THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan: "The United States is helping senior Taliban leaders attend initial peace talks with the Afghan government in Kabul because military officials and diplomats want to take advantage of any possibility of political reconciliation, Obama administration and NATO officials said Thursday."

* The expected appeal: "The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to allow the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy on gays to continue during an appeal."

* Wrong direction: "The number of Americans filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly increased last week, indicating the U.S. job market is struggling to mend."

* A procedural win for health care opponents: "A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ruled that challenges to the healthcare reform law's individual mandate and its Medicaid expansion can proceed."

* The foreclosure debacle: "For more than a decade, big lenders sold millions of mortgages around the globe at lightning speed without properly transferring the physical documents that prove who legally owned the loans. Now, some of the pension systems, hedge funds and other investors that took big losses on the loans are seeking to use this flaw to force banks to compensate them or even invalidate the mortgage trades themselves. Their collective actions, if successful, could blow a hole through the balance sheets of big banks and raise fundamental questions about the financial system, financial analysts and a lawmaker said."

* The political establishment is convinced that voters don't care about the secret cash funding American elections. New data suggests "the issue may indeed matter a good deal to voters after all."

* A clip-and-save item from Jonathan Cohn on health care reform: "[F]or the sake of my friends at Fox News and anybody who might be listening to them, here are three basic questions to ask every time you hear a story about changes the Affordable Care Act is unleashing: 1) Is something actually changing? 2) Is the change related to the Affordable Care Act? 3) Is the change really for the worse?"

* Larry Mishel explains the stimulus debate very well, with a helpful metaphor.

* Daniel Luzer: "How much can you pay for college? Remember when $50,000 a year was a lot of money? Now that's not even surprising. Cost is still going up, a lot, and now $60,000 is right around the corner."

* And in a rather classic example of why I think the notion of conservative populism is silly on a fundamental level, Glenn Beck urged his followers today to start sending donations directly to corporate interests so the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can buy more elections for far-right candidates. The minions took their orders well -- the Chamber's online donation page crashed today after regular folks tried to give their money to the already-extremely-wealthy business lobby.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

THE GOP DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR MCINTURFF'S GOOD ADVICE.... Republican pollster Bill McInturff, a partner of Public Opinion Strategies, believes a fair number of Americans are starting to notice some of the popular benefits of the Affordable Care Act. His advice to his party, then, is to move away from promises of a wholesale repeal, and move towards promises about getting rid of the unpopular stuff*.

"If you're for repeal and replace, it means you have to say that every single element of health care is something you disagree with, or at least allows your opponent to characterize your position that way. That seems to me to not make much sense.

"Number two, people are very conscious that we fought for a year about this. And so ... telling people that we're going to start totally from scratch and do it again, there's a certain kind of weariness about the process."

Imagine that. You meant to tell me that, come February, Americans don't want to hear Congress announce, "All right everyone, let's debate a national health care plan all over again"? What a surprise.

Of course, there's a catch. As Jon Chait noted, "I don't think the GOP's activist base is going to let the party follow [McInturff's] advice."

Agreed. In fact, it's one of the aspects of the Republican agenda that I find most amusing. If the midterms go as well as expected for the GOP, Republicans will reach a point early next year at which they have two competing constituencies:

(1) a party base that considers repealing every letter of the Affordable Care Act to be at the top of its priority list;

(2) an American mainstream that would rather jump out the window than deal with months of political wrangling over health care policy.

The first group expects enthusiastic follow-through, and wouldn't mind a government shutdown over this. The second group would very likely be extremely unhappy with this outcome.

In context, McInturff may be talking more about this year's campaign rhetoric than next year's governing rhetoric. But once the elections are over, the general advice is equally sound -- Republicans are already viewed unfavorably and have unpopular agenda. Do they annoy the mainstream by starting another fight over health care, vowing to repeal popular policy provisions? Or do they infuriate the base which has been misled into thinking the Affordable Care Act is evil?

* Postcript: McInturff is a pollster, not a policy analyst, but it's worth emphasizing that taking out the unpopular parts of the ACA makes the popular parts ineffective. Promising voters they can have all the stuff they want, with no costs to anyone, may work well in a poll, but not in reality.

