These pundits should watch more baseball.

I hope to remain undecided until Election Day. If I settle on a candidate, I'm afraid I'll miss a good play or a bad error. A good baseball fan appreciates it when the opposing team turns a quick double play. But in the punditry I've seen since the debate - especially on NBC - the talking heads proved they'd made up their mind before last night's debate started. It's not easy to keep from setting a preference for one candidate or the other, but it's what a good opinion maker - and a good voter - will do.

Accordingly, here's my scouting report.

1. Barack Obama tried to emphasize his tax cuts for the middle class, but he didn't go far enough. He said twice that 95 percent of Americans will get a tax cut under his plan - but that doesn't mean anything. John McCain promised me $5,000. Barack Obama should should have said, "Look around. Do you think you're in the top 5 percent of earners? If not, you should vote for me, because I'll give you a tax break. If yes, you should vote for me anyway, because I'll manage the economy better."

2. John McCain did a good job telling the story of his foreign policy and military decisionmaking experience through the 1980s and 90s, but he let Barack Obama ruffle him with a cheap trick, when Obama seemingly slipped, calling him Tom, then later Jim. He stammered, and seemed to get a little heated - when he needed to be the one to put Obama in his place. 

Finally, a few things I have a little beef with:

• McCain listed conflicts he's helped make decisions on. He talked about Kosovo and Somalia, but didn't mention Rwanda at all.
  
• Obama let McCain get away with being the guy who opposed torture, when at the last minute, with his political future on the line, McCain voted against the bill that would have banned waterboarding.
  
• When did Henry Kissinger become such a great guy in everyone's estimation?
  

Fannie/Freddie Love Fest reached fever pitch under Clinton

Everyone in Washington is to blame for getting led down the primrose path with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All the intentions were good I'm sure, but I speak from personal experience when I say that getting into bed with someone can cloud financial judgment. A few paragraphs from a 1996 New York Times article illustrate my point:

Within the Clinton Administration, Franklin D. Raines, who was Fannie Mae's vice chairman until last year, is now the White House budget chief. The new Commerce Secretary, William M. Daley, is a former Fannie Mae board member. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin is a close friend of Mr. Johnson's. All three Administration officials say they have taken steps to avoid any conflict of interest.

But critics of the company have raised questions about whether the Administration can be truly unbiased when setting policy that might affect Fannie Mae.

During last year's House banking subcommittee hearings, Representative Richard H. Baker, Republican of Louisiana, pointed to what he said were discrepancies between a draft Treasury Department report on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the final version. He said the report might have been rewritten to tone down a finding that the mortgage markets could function perfectly well without any Government sponsorship.

''I am convinced that, for whatever reason, this report has been rewritten, reaches no conclusions, ignores the changes in the marketplace that have occurred and gives little direction to this subcommittee,'' Mr. Baker thundered at Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, who defended the Administration's report.

In what some describe as a telling illustration of how Fannie Mae has cultivated favor with the Administration, the company hired Walter Hubbell, a son of Webster L. Hubbell, the former Associate Attorney General who is at the heart of the Whitewater affair. Fannie Mae employed the younger Mr. Hubbell in 1994, after Mr. Johnson and other executives received calls from Administration officials -- including Mickey Kantor, who was then the United States trade representative -- urging them to do so. At the time, the White House had undertaken an effort to help the Hubbell family financially after the senior Mr. Hubbell's resignation from the Justice Department.

Changes to MBTA map

Many of these are good, but "JFK-Ms. USA" is my favorite. (Click on the map to enlarge the picture and read the new station names.)


via cascadilla.com

Felony news reporting in St. Paul, Denver

The Republican National Convention is turning out no different from the DNC last week. I can understand why city officials in St. Paul and Denver would want to take a hard line on protests that intend more to disrupt than to draw attention to issues. But arresting working journalists just lends credence to protesters' claims that the party committees and cities are colluding to suppress free speech. So far, the tally in St. Paul is four, including an AP photographer and a reporter and two producers from the left-wing news organization Democracy Now! 

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Baby-grandmama status belies "abstience only" education

The strange news of VP pick Sarah Palin's pending baby-grandmamahood never seemed like a candidacy killer to me - just a wild, weird story that put a hard news cap on the final weekend of the silly season. But thinking about it harder this morning, here's what I think it does damage: the GOP's platform stance in favor of abstinence only education. Here's an excerpt from the plank:

Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS when transmitted sexually. We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling, and related services for abortion and contraception.

A third of U.S. teenage girls get pregnant, more than any other developed nation. How many more are sexually active but never face the challenge of pregnancy? As a Senator, John McCain opposed teen pregnancy prevention programs and voted to require teen mothers to stay in school or lose federal benefits. And politicians he'll share the convention stage with this week think some kind of sex D.A.R.E. program is going to stem the tide of hormones and keep teenagers out of each others' underwear and the back seats of their parents' Dodge Caravans? It's hard to fathom.

Mid-East job interviews turn bloody

The United Arab Emirates, where briefcases full of dollars outnumber people, sees the writing on the wall. The country is taking its scads of oil money and investing in universities, museums, newspapers and other cultural institutions against the day when the oil wells run dry. To ensure fair treatment in this culture-and-cash free-for-all, job seekers must bring along a professional whistle-blower:

The National, the new English-language broadsheet in the United Arab Emirates, is seeking a deputy editor for the Personal Finance section for our soon-to-be-launched weekend edition. Experience on a daily is highly important. Editing and assigning experience vital. Anyone interested in working in a growing newspaper market for a quality publication should supply their rsum, along with contact information for three referees. To sample our paper, visit thenational.ae.