watch videos of speeches here [Obama] and here [McCain].

more info: http://www.alsmithfoundation.org/thedinner.html

via NYDailyNews:

After debate, candidates face roast at Alfred E. Smith Dinner             

BY CELESTE KATZ
DAILY NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Wednesday, October 15th 2008,  9:25 PM

                        
                     Alvarez/News                   

From left, George H.W. Bush, John Cardinal O'Connor and Michael Dukakis at the Alfred E. Dinner in 1988. Below, Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. 

       

                        
                         AP

Barack Obama and GOP rival John McCain trade their boxing gloves for formal wear - and some self-deprecating humor - at Thursday night's Alfred E. Smith Dinner.

The annual see-and-be-seen political roast, named for the famed 1920s New York governor, is "the last time they're going to be together before the election," said Smith's great-grandson and namesake.

The dinner has a storied history, having featured luminaries from Winston Churchill to George W. Bush.

And with the excitement generated by the presidential candidates at the top of the marquee, this year's soldout soiree has surpassed its goal of raising $2.5 million for Catholic causes.

"I've heard from people I haven't heard from in 20 years," Smith told the Daily News.

Political heavyweights will pepper the dais: Sen. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Former Gov. George Pataki, former Mayor Ed Koch and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau will be there, too.

When Smith approached then-McCain adviser John Weaver about the Republican nominee appearing, "He said, 'We'll be there.' I said, 'I haven't given you the date yet.' He said, 'Doesn't matter.'"

McCain spoke at the Al Smith dinner in 2005.

Getting Team Obama to commit was slightly more work: "My line to them was, 'I know you're coming. You know you're coming.'"

McCain and Obama will each deliver 15-minute talks.

Appearing at the Al Smith dinner is a tradition for presidential candidates, with both major nominees typically attending in an election year.

"They say Jack Kennedy won the [1960] election at the Al Smith Dinner," Smith said in his office at St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers, which features an array of Gov. Smith's photos and an Obama bobble-head doll.

In 2004, Democrat John Kerry - a Catholic - was not invited, presumably for his pro-choice stance on abortion. As a result, President Bush also did not attend.

Alfred E. Smith, the nation's first Catholic presidential candidate back in 1928, died in 1944. The first dinner in his honor came a year later at the behest of then-Archbishop Francis Spellman. Since then, it has become one of the premier fund-raisers for the Archdiocese of New York.

Last year, with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair headlining, the dinner raised $1.8 million for charity, Smith's great-grandson said.

ckatz@nydailynews.com

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via The Atlantic:

Sarah Palin Endorses Hamas
Jeffrey Goldberg                    

29 Sep 2008 10:43 am                

How can it be that some people still pretend that Sarah Palin is suited for high office? This country has never seen someone so comprehensively unprepared for the vice presidency; Dan Quayle was Metternich by comparison. I've watched Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric three times, and my astonishment does not diminish. Her nonsensical answer about Russia has deservedly been highlighted, but let me focus on another question, this one concerning the export of democracy. Couric asked, "What happens if the goal of democracy doesn't produce the desired outcome? In Gaza, the U.S. pushed hard for elections and Hamas won."

Palin's answer, in full, was this: "Yeah, well especially in that region, though, we have to protect those who do seek democracy and support those who seek protections for the people who live there. What we're seeing in the last couple of days here in New York is a President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who would come on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends, Israel ... and we're hearing the evil that he speaks and if hearing him doesn't allow Americans to commit more solidly to protecting the friends and allies that we need, especially there in the Mideast, then nothing will."

The issue here is not that Palin didn't know the answer. There are many possible answers to this question, some of which are right and some of which are wrong. The issue here is that she didn't know the question. Because she was apparently ignorant of the subject, she endorsed Hamas' victory, and, in essence, called for the U.S. to "protect" Islamists who seek to use democratic elections to lever themselves into power. And, of course, Ahmadinejad came to power in a more-or-less democratic election. Palin's answer was truly remarkable. A person who could be President of the United States has shown herself to be completely ignorant of one of the most vexing and important foreign policy questions of the day. Freshman congressmen know how to answer this question. Here's one possible Republican response:

"Yes, Katie, it's true that if you push for democracy, sometimes you get an outcome that you don't want. This happened in Gaza with Hamas, and I think the Bush Administration was as surprised as everyone else. So the lesson here is that you have be careful when you try to export democracy. But I still believe that, over the long-term, democracy is the best antidote to terrorism that we have. What we have to do, though, is know when to push, and know when not to push. And every day, we have to do the hard work of advocating for press freedom, and the rule of law, and for all those things that build a civil society."

See? Not that hard. Unless you don't:

a)    Know what happened in Gaza;
b)    Know where Gaza is;
c)    Know who rules Gaza today;
d)    Care.

I want to wait and see Palin on Thursday night in her debate with Joe Biden; perhaps her performance in the Couric interview was abnormally bad. But I have a terrible feeling that John McCain has placed this country - and, of lesser importance, his campaign - in an untenable position.

There is no one brighter than Rachel on television today -- she's re-writing all the rules.

Image via NYTimes;

"Ms. Maddow has the character and political passion; what she doesn’t have is a worthy opponent." [The TV Watch: A Fresh Female Face Amid Cable Schoolboys, by ALESSANDRA STANLEY; NYTimes, September 24, 2008]

via Huffington Post: How Maddow Is Rewriting The Rules Of Cable News; published at The American Prospect |  September 24, 2008 11:19 AM:

Channel Changer
For years, liberals thought they could catch up in media by playing by conservatives' rules. Rachel Maddow's success proves it's better to just change the game.
Sam Boyd

"I think I have a fear in general about whether being a pundit is a worthwhile thing to be," Rachel Maddow tells me over dinner at a Latin restaurant in lower Manhattan. It's more than the ordinary self-deprecation of someone who just got her own cable commentary show. It's an insecurity essential to the on-air style that's powered the 35-year-old's rapid rise from a wacky morning radio show in western Massachusetts to the liberal radio network Air America and now to her own prime-time show on MSNBC.

Maddow is not a Tim Russert or a Chris Matthews--an ostensibly nonpartisan interviewer who badgers politicians and policy-makers about contradictions in their records. Nor is she a Rush Limbaugh or a Glenn Beck--an attack dog who deals in calculated anger, bluster, and outrage. She's no mild-mannered liberal like Alan Colmes or a veteran observer like Wolf Blitzer or David Gregory. Maddow has broken the broadcasting mold. She has succeeded as an avowed liberal on television precisely because she is not a liberal version of conservatives like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Unlike so many progressive media figures who sought to replicate the on-air habits of the aggressive shock jocks of the right, she stumbled upon a workable style for the left. She is liberal without apology or embarrassment, bases her authority on a deep comprehension of policy rather than the culture warrior's claim to authenticity, and does it all with a light, even slightly mocking, touch. She proves that liberals can attract viewers on television when they actually act like, well, liberals.                   

Read the whole story here.