BRODER LOOKS AHEAD.... David Broder makes a few competing points in his column today, some of which struck me as more persuasive than others, but the crux of his argument seemed to be that the next Congress probably won't be pretty. The near future will feature "such wild gyrations and produce such untried novices that the partisan warfare of the past two years will seem mild by comparison."

On this, we agree. For all the talk that most Americans want a more productive, less rancorous Washington, the electorate appears poised to deliver the exact opposite.

But after a series of observations, it was Broder's conclusion that got me thinking.

This is not ultimately a radical nation, and those Republicans who are in love with radical notions of remaking the society to fit their own philosophy will have to be brought back in touch with reality.

When a party fails to do that, it can find the seeds of its own destruction in the victory banquet. Republicans, and the country, deserve better.

That strikes me as pretty compelling.

But I hope the political establishment appreciates recent history here. The Republican Party moved to the right before suffering serious setbacks in 2006. It moved a little further to the right, and lost another cycle in 2008. It then moved sharply to the very far right, but is nevertheless poised to make sweeping gains in the 2010 midterms.

Broder hopes to see some of these newly-elected radicals be "brought back in touch with reality." I'd like to see the same. But parties tend to work on a system of rewards and punishments, and if GOP extremism wins, voters will send a signal to the mainstream that recent radicalism is acceptable -- even preferrable.

Broder suggests, as a long-term proposition, the Republicans' break with reality may ultimately sow the "seeds of its own destruction." Perhaps. But those green shoots will be even further away after radicals feel emboldened by an electoral endorsement.

WORST. DISTINCTION. EVER.... The controversy surrounding the Ohio Republican congressional candidate who spent years dressing up as a Nazi officer during WW II re-enactments has just about run its course. The NRCC, which had recruited Rich Iott, has put some distance between him and the party, and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) denounced Iott's recreational habits on national television.

But before the story goes away entirely, Iott's campaign team wants the public to be aware of a distinction.

"Rich Iott doesn't have an anti-Semitic bone in his body," [said Iott's spokesperson], who sought to distinguish between a Nazi uniform and an SS uniform, which he said is what Iott is wearing in the now-famous image.

The Nazis were Adolf Hitler's party -- and became shorthand for the German military under his rule -- while the SS was an elite squadron of soldiers and law enforcers responsible for a variety of war crimes.

The Atlantic's Josh Green, who broke this story on Friday, responded, "If your spokesman is emphasizing distinction between Nazis and SS, your candidacy is probably in trouble."

Or, as Josh Marshall added, "It wasn't a Nazi uniform. It was a uniform of the Nazi paramilitary force! Next. It was a concentration camp, not a death camp!"

I suppose the campaign feels compelled to say something, and the "just for fun" line wasn't cutting it, but some things are surprisingly tough to spin.

THE LIMITED APPLICATIONS OF TEA PARTY IDEOLOGY.... Stories like these remain common, but I continue to find them entertaining and illustrative. (thanks to Dave for the tip)

Mike Murphree is as sympathetic as anyone to Senator Jim DeMint and his crusade against earmarks, those pet projects financed by Congress, usually out of the public eye. Mr. Murphree is chairman of the Charleston Tea Party and sees earmarks as a root cause of overspending and political corruption.

But even Mr. Murphree, 48, a general contractor, has split with Mr. DeMint on one particular earmark that many here see as vital to the region. It would advance plans to deepen the Port of Charleston, just outside the city limits [of Mount Pleasant, S.C.], to accommodate the mega cargo ships that will be calling once the Panama Canal is expanded in 2014.

At issue is a $400,000 earmark for the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a feasibility study. For locals, the taxpayer money would be well spent, which is why leading Tea Party activists like Mike Murphree have endorsed the earmark. Even right-wing gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley (R), a favorite of the party's base, wants the federal government to pony up.

This year, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another ostensible opponent of government spending and earmarks, requested this earmark specifically. "I'm all for change and all for reform," Graham told the NYT. "But this is where the reality of governing rears its ugly head."

You don't say.

For the right, government-by-platitudes is surprisingly easy. Spending is bad, earmarks are bad, taxes are bad. They tend to run into a little trouble when this worldview runs into practical applications.

