According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Maureen Dowd has been barred from John McCain's campaign plane. Here's the explanation, from the Post-Gazette's Timothy McNulty:

It all started when Maureen covered an Aug. 30 McCain-Palin rally in Washington, Pa., then wasn't let on the McCain plane afterward, forcing her to overnight at a Pittsburgh airport hotel while the traveling press went on without her.

Is Sarah Palin an overmanaged candidate? Yes! says CNN's Gloria Borger:

[N]ow the McCain campaign has a real problem. They've managed to turn a self-confident and appealing candidate into one who is afraid of veering off her talking points. She's clearly studying and cramming, but it's like trying to cram for an exam when you haven't really taken the class.

This week's Phoenix included a short excerpt of a Q-and-A I did with Rory O'Connor, the media critic and author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio. Here--finally!--is a full transcript of my chat with O'Connor, who recently returned to Boston as a fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics & Public Policy.

Yes, today's lead Wall Street Journal editorial has bad things to say about both John McCain and Barack Obama's responses to the ongoing economic meltdown. But it also praises Obama's desire to hold Friday's presidential debate as scheduled:

Mr. Obama was right on the merits, and politically shrewd, to respond to Mr.

There may have been other cases in which the Globe editorialized online hours after a given story broke, but I can't think of any.

In any case: the paper's editorial page has already weighed in on John McCain's proