin] came along! And who else has a husband who is the snow
machine racing champion of Alaska? John McCain wanted a game changer.
He got one. ‘

LECTURE/BOOK SIGNING Bob Schieffer will speak at 11 a.m. Monday at The
Commerce Club, 34 Broad St., 16th floor, Atlanta. Tickets are $28.

Schieffer will be able to convey that excitement live and in person
today at the Atlanta Press Club for a lunch and then at a talk at the
Carter Center in the evening.

He’ll also be promoting a compilation book of his “Face
the Nation” commentaries titled “Bob Schieffer’s
America.” It’s filled with his insights over 14 years,
some serious, some cynical, some sentimental and all decidedly
nonpartisan.

Schieffer is also prepping to moderate the third and final
presidential debate on Oct. 15 between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Q: I read you started the commentaries after Richard Nixon died and
you got such a great reaction from viewers, you just kept doing them.

A: I wasn’t even supposed to do commentaries. I just did them
until someone told me not to. They never did. I won this award for
best commentary on TV and the phones lit up. All the executives said,
“Great idea! Keep it up!”

A: Nobody is Andy Rooney. He marches to a different drummer than the
rest of us. He’s also a good friend. When I had a big book party
last Friday night, he was the first to arrive and last to leave.
Andy’s getting close to 90 years old and he’s still as
sharp as ever. He’s my role model!

A: Funny — we used to think Joe Biden had a great, interesting
story. Then she came along! And who else has a husband who is the snow
machine racing champion of Alaska? John McCain wanted a game changer.
He got one. The question is whether independent voters who are
probably going to decide this election will find her appealing. So
far, she’s off to a pretty good start.

A: It would be a lot of fun. [Journalist] Gwen Ifill is going to do
it. It’s the one a lot of people are going to focus on. This
election may turn on these debates. The last one will be very crucial.
We’ll have a better format. They will actually get to question
each other and ask follow-up questions. We’ll have a debate in a
classic sense. Too much in the recent debates feels like joint news
conferences.

A: I have to be prepared. I have to make sure I keep track of them and
don’t let them wander off into the weeds. We’ll have nine
nine-minute segments. I think of the topics, which will be domestic
policy. If it works well, you won’t hear much from me. These are
not about the moderators or network rivalries. These are supposed to
be about the candidates.

A: I don’t know. We’ll find out more than we ever knew
about both of them. Both are very smart. Both are obviously men of
good character. I think in that way we’re lucky. We have a good
choice to make this time.

Q: You wrote in a commentary that you love to vote. Is it the act of
voting itself?

A: It’s our duty. It’s one of the most fun things to do.
You can use your vote any way you want. You can vote against someone
if you don’t like the way they comb their hair. That’s
absolutely legal.

A: It’s not a good thing. But nobody can tell you how to use
your vote. You can also tell people how you vote or not tell anybody.

A: Never! I don’t even tell my wife. We decided early on
we’d never tell each other.

Q: And since you’re doing an appearance at the Carter Center,
tell me your thoughts on Jimmy Carter.

A: He’s been the best former president we’ve ever had. And
though he’s often criticized for his time in office, he had some
real accomplishments. He signed the Panama Canal treaty… and he
put together the Camp David Accords, which removed the No. 1 threat to
Israel: Egypt.

The coaching legend has a green thumb to go along with his allegiance
to red and black.

The gwen ifill washington week today think it’s

JIM LEHRER: This is, indeed, a crucial night for John McCain and his
running mate at the Republican National Convention. McCain will be
formally nominated by the delegates in St. Paul, Minnesota. It’s the
culmination of a quest he began in the 2000 campaign.

Then, all eyes will turn to his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of
Alaska. She will end the evening with a major address.

Early this morning, Palin inspected the podium. It was her first
public appearance since a storm of questions erupted about her
experience, her record, and her teenage daughter’s pregnancy.