South Carolina's other U.S. senator, Jim DeMint, continues to be a "purist" on these issues, so he hasn't backed Graham's request. And as it turns out, the port's plans won't proceed unless both of South Carolina's senators are on board.

By sticking to conservative principles above all else, DeMint is hurting his constituents and his state's competitiveness -- and wouldn't you know it, his conservative fans in South Carolina aren't at all pleased, since they're suffering the consequences of DeMint's ideology.

Of course, they agree with that ideology when DeMint is blocking funding for other people. But with South Carolina poised to lose billions of dollars in commerce and thousands of jobs, even South Carolina Tea Partiers are discovering the limits of their worldview.

One local told the Times, "Senator DeMint's heart is in the right place, but he's wrong on this issue." Another said, "Allow the earmark. This is not an abuse. This is not a bridge to nowhere. This is a bridge to somewhere."

What the right generally refuses to realize is that the same sentiment could be expressed for just about every spending project.

RAND PAUL RETHINKS HIS OWN TAX POLICY.... In a handful of races this year, voters are hearing about a conservative idea that tends to exist on the fringes. The proposal has a nice sounding name -- the "fair tax" -- but it's actually a plan to scrap the existing U.S. tax structure, and replace it with a national sales tax.

To crudely summarize, all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare and self-employment taxes would be swept away. In its place, we'd have a large national consumption tax. Since the wealthy spend a small proportion of their income, and everyone else spends far more, it's an extremely regressive approach to tax policy.

In Kentucky, extremist Senate candidate Rand Paul (R) was asked about his endorsement of the idea. "I haven't really been saying anything like that," he told reporters.

That's not quite true.

An anti-tax group on Tuesday released to The Associated Press a written statement from Paul saying he would support changing the federal tax code to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, and he would vote to repeal the 16th Amendment. Paul's statement called the federal tax code "a disaster" and said he supports making taxes "flatter and simpler."

"I would vote for the FairTax to get rid of the Sixteenth Amendment, the IRS and a lot of the control the federal government exerts over us," Paul wrote in a statement verified by his campaign.

Not surprisingly, Paul's Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Jack Conway, thinks voters should be aware of this. "Working people are having a tough enough time making ends meet," Conway campaign spokesperson Allison Haley said. "They can't afford Rand's plan to put a 23 percent sales tax on everything they buy -- from groceries to gas to medicine."

Pressed by reporters about his endorsement of the radical tax policy, Paul "declined to answer further questions on the topic."

I wonder why.

The problem for Paul is that he seems to take positions on issues he doesn't understand, and then can't figure out a way to defend the ideas he endorses. It's generally the first hint of a candidate who isn't quite ready for prime time.

As for the campaign, polls show a very close contest. I wonder what would happen if Conway spent the next 19 days talking about "Rand Paul's plan to put a 23 percent sales tax on everything Kentuckians buy -- from groceries to gas to medicine."

RUNNING AGAINST REPEAL.... When the Affordable Care Act became law, many of us envisioned a scenario in which proponents could go on the offensive against Republican opponents. I called it "the repeal trap" -- GOP candidates who support repealing health care reform necessarily want to do some very unpopular things.

Given the polls and the larger climate, nearly all Dems chose a different course, and are downplaying the landmark health care breakthrough. The trap was available, but Democrats were reluctant to set it.

But not all Dems. Rep. Scott Murphy (D), in a tough race in eastern New York, launched a new ad this week, going after his Republican challenger for supporting repeal.

"Time for a reality check," the voice-over tells viewers. "Chris Gibson wants to repeal the health care law. Chris Gibson would let insurance companies go back to denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. He would let them restore lifetime limits on coverage. Chris Gibson would eliminate mandatory coverage for preventive care like mammograms and colon screenings. And seniors would pay more for prescription drugs."

All of this happens to be true, and it's the part of the GOP's repeal message that gets lost in the shuffle -- the Affordable Care Act isn't popular, but the parts that make up the Affordable Care Act are very popular.

When Republicans endorse repeal, they're necessarily taking a stand in support of a specific agenda -- discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions, higher taxes on small businesses, tens of millions of Americans losing access to coverage, re-imposition of lifetime caps and rescission rules, and a Medicare prescription drug donut hole.

