THIS DEBATE “FACT CHECK” from ABC News notes that Sarah Palin fluffed the name of a general in Afghanistan but — as I predicted last night — ignores Joe Biden’s multiple Constitutional mistakes. Putting the President in Article I, and claiming that the VP only presides over the Senate in case of a tie would seem to be at least as significant, especially given that Biden has been in the Senate since before I hit puberty, and is, you know, running for Vice President. Perhaps he should study up on what the job involves — remember, the rap on Sarah Palin was that she didn’t know. And perhaps the press should try reporting on what he says more . . . .

UPDATE: At TaxProf, a roundup of tax gaffes from last night’s debate, more from Palin than from Biden.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on tax gaffes.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Sarah Palin Scores. “Altogether, they clashed in a spirited debate that was far more illuminating than the conversation between their running mates last week. The public benefited, but perhaps no one benefited more than Palin in showing that she could comfortably hold her own with a six-term senator who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee.”

UPDATE: Some people think I’m being coy and want to know what I think. Well, I don’t trust my instincts on this stuff — remember, I thought Carter beat Reagan. But it seemed to me that both did well, and that this was a bigger deal for Palin than for Biden since the press was portraying her as some sort of airhead before. I agree with the Daily News that it was a better debate than last week’s, and I was struck by how cordial Biden and Palin seemed afterward. Frankly, I think the country would be better off if both tickets were flipped. . . .

MORE ON THOSE MISSING SUNSPOTS: “The Sun has been strangely unblemished this year. On more than 200 days so far this year, no sunspots were spotted. That makes the Sun blanker this year than in any year since 1954, when it was spotless for 241 days. The Sun goes through a regular 11-year cycle, and it is now emerging from the quietest part of the cycle, or solar minimum. But even for this phase it has been unusually quiet, with little roiling of the magnetic fields that induce sunspots.”

SOMETHING OF A CLOWN SHOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: “Faculty members held a rally at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to back the Obama presidential campaign Thursday to show that they will not follow guidelines issued by the university that bar them from rallies or wearing political buttons on campus, the Chicago Tribune reported. The university says it isn’t enforcing the guidelines, which it says are required by state law. And one state official told the Tribune that the law limits political activity by students, too — a view not even the university endorses. Professors say that the guidelines unreasonably limit their freedom of expression.”

PATRICK RUFFINI: Sarah is back. It’s no coincidence, I think, that she does better without a big-media filter between her and the audience.

Plus, from Mickey Kaus: “Big loser, again, is Hillary. In two years Palin will be so much better she won’t even be in the same league.”

And Rich Hailey comments: “Joe won his debate, totally eviscerating President Bush. Unfortunately, Bush wasn’t actually at the debate, so it was kind of an empty victory . . . . Palin held her own against Biden, which, according to the Obama/Olbermann Law of Diminished Media Expectations, means she won a huge victory. Oddly, I don’t think I’ll see the media spinning it that way for her the way they did for Obama last week.”

Jennifer Rubin comments: “In short, she entirely and completely beat the spread. Her performance, given how poorly she has fared recently, was nothing short of stunning. And Biden knew it.”

Plus, a roundup of reactions from Joe Gandelman.

MORE VOTING WORRIES: ‘Static’ Blamed for D.C.’s Extra Votes Snafu.

326 people voted at the Reeves Center precinct on primary election day in September. Their votes were captured on a computer cartridge, but the Board of Elections says when it put the cartridge into the citywide computer to be counted, 1,500 write in votes appeared from nowhere. The board completed its investigation of what might have happened and blames static electricity.

As I’ve said before, the issue of voting integrity needs urgent attention.

WHISTLING SNARLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD: Russia sees in credit crisis end of U.S. domination. Er, except for this:

But in contrast with other European countries Russia’s own financial system has been in steep decline over the past weeks, and regulators suspended stock trading three times. As in other emerging markets during periods of turmoil, investors have had a tendency to pull money out of Russia and to deposit it in U.S. Treasury bills.

Since the second week in August, when the war in Georgia and political tension with the West heightened concerns about stability in Russia, $52 billion in net private capital has left Russia, according to an investor note from Goldman Sachs.

The sad news is that the financial systems outside the United States have even lower standards.

THOUGHTS ON THE CURRENT POLITICAL SITUATION, from Pattie’s Rants.

THANKS, HARRY: Insurers dive on Reid’s ‘bankrupt’ quote. “Comments from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about a ‘major insurance company’ on the verge of bankruptcy send already hard-hit stocks sharply lower.”