McCain arrived in the convention city this afternoon. He was greeted
by his family and Governor Palin’s. The senator took a long moment,
speaking to 17-year-old Bristol Palin and her boyfriend, Levi
Johnston. The family has said he is the father of the girl’s unborn
child and that they plan to marry.

In a written statement, senior adviser Steve Schmidt said, “This
nonsense is over.” He went on to say, “This vetting controversy is a
faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican
nominee for vice president.”

The Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, criticized the
Republicans today for not talking about the economy last night. He
said more jobs are being shipped overseas and more people are losing
pensions, but he said McCain and Palin “just don’t get it.”

Now, the convention convenes in about an hour. Gwen Ifill is on the
floor of the Xcel Energy Center now with a preview of what’s to come.

I am down here on the floor where I think it is fair to say that it is
red meat night. This is the night the Republicans have been waiting
for all week. There’s almost a sigh of relief that they finally get to
take on Barack Obama and the Democrats.

It’s going to start from two women, two businesswomen, Meg Whitman and
Carly Fiorina, who will be speaking tonight. Their job is to talk
about the economy, but campaign officials have also made clear that
they plan to take to a vigorous defense of Sarah Palin, who they feel
has been the victim of a gender double-standard during this week of
her rollout.

After that, we will hear from two former competitors, Mitt Romney, a
former governor of Massachusetts, and Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor
of New York. And they’re going to take very hard after Barack Obama.

Mike Huckabee in his advanced prepared remarks wants to call him a
“madman,” someone who the country cannot be trusted with. And Rudy
Giuliani said he’s going to be a lot tougher.

So we’ll be watching for all of those words, in addition to Sarah
Palin’s address tonight, Jim.

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Probably not as much in the hall,
Jim, as perhaps in the country. I think in the hall — not unlike
Barbara Jordan in 1976 at the Democratic convention, the crowd is
going to be very positively disposed to her.

She could read the white pages of the Twin Cities phone book and I
think be well-received. They love the fact that she’s got the NRA
endorsement, that she’s ardently pro-life, that she is anti-global
warming. I mean, it’s just a — she lights up a lot of conservative
bulbs in this crowd.

But in the country and talking to Republicans, they want to see how
she plays to independents and more moderate Republicans. And, of
course, the real test will be when she gets out and gets into a cross-
examination and a full-fledged press conference.

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: Well, for a campaign that
keeps on giving, this is one of the most unpredictable nights. Does
she show composure? Does she seem knowledgeable? Can she project
knowledgeability?

And, also, how upset is she? I mean, the woman has got to be furious
from her point of view about what’s happened, about the publicity that
her daughter has gotten. Does she let that out?

Today we had a full-fledged media war between the McCain campaign and
the media. Do they bash the media? Do they let that out?

And so it’s a question of whether they want to go for the base or do
they want to go for the independents? And we’ll get a big sign of that
from her speech tonight.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the attacking the media is good politics for the
Republicans, is it not, probably, tonight?

DAVID BROOKS: It makes everybody feel very good. Whether it’s good
politics, I’m not sure. I think this is an election where you can’t
just repeat the same, old tactics. And they’ve been attacking the
media, and it makes them all feel good. But if you want to reach the
swing voters who maybe used to be Republicans, I’m not sure it’s a
good tactic anymore.

All right, our convention coverage with Mark and David, among others,
will continue in a few moments, but that’s right after a summary of
the other major news of this Wednesday with Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: Jim, some of the 2 million people who fled Hurricane
Gustav began returning home today. Cars, trucks and SUVs jammed roads
to the Louisiana coast, passing police checkpoints, but many faced
days without power, as nearly 800,000 homes had no electricity.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said city residents would be allowed back
starting at midnight tonight, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said
officials are doing all they can to speed up the process.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), Louisiana: Our goal is to get people back into
their homes, back into their communities as quickly as possible. We
think that it’s good and important for those families, it’s good and
important for our communities.

It also ensures a smooth evacuation the next time we have to do that.
We don’t want anybody to spend one extra minute out of their home any
longer than they need to.

