Measuring the Curtains?

" 'We need to do what we did in the 1990s and create millions of new jobs and not lose them,' he told 6,000 people in Abington, outside Philadelphia, last week. 'We need to do what we did in the 1990s and make sure people's incomes are going up and not down. We need to do what a guy named Bill Clinton did in the 1990s and put people first again.' The crowd roared.

"Obama's characterization of Clinton's presidency is markedly different than the one he offered during the Democratic primaries, when he was running against Clinton's wife, Senator Hillary Clinton."

Ya think?

But here's a wild card for Obama:

"About 94 percent of adult Americans have heard at least one obviously false rumor about the major presidential candidates, according to a first-of-its kind national survey of 1,015 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

"The most common rumors swirled around Obama's religion, with 89 percent of those polled saying they had heard he was Muslim, and nearly two-thirds said they found the rumor believable," says the New York Post.

"More than half heard that Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance or to display the flag, even though he usually wears a flag pin on his lapel."

Time's David Von Drehle has been roaming around Missouri and plumbing people's racial attitudes:

"There's still time to change again, for doubts to resurface, for suspicions to harden. And voters may say one thing to pollsters and do another in the voting booth. Yet at this late stage of the campaign, after dozens of interviews across this toss-up state, evidence suggests that the issue that once seemed as if it would dominate this election -- Obama's race -- is not consuming the people who will actually decide . . .

"Obama's promises are not necessarily more credible to these skeptical voters, but he has the advantage of being undeniably new. He is toting a lot of unusual baggage, but for many voters, that is outweighed by the fact that he isn't more of the same."

Sarah Palin may or may not be found to have improperly pressured her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire her ex-brother-in-law, Michael Wooten. But as this New York Times piece, starting with a call from a Palin aide, makes clear, she had him in her sights like a fleeing caribou:

"As Mr. Monegan recalls it, the aide said the governor had heard that Trooper Wooten was assigned to work the kickoff to the fair in late August. If so, Mr. Monegan should do something about it, because Ms. Palin was also planning to attend and did not want him nearby.