It's gone almost entirely overlooked this campaign season, but this is the Republican approach to health care policy 2011. It doesn't even require hyperbole or half-truths -- this is what repeal means. This is the GOP plan.

And it's the kind of plan that Americans won't, and don't, like.

It's obviously too late to change major campaign strategies, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if national Dems started pushing this message months ago.

THURSDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Are pollsters ignoring cell-phone-only Americans, who are more likely to be younger and Democratic? The Pew Research Center suggests that's the case, and Mark Blumenthal ponders the evidence.

* Dems had high hopes about the open U.S. Senate race in Missouri, but with polls showing Rep. Roy Blunt (R) with stubborn leads, it looks like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is scaling back its investments. The DSCC is, however, boosting its role in Nevada.

* And with that in mind, in Nevada's U.S. Senate race, the polls don't offer much guidance. A new Suffolk University poll shows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) leading Sharron Angle (R) by three, 46% to 43%, while Mason-Dixon shows Angle up by two, 47% to 45%.

* Questions of ideology aside, new evidence suggests extremist Senate candidate Joe Miller (R) in Alaska has a serious integrity problem. No wonder he refuses to answer questions about his background.

* In Florida's gubernatorial race, the latest survey from Public Policy Polling survey shows Alex Sink (D) leading Rick Scott (R), 46% to 41%.

* In Connecticut's U.S. Senate race, Quinnipiac had showed a tightening race, but its new numbers show Richard Blumenthal (D) leading Linda McMahon (R), 54% to 43%.

* In the state of Washington, a new Time/CNN poll shows incumbent Sen. Patty Murray (D) leading Dino Rossi (R) by eight, 51% to 43%.

* In Wisconsin, the new Time/CNN poll shows Ron Johnson (R) leading Sen. Russ Feingold (D), 44% to 52%, and Scott Walker (R) leading Tom Barrett (D) in the gubernatorial race, 52% to 44%.

* In West Virginia's U.S. Senate race, the new Time/CNN poll shows Gov. Joe Manchin (D) and John Raese (R) tied at 44% each.

* In Delaware's U.S. Senate race, Time/CNN poll shows Chris Coons (D) leading Christine O'Donnell (R), 57% to 38%, while a new Monmouth University poll shows Coons up by the identical margin.

* In related news, Rep. Mike Castle, who lost to O'Donnell in a GOP primary, has announced he won't make an endorsement in the race.

* And in New Hampshire, a couple of controversies are threatening leading Republican candidates. In the U.S. Senate race, the saga of Kelly Ayotte's politicized emails continues, this time with evidence that Ayotte may have politicized a death penalty case involving a murdered police officer. And in a U.S. House race, former Rep. Charlie Bass (R), hoping to make a comeback, appears to have helped a company with the Bush administration shortly after buying stock in the same company.

SENATE STRATEGERY IN THE SUNSHINE STATE.... For much of the summer, it looked as if Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I), after leaving the GOP and moving to the left, was well positioned in the state's open U.S. Senate race. But after the primaries, Democratic voters started to rally behind Rep. Kendrick Meek (D), whose post-primary bounce came at Crist's expense, though it hasn't been enough to keep the Democrat from running third.

At this point, all the recent polls show the same thing -- Crist and Meek are splitting the center-left, leaving Marco Rubio (R) with double-digit leads. It's prompted some to begin whispering about whether Meek should withdraw, giving Crist a shot at victory, making it far less likely that a far-right Republican will take the seat, and holding out the possibility that Crist would end up caucusing with Dems.

The whispers are almost certainly in vain. For one thing, Meek swears up and down he isn't going anywhere, and there's literally no evidence to the contrary. For another, in the exceedingly unlikely chance Meek were to quit, it's too late to remove the Democratic nominee's name from the ballot anyway.

But just for the sake of conversation, would it be a good idea? In his column for The Hill, Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas raises a good point.

The truth is that Democrats aren't just happy for Meek to stay in the race, they are actively boosting what is pretty much a hopeless candidacy. Why? Because Meek's presence on the ballot helps Democrats in the governor's race.