RAY SUAREZ: President Bush flew to Louisiana today. He got a briefing
in Baton Rouge, a city hit hard by the storm. The president surveyed
the hurricane damage firsthand, and he inspected recovery efforts
already underway.

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Phase one of the
response to Gustav went very well. A lot of it had to do with the
people in this room. We’re much better coordinated this time than we
were with Katrina. State government, the local government, and the
federal government were able to work effectively together. There is
still more work to be done.

RAY SUAREZ: Gustav was blamed for 16 deaths in the U.S., mostly in
traffic accidents. And damage estimates ranged from $2 billion to $10
billion. By contrast, Katrina did $40 billion worth of damage in 2005.

Tropical Storm Hanna soaked Haiti again today and added to the island
nation’s misery. Residents of low-lying port towns waded through
floodwaters in search of higher ground. And impassible roads barred
disaster teams from reaching the hardest-hit areas.

Hanna is expected to cross the Bahamas tomorrow. It could be a
hurricane again when it reaches the southern U.S. coast this weekend.

The Boeing company faced a possible strike today by nearly 27,000
workers, mostly in Seattle. Members of the machinists union voted on a
contract that included a signing bonus and average raises of 11
percent over three years. Union leaders urged rejection. They said the
offer actually cuts benefits and shifts more health care costs to
workers.

In Pakistan today, gunmen tried to assassinate Prime Minister Yousuf
Gilani. He was not in his motorcade when snipers fired several shots
from a nearby hill. The cars were en route to Islamabad’s airport to
pick him up.

Also today, Pakistan charged U.S. or NATO troops carried out a predawn
raid in South Waziristan along the Afghan border. The Pakistanis said
15 to 20 civilians were killed. NATO denied involvement. The U.S.
military said it had no information to give.

There was word today that North Korea has begun rebuilding a major
nuclear site. The South Korean government said it confirmed work is
underway at the Yongbyon facility. North Korea warned last week it had
stopped the process of disabling the reactor there.

The North Koreans have charged the U.S. broke a promise to remove them
from a list of countries that sponsor terror. In Washington today, a
State Department spokesman played down the South Korean account.

SEAN MCCORMACK, State Department Spokesman: Based on what we know from
the reports on the ground, you don’t have an effort to reconstruct,
reintegrate this equipment back into the Yongbyon facility. It has
been taken out of where it was being stored, I guess, is the best way
to put it at this point.

RAY SUAREZ: North Korea carried out an underground nuclear test in
October of 2006. Later, the communist state agreed to abandon its
nuclear program and begin putting the Yongbyon site out of commission.

The governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, opened a hearing today on
whether the Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, should be removed from
office. He’s accused of concealing information from the city council
and settling a multimillion-dollar lawsuit to hide a romantic affair.
Kilpatrick also faces 10 felony counts in two criminal cases.

And on Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained
nearly 16 points to close just under 11,533. The Nasdaq fell 15 points
to close at 2,333.

I’m here with Alice Rekeweg, a Texas delegate who has been here all
week and is looking forward to a big night tonight.

ALICE REKEWEG: It was a shock. I know I was shocked when I heard. I’m
like, “Who is she, the governor of Alaska?” But the more I read about
her, the more I really do like her. She sounds like a woman that can
get a job done.

ALICE REKEWEG: Just her being a mom. And no matter what tragedy or
what happens, she seems like the kind of person that will stand —
always stand by her family. And I happen to be the same thing.

And she rides a motorcycle. And I ride with the Patriot Guard Riders,
so we’ve got something in common.

GWEN IFILL: Are there any policy issues in particular you’ve heard her
talk about or heard written about that makes you think, “I agree with
her on policy and her ability to be president”?

ALICE REKEWEG: You know, we have rules in the Republican Party. We’re
very open. We’re very family-oriented. And we believe in the right to
life.

And she has shown that, that she is with us on that. She’s a Christian
woman, and she loves her family, and she shows it. And to me, that is
the most important thing that a woman can do.

When she’s a vice president, I don’t think there’s going to be any
problem with her. She’s going to have the initiative to do the job
that the president gives her. And she’s just — to me, I think she’s a
wonderful person that can handle the job.

Gwen ifill washington week’s mccain john think

Sen. John McCain’s colleague from Arizona, Sen. Jon Kyl, and former
campaign manager Terry Nelson provide insight on the candidate and the
campaign.

GWEN IFILL: I’m joined by McCain’s fellow Arizona senator, Jon Kyl,
and Terry Nelson. He served as McCain’s campaign manager until July of
last year.

Senator Kyl, after all the time that Senator McCain, your seatmate,
has spent in the public eye all these years, what new is there that
this convention can tell people about him?

SEN. JON KYL (R), Arizona: Well, first of all, not everybody pays as
much attention to politics as we do. And I’m sure there are a lot of
folks out there, a lot of new voters, for example, who are going to be
focusing for the first time really intently on who the candidates are.

So there is some acquainting to be done there and some re-acquainting.
I’m told by political advisers that it takes six times for someone to
see a political ad for it to really sink it. So repetition is not a
bad thing, even for those who do know a lot about John McCain’s
tremendously interesting life and his service to his country.

GWEN IFILL: Terry Nelson, what you would say that this convention
needs to accomplish and introducing, reintroducing John McCain?

TERRY NELSON, Former McCain Campaign Manager: Well, it is a great
story. And, you know, the truth is that this is a point when the
American people begin to, you know, look at the campaigns and really
pay attention.

We saw that last week with Barack Obama; 38 million people tuned in to
listen to his speech. You know, a similar number will probably tune in
to see Senator McCain and his speech, will tune in tonight at this
convention to listen to it.

And as Senator Kyl says, there’s a lot of people who for the first
time will really begin to look and try to begin to decide, you know,
who they’re going to support in this campaign.

GWEN IFILL: So you have a chance now to tell those people your version
of the answer to some of these questions. And there’s a lot of
conventional wisdom out there about Senator McCain, and I just want to
tick off some of it. One is that he is a maverick. Has he been a
maverick in his years in the Senate, really?

SEN. JON KYL: Well, in a sense it does. For example, we’ve changed the
way we do business with appropriation bills. John McCain used to just
bring the entire Senate to a halt on the night that they bring the big
appropriation bill through everybody who was expecting it just to go
through. Nobody had read it, and John McCain — and under Senate
rules, you can do this — said, “Stop. Until I have a chance to read
it, and see what’s in it, and object to any pork projects, we’re not
going forward.”

Well, now they know that he will do that, so they simply make sure
they’re done about 48 hours in advance. They give it to John McCain’s
staff so that they can go through it.

The point is a maverick can make a difference as a senator, but he can
make a lot more difference as president. And when he says, “I can’t
wait to veto some of these pork-barrel bills,” I know he means it. He
really wants to reform. And I know, too, that he sees in Governor
Palin a soul mate, as he put it, in trying to achieve this reform.

GWEN IFILL: Terry Nelson, another piece of conventional wisdom about
John McCain is that he is temperamental. Now, as someone who used to
work for him, perhaps you could fill us in on that?

TERRY NELSON: I never found John McCain to be all that temperamental.
You know, before I went to work for John McCain, I heard the rumors
that he was temperamental, as well, and talked to his staff.

You know, John McCain has some of the longest-serving staff people in
the Congress that are with him. And he’s great with his staff people.
And, you know, like anybody, he likes to debate the issues. He wants
to have a thorough discussion, and he expects the people around him to
know the answers.

You know, ultimately, he’s held accountable for what he does. So I
always found him to be somebody who is lively and wanted to debate the
issues, but not temperamental, not ever with staff.

GWEN IFILL: Another piece of conventional wisdom is that he is a
darling of the press, which doesn’t seem so lately. Has that been
true?

SEN. JON KYL: Well, I think it was in his first campaign, when he was
running the Straight-Talk Express and was the maverick, and he used to
kid about his main constituency, the media. Not so much this campaign,
as you’ve noted.