What, is he taking his lead from Chuck Schumer?

UPDATE: Chris Fountain: “Call me a cynic, but it occurs to me that these Dem’s have a vested interest in a ruined economy for the election and are doing their damndest to achieve it.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A hedge-fund reader emails: “Reid, Schumer, and Pelosi are widely assumed to be stoking a financial Reichstag fire that would be a win-win for the permanent government. Conventional wisdom holds that economic chaos benefits the “out” presidential party, of course. Destruction of private wealth increases dependency on the central government. And a humbled private sector makes spinning the regulatory ratchet that much easier. Cynical, shameless, and in plain sight.”

They’re playing with fire, if so. And however you spin it, Reid is being shockingly irresponsible.

MORE: Reader Tom Nally writes:

I don’t think the Democrat’s strategy to hurt the economy is a politically dangerous one at all, at least in the short term. For nearly a year now, I’ve been saying this: Republicans will get blamed for the failures of Democratic policy, and this blame will be made to stick. It will stick because the major media outlets are essentially affiliates of the Democratic party.

I’ve been making this argument in an attempt to encourage disaffected conservatives to vote for John McCain (pre-Palin). I argued this: if the Dems win control of the executive branch, we (conservatives) will get none of our agenda enacted, plus we will get blamed for the failures of Democratic policies. Therefore, NOT voting for McCain will provide conservatives will no refuge.

It keeps coming back to that media thing, doesn’t it?

YOUR CONGRESS AT WORK: We helped bankrupt the banks. Now we’re doing the same thing for health care!

ROGER SIMON: Vice Presidential Debate big loser: the MSM.

FABIUS MAXIMUS: The last opportunity for effective action before disaster. “Restarting the necessary flows through the business credit system must be done immediately, and will require drastic measures. . . . This is triage. Immediate aid to those who can survive. Fairness and equity are now irrelevant luxuries. Punishment of the innocent and rewards to the guilty can wait until the immediate crisis has passed.”

INSTA-POLL:

UPDATE: From the comments: ‘Wow, Ifill tried to associate Palin with Dick Cheney and managed to give Biden the last word on every issue. Amazing.” I thought Ifill was reasonably fair. But the whole Cheney thing just served to let Biden make a fool of himself on the Constitution. If Palin had made those mistakes, the press would be having a field day. I predict that Biden’s multiple constitutional errors will go unmentioned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Frank Luntz’s focus group thought it was Palin by a mile. Luntz predicts a big shift in the polls toward McCain over the next few days. We’ll see.

Dan Riehl looks at reactions.

Plus, correcting Biden’s math on Afghanistan. Also here.

FINALLY: From the comments: “Palin won this debate quite handily. But give the MSM a day or two and they’ll convince most people that Biden blew the doors off poor ignorant Sarah.”

VIDEO: Bill O’Reilly vs. Barney Frank.

STEPHEN GREEN WILL BE drunkblogging the debate. Ann Althouse is liveblogging, and so is Jason Pye. Likewise Jeralyn Merritt at Talkleft. And they’re promising nonstop blogging at Hit & Run and The Corner. Also FishBowlDC. And Jules Crittenden.

UPDATE: More at The Sundries Shack, including a list of more livebloggers. And TigerHawk is livetired-blogging from Madrid

ANOTHER UPDATE: Biden keeps talking about deregulation. But wasn’t it Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, et al., who shielded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from regulation?

MORE: The McCain folks email: “Biden said McCain voted ‘the exact same way’ as Obama to raise taxes on people making $42,000/year. That’s a lie. McCain didn’t vote on either bill.”

Stephen Green: “Biden has an easy command of the facts, even when his facts are BS. Given the pressure on Palin, that’s probably all he needs to do tonight for a draw or better.”

STILL MORE: I think that Biden’s doing fine, but Andrew Sullivan disagrees: “Biden is just dreadful. He speaks in Washingtonese. She just issues the soundbites and wrinkles her eyes and tells stories. And that works. The speed and chirpiness she delivers overwhelms one’s ability to even quite absorb what she’s saying. And it has put Biden off-stride. It’s Biden who seems over-crammed.”

I think Palin’s doing fine, especially once she got on her home-base topic of energy. But Biden seems fine, too – but what will Andrew say about this: “Senator Biden, do you support gay marriage?” “No.” They conclude their discussion of the topic by agreeing that Obama, Biden, and Palin all have the same position.