With Democrats poised to lose myriad governors' races, winning Florida would be a massive coup.... But more substantively, holding the governorship would be a huge assist to Obama's reelection bid in 2012, as keeping Florida blue will be a top White House priority. In addition, Florida's governor has a veto over the state's congressional redistricting in 2012. While a ballot initiative aims to strip that power from the partisan Legislature into more impartial hands, holding the governorship will be critical if that effort fails.

And that's where Meek comes in. Thirteen percent of Florida voters are -- like Meek -- African-American, and right now polls show him with 71 percent support in that community. That vote will be critical to Democrat Alex Sink's chances in the virtually deadlocked gubernatorial race. In a campaign where every vote will prove critical, Democrats can't count on Crist delivering new votes to other Democratic candidates. Abandoning Meek for Crist would almost surely depress African-American turnout and cost Democrats elsewhere on the ballot.

In some conversations with Florida Dems, I've heard the sentiment more than once -- if given a choice, they'd rather win the governor's race than the Senate race, a preference made easier by polls showing the former practically tied, and the latter looking like a blowout.

If it takes a grand bargain -- Meek's presence helps Rubio and Sink (and down-ballot Dems) win their respective contests -- it's one many in the party will gladly accept.

I CAN THINK OF A FEW LETTERS I'D LIKE TO BUY.... Pat Sajak is perhaps best known as the host of the television game-show "Wheel of Fortune," but those who keep up with conservative media outlets also recognize Sajak as a prominent far-right activist.

How far-right? The game-show host published an item for National Review this week to question whether public employees should be "able to vote in state elections on matters that would benefit them directly."

In what appears to be his first post, Sajak pointed out today that no one in his family, or even his "kids' teachers or the guys who rotate my tires" is allowed to appear on his show, because there is at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. "In nearly all private and public endeavors," he continues, "there are occasions in which it's only fair and correct that a person or group be barred from participating because that party could directly and unevenly benefit from decisions made and policies adopted."

So, he asks, what about those state employees who have a greater stake in a vote's outcome than the rest of us?

"I'm not suggesting that public employees should be denied the right to vote, but that there are certain cases in which their stake in the matter may be too great," Sajak writes.

As a rule, any sentence that effectively begins, "I don't want to disenfranchise law-abiding Americans, but..." isn't going to end well.

In this case, Sajak argues, "[I]f, for example, a ballot initiative appears that might cap the benefits of a certain group of state workers, should those workers be able to vote on the matter? Plainly, their interests as direct recipients of thebenefits [sic] are far greater than the interests of others whose taxes support such benefits."

It's quite a concept. Voters might be asked to consider a ballot measure on the fire department, which Sajak suggests might be grounds to stop firefighters from voting. Or in the case of a ballot initiative on schools, teachers could be barred from participating in the election.

In case this isn't obvious, let's be perfectly clear about the merit of such an idea: this is crazy. Preventing Americans from voting based on whether they'd benefit from the outcome goes against the principles that allow for elections in the first place. It's a feature, not a bug -- voters make decisions, rightly or wrongly, based on whether they expect to benefit, directly or indirectly, from the results.

By Sajak's reasoning, if conflict-of-interest concerns might need to disenfranchise Americans, we'd have to start with candidates themselves, insisting that they not vote at all, because of their stake in the outcome.

A democracy is not a game-show. Screening for participation makes sense with the latter, but went out with Jim Crow in the former.

ANGLE TRIES TO EXPLAIN HER SHARIA LAW COMMENTS.... Picking the single craziest thing extremist Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) has ever said is surprisingly difficult, but the Sharia law remarks from about two weeks ago have to be right up there.

"Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under Constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don't know how that happened in the United States," she said with her trademark incoherence. "It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States."

None of this made any sense. Dearborn, Michigan, has a large Muslim-American population, but the city follows the same laws as the rest of the country. Frankford, Texas, meanwhile, doesn't exist.

This week, the radical Nevadan candidate appeared on a conservative radio talk show, and elaborated on her concerns.

"Well, what I had been hearing was that there would be quite a ruckus there because of what's going on in Michigan in response to Sharia law and people that think that Sharia law should be in place here in the United States. So of course I didn't intend to offend anyone with my remarks. It's just that people are quite nervous about the idea of having anything but a Constitutional republic here in the United States."