SEN. JON KYL: Or his base, maybe, right. But I think one reason that
the media, love him or hate him, appreciates John McCain and finds him
an interesting individual to cover is because he is different from the
usual politician. He is a maverick.

You don’t know exactly what he’s going to say next. He’s not that
programmed. And he tells you what’s on his mind, and frequently that’s
very interesting.

GWEN IFILL: You know, one of the things we’ve all been talking about
on this program and everywhere, of course, is the Sarah Palin pick.
How in the end do you think this will play out? Will it help him or
hurt him, and in which ways?

TERRY NELSON: Well, I think Sarah Palin does need to come in and give
a good speech tomorrow night, and I think she will. I mean, she’s —
she’s a very dynamic speaker. She’s very articulate.

You know, for the attention on some of the personal things, I don’t
think that really matters to voters, and I don’t think there should be
all that much attention to it.

Sarah Palin has done a great job as governor. She reaches back, you
know, to the reformist image, the maverick image that John McCain has,
and helps him, you know, bring that message back into the campaign.

And I don’t think that there’s been enough focus on that side of this
election. The American people think Washington does need to be shaken
up, and John McCain has put himself in a position to do that.

Gwen ifill washington week’s today people milk

GWEN IFILL: Wall Street and Washington entered uncharted territory
today: the Federal Reserve’s takeover of insurance giant AIG. It was
the Fed’s deepest move ever into the private sector in exchange for
$85 billion in borrowed tax money.

The Bush administration initially opposed a bailout, but today White
House press secretary Dana Perino defended it.

DANA PERINO, White House Spokeswoman: Some of these companies were so
big that to allow them to fail would have caused even greater harm and
damage to the economy. So the goal has been to take action where
necessary to promote stability and strength in the marketplace so that
we can prevent or limit more damage to the broader economy.

GWEN IFILL: Perino said decisions on other bailout requests, including
for the auto industry, would be made on a case-by-case basis.

Another sharp sell-off hit Wall Street today, despite the AIG
announcement. Stocks plunged again on fears that still more large
firms may be in trouble.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 449 points to close at 10,609.
The Nasdaq fell 109 points to close below 2,099. We’ll have more on
the AIG take-over right after this news summary.

There was more grim news from the housing sector today. The Commerce
Department reported construction of new homes and apartments fell more
than 6 percent in August. It’s now at the lowest point since 1991.

The bailout of AIG was topic A for the presidential candidates today.
Republican John McCain said he had opposed a government takeover, but
that the Fed was forced to act to protect millions of people.

Democrat Barack Obama said the plan must safeguard working Americans,
not AIG shareholders and management. We’ll have more on the campaign
later in the program tonight.

The death toll from Hurricane Ike climbed to 51 today, as the search
for victims wound down. Rescue teams pulled out of Galveston, Texas,
after combing the hard-hit island. Last night, the city had to
backtrack on letting residents come back to survey the damage.

Still, traffic backed up again today on the only road onto the island.
City manager Steve LeBlanc said officials are trying to come up with a
new way for people to return.

STEVE LEBLANC, Galveston City Manager: We just had an overwhelming
influx of people. And we decided we just simply cannot handle the
volumes of people that are coming in. We are working on a new plan
that we hope to announce soon so that we can get our citizens in and
out in a day and they can start taking care of their house.

GWEN IFILL: Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city, was still
largely without power today. It’s not expected back on for at least a
week.

And across the Midwest, close to 500,000 people remained in the dark.
Swollen rivers also threatened more flooding. We’ll have more on the
hurricane’s aftermath later in the program tonight.

The hurricane’s passage cut into oil supplies this week, and that
helped send prices back up today. In New York trading, crude rose more
than $6 to close above $97 a barrel. But gasoline prices stabilized
for the first time in a week as gulf refineries began to re-open.