There’s a poll at Drudge and Sarah Palin’s winning in a runaway. Doesn’t seem that big a gap to me, but what do I know? I thought Carter beat Reagan . . . .

Hey, now the Drudge poll has vanished, but Ann Althouse has a screenshot, and a poll of her own.

Jim Treacher is live-blogging, too: “Ah! Obama is against gay marriage. So Biden’s previous answer was… unclear.”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is wrong about the Vice President and the Constitution — the Vice President does have a legislative role, and the VP doesn’t just preside over the Senate in case of a tie. The VP only votes in case of a tie, but voting isn’t the same as presiding. Good grief.

Also, Joe, Article I of the Constitution deals with the legislative branch, not the executive. Again, good grief.

MORE STILL: Reader David Rensin emails: “He didn’t just call the citizens of Bosnia ‘Bosniacs’, did he?” Yeah, he did.

FINALLY: Still more on Joe Biden’s constitutional flubs.

Plus, Stephen Green emails: “Jim Dunnigan and Austin Bay use the word ‘Bosniaks’ in reference in Moslem Bosnians.” So give that one to Biden. Though if I thought he actually read Dunnigan and Bay I’d give him two points.

And, yes, the VP’s legislative duties are in Article I. But that cuts precisely against the point that Biden was trying to make. Here’s what Biden said: “Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. . . . The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.” This is wong on multiple levels at once. Article I — which deals with the legislative, not the Executive branch, says: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” The Vice President presides over the Senate by right, whenever he/she wants to, regardless of whether there’s a tie vote.

What’s more, Vice Presidents, until Spiro Agnew, got their offices and budgets from the Senate, not the Executive Branch. The legislative character of that office is traditional — treating the VP as part of the Executive Branch, and a sort of junior co-President, is a recent and, to my mind, unwise innovation. That’s discussed at more length in this article from the Northwestern University Law Review.

TONIGHT’S DEBATE HAS BEEN Laphamized.

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT AMERICA (CONT’D): European banks have turned out to be deeper in debt than their US counterparts.

It took a weekend to shatter the complacency of German finance minister Peer Steinbrück. Last Thursday he told us that the financial crisis was an “American problem”, the fruit of Anglo-Saxon greed and inept regulation that would cost the United States its “superpower status”. Pleas from US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for a joint US-European rescue plan to halt the downward spiral were rebuffed as unnecessary.

By Monday, Mr Steinbrück was having to orchestrate Germany’s biggest bank bail-out, putting together a €35 billion loan package to save Hypo Real Estate. By then Europe was “staring into the abyss,” he admitted. Belgium faced worse. It had to nationalise Fortis (with Dutch help), a 300-year-old bastion of Flemish finance, followed a day later by a bail-out for Dexia (with French help). . . .

We now know that it was French finance minister Christine Lagarde who begged Mr Paulson to save the US insurer AIG last week. AIG had written $300 billion in credit protection for European banks, admitting that it was for “regulatory capital relief rather than risk mitigation”. In other words, it was underpinning a disguised extension of credit leverage. Its collapse would have set off a lending crunch across Europe as banking capital sank below water level.

It turns out that European regulators have allowed even greater use of “off-books” chicanery than the Americans. Mr Paulson may have saved Europe.

Once again. And, as usual, got no credit for doing so . . . .

WRITING the last chapter first.

WHAT THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR thinks about Obama.

ORRIN HATCH: Palin ‘Being Set Up’; Ifill ‘In the Tank’.

MICHELLE MALKIN is trying to kill the bailout. Jonah Goldberg is writing about coprophagia. “The Senate managed to dress the sandwich so that it is in fact much more craptacular than the House version. Whatever defense one can muster for the wooden arrow tax breaks (take that fiberglass arrow-making scum!), it’s just bizarre from the standard of earth logic.”

UPDATE: New business opportunity: Voter Anger Management! It’s too late for this election cycle, but the bipartisan voter unhappiness might give a shot in the arm to a third-party populist movement.

Plus, an economist calls the latest version of the bill a “pinata of ridiculousness.” And yet, not as ridiculous as the Congress that produced it . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: The bailout bill has carbon tax provisions?

A STAGGERING WORK OF GENIUS: The anti-theft lunch bag. Why didn’t I think of this?

BAREFOOT in Knoxville.

NOW IT’S SUSIE BRIGHT repeating the rape kit smear. Plus, fantasies about kidnapping Sarah Palin for sex.

FBI TALKING TO Obama friends? Is there any connection with the reportedly-talkative Tony Rezko? Stay tuned.