Asked if she thought Sharia law was in place in Dearborn "right now," Angle replied, "I had read that in one place, that they have started using some Sharia law there. That's what I had read."

Remember, she's a major-party candidate for the United States Senate.

She read somewhere that a predominantly Muslim community had abandoned at least "some" of American law, which was all the evidence she needed to start warning the public about non-existent Sharia law "going on in Michigan."

Oh, and for the record, in this radio interview, Angle did not explain why she made up an entire town in Texas to make a point that has no basis in reality.

DISMISSING A SILLY METRIC.... One of the more common rhetorical tricks of the campaign season is going after Democratic House members based on how often they voted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. For the right, voting with the Speaker necessarily is scandalous, for reasons that don't make any sense.

But if that's the metric conservatives want to go with, it leads to some amusing statistical observations.

It's an attack ad that writes itself: The House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner (Ohio), votes with liberal Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a majority of the time.

The statistic seems impossible to believe, given the ferocity with which Boehner denounces Pelosi, the progressive champion of San Francisco elitism and favorite GOP villain.

But it's true, according to an analysis by Democrats. Boehner has voted with the Democratic leadership 52 percent of the time in 2010. So has Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), chairman of the Republican conference and former head of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House Republican whip, and Rep. Pete Sessions (Tex.), head of the GOP's House campaign committee, are even cozier with Pelosi. They've voted with her 57 percent of the time.

And Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), the conservative firebrand who has compared the Democratic agenda to socialism? She's with Pelosi on 58 percent of House votes.

Just look at all of those far-right Republicans ... serving as a rubber stamp for that awful Speaker.

Of course, in reality, this is all terribly silly. The public generally only hears about major, contested pieces of legislation, but most of Congress' day-to-day work is mundane, and votes to rename post offices aren't especially controversial. Bachmann voted Pelosi's way 58% of the time, but the other 42% were votes on bills that matter.

There's no weighting, though, based on significance.

It's what allows a growing number of Dems in "red" districts, many of whom voted with Pelosi most of the time, to also run ads showing that they voted with Boehner and Republicans most of the time.

Doug Thornell, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the DCCC, added, "Gosh, I wonder what the Tea Party would think if they knew House Republican leaders vote with Speaker Pelosi most of the time. This analysis just shows how big of a joke the GOP argument against Democrats is."

BEING CHENEY MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY.... Remember Harry Whittington? In February 2006, he was on a quail hunt with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot Whittington in the face, neck, and torso.

Nearly five years later, the 82-year-old Texan still feels the effects of the incident. The pellet that pierced his larynx affects his speech, a piece remains lodged near his heart, and birdshot pellets are still embedded in his eye socket, hairline, and hand. Indeed, even at the time, the shooting caused an erratic heartbeat and a collapsed lung.

The Washington Post's Paul Farhi caught up with Whittington, and wrote up an interesting profile of the man in today's edition, including a detailed account of the '06 incident and the years since. But perhaps the most noteworthy angle came at the very end of the piece.

[D]id Cheney ever say in private what he didn't say in public? Did he ever apologize?

Whittington, who has been talking about his life and career for hours, suddenly draws silent.

"I'm not going to go into that," he says sharply after a short pause.

Harry Whittington is too gracious to say it out loud, but he doesn't dispute the notion, either.

Nearly five years on, he's still waiting for Dick Cheney to say he's sorry.

I've long perceived Cheney as some of menacing, malevolent figure, but even by his low standards, this is pretty astonishing. He shot an old man in the face and nearly killed him -- but Cheney couldn't be bothered to apologize? He's had nearly five years, and he couldn't pick up the phone?

Remember, after Whittington spent a week in intensive care, he apologized, telling reporters, "My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week."

But Cheney lacks Whittington's grace.

Also note, Cheney may just have a reflexive opposition to expressing any kind of remorse, ever. After Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) approached the former V.P. on the Senate floor in a friendly way, Cheney told him to "go f**k yourself." Instead of apologizing for his tantrum, Cheney soon after went to Fox News to say how pleased he was with himself.

It takes a certain degree of class and decency to acknowledge wrongdoing, accept responsibility for mistakes, and express regret. Dick Cheney, regrettably, is sorely lacking in the class and decency department.