The U.S. embassy in Yemen came under attack today. At least 16 people
were killed. No Americans were hurt in the assault in San’a. The dead
included six attackers, six guards, and four civilians.

The attackers tried to breach the compound’s walls with automatic
weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, and a suicide car-bomber. It was
the fourth such attempt in recent years.

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: This attack is a
reminder that we are at war with extremists who will murder innocent
people to achieve their ideological objectives.

GWEN IFILL: There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but a
State Department spokesman said the assault bore, quote, “all the
hallmarks of an al-Qaida attack.”

An apparent U.S. missile strike killed at least six people in Pakistan
today. Pakistani intelligence officials said the target was a militant
base in South Waziristan along the Afghan border.

Hours earlier, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike
Mullen, promised to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty. He met with
leaders in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Gates was in Afghanistan today. He voiced
personal regret for recent air strikes there that killed civilians.

A national health emergency in China intensified today over tainted
baby formula. Officials announced the numbers of affected children has
risen sharply to nearly 6,200. At least three have died.

LINDSEY HILSUM: All over China, hospitals are full of anxious parents.
Today, the government revealed that not one, but 22 companies had been
selling milk powder laced with melamine, an industrial chemical which
in tests makes the milk look high in protein, but also causes
potentially fatal renal failure.

CHINESE CITIZEN (through translator): I learned about the chemical in
the milk powder on TV, and we were worried, so I decided to bring the
baby for a checkup.

CHINESE CITIZEN (through translator): My baby has been having this
milk powder since he was tiny. Now we’re worried that he’s going to
get sick.

CHEN ZHU, Chinese Minister for Health (through translator): With the
announcement of the result of the nationwide melamine test on the baby
formula milk powder, more and more parents will take their children to
hospitals for checkups, and we expect a sharp increase in the number
of hospital admittances.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Parents are queuing to return milk powder to Sanlu,
the first company implicated. Consumers complained about the products
as early as March, but the company didn’t tell the local authorities
until August.

They, in turn, kept quiet until a New Zealand company with a part
share told their government, which forced the issue into the open last
week.

Nationwide testing this week, however, suggests that this was not an
isolated case. Dairy farmers supplying several of China’s biggest
dairy product manufacturers are alleged to have added melamine. Some
have been arrested, while company and government officials have been
sacked.

GWEN IFILL: The Chinese government said today it’s sending out 5,000
inspectors to monitor the makers of baby formula. Last year, the same
chemical, melamine, was blamed for the deaths of some 1,500 dogs and
cats in the United States after it turned up in pet food made in
China.

The U.S. House voted today to ease gun restrictions in the District of
Columbia. It approved a bill to repeal the city’s ban on semi-
automatic handguns. The measure also overturns a law requiring that
firearms in the home be kept locked up and inoperable.

Supporters said they’re heeding a U.S. Supreme Court decision that
struck down the gun ban. Opponents said the House trampled on home
rule. The Senate is not likely to consider the issue this year.

The gwen ifill washington week debates presidential mccain

A series of U.S. presidential debates will begin this week when John
McCain, the Republican contender, and Barack Obama, the Democratic
candidate, confront each other Friday.

Three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate will take
place in the weeks before the Nov. 4 election. The first debate will
take place Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time – 1 a.m. GMT on
Saturday – and last 90 minutes. The debate Friday – on foreign policy
and national security – will be moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS at the
University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi.

All four debates will be broadcast by CNN International and BBC World.
They can also be viewed live at http://www.mydebates.org, a collaboration
between MySpace.com and the Commission on Presidential Debates; they
will remain available for viewing after the debates.

The EU began deploying monitors to Georgia despite earlier threats by
the Russian military to bar them from buffer zones around Abkhazia and
South Ossetia.

With just a month to go, how will the campaign deploy John McCain and
Sarah Palin accross the states it is tar…

Columnist Joe Nocera explains why the future of AIG may be more
telling than today’s Fed rate decision.

Sarah Palin has many tests between now and Election Day, and the
McCain campaign is deliberately confronting t…