Indeed, Harry Whittington is still waiting for Dick Cheney to say he's sorry, and given what Cheney did to the country, Whittington isn't the only one waiting who'd like an apology.

A HARSH SPOTLIGHT IN DELAWARE.... There have been plenty of campaign debates between U.S. Senate candidates this year, including some very competitive contests in which the eventual winner remains unclear. As far as I can tell, not one of these debates was aired lived nationwide on one of the major cable news networks.

But Delaware's race has become a unique spectacle because it features one of the most ridiculous major-party nominees in recent history -- and no one's quite sure what she might say or do next.

With that in mind, CNN offered live coverage of the faceoff between Chris Coons (D) and Christine O'Donnell (R), not because it was especially newsworthy (it wasn't), and not because the race is especially close (it's not), but because a lot of people really do like to watch car crashes. I didn't tune in -- "Stargate: Universe" was on the DVR -- but reading some of the reports this morning, this one has to be my favorite.

Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell tonight totally confused the United States' history with Afghanistan when talking about the Obama administration's plan to withdraw troops from the country.

She complained that Obama and Democratic nominee Chris Coons are advocating something dangerous by proposing a drawdown of troops begin next summer.

"A random withdrawal, that he has said he supports, will simply embolden the terrorists to come after us even more, saying, 'I've chased away the superpower,'" O'Donnell said during a nationally televised debate hosted by CNN at the University of Delaware.

Granted, these issues can get confusing, and the fact that O'Donnell confused Iraq and Afghanistan is forgivable, as is her use of the phrase "random withdrawal," whatever that means.

But this description of recent history is just astounding: "Well if you remember when we were fighting the Soviets over there in Afghanistan in the '80s and '90s, we did not finish the job, so now we have a responsibility to finish the job and if you are gonna make these politically correct statements that it's costing us too much money, you are threatening the security of our homeland."

Remember, O'Donnell, if elected, has already said she'd like to serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

What else did we learn, other than the fact that Chris Coons apparently has some real policy chops, seems poised to be a fine senator, and knows infinitely more than O'Donnell about every subject? Well, there's the fact that O'Donnell "stuck with hollow platitudes, frequently contradicting herself when pressed for clarity"; she doesn't want to talk about her rejection of modern science; she can't say where she wants to cut the budget; and she can't name any recent Supreme Court rulings. (When asked to name one she didn't like, O'Donnell replied, "Oh gosh. Give me a specific one," which suggests she didn't understand the rather simple question.)

There are no additional debates scheduled between the two. [Update: I was mistaken. These two will face off again.]

WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* It's hard not to feel good about the successful rescue efforts in Chile. As of now, 23 are free, and there are 10 more to go.

* Crafting a response to the foreclosure debacle: "Federal regulators on Wednesday urged the nation's lenders to verify that paperwork filed as part of the foreclosure process was properly reviewed and to file new documents if problems are found."

* ThinkProgress follows up on its previous reporting, noting today that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce received at least $885,000 from over 80 foreign companies in disclosed donations.

* House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is so confident about the outcome of the midterms, he's already starting to make promises to members about valuable committee assignments.

* Ordinarily, the departure of a city's public schools' chief wouldn't necessarily be national news, but the departure of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is a unique case.

* Michael Cohen is back from Afghanistan. He reflects on what he saw as an elections monitor.

* It's hard to believe the extent to which right-wing groups have dominated the airwaves in the hopes of buying the elections: "FEC filings show they've spent almost $2.7 million on TV ads. The advertising data we reviewed suggests the nation's leading pro-gun group has aired 1,822 ads across four Senate races. All told, these ten groups have now aired 60,052 ads since the beginning of August."

* Congrats to Annie Lowery as she makes the transition from the Washington Independent to Slate.

* Not sure what to make of this: "Apparently in the wake of the success of The Social Network, the movie about Facebook's early days, filmmaker Wes Jones is now working on a movie about Karl Rove's time in college. Yup, Karl Rove."

* Glenn Beck wonders whether Donald Duck is a government-funded propaganda tool.

* And through her House Tea Party Caucus, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) intends to teach a class to incoming congressional freshman, to help protect against what she described as "huge, bureaucratic, large, big government." It should be quite a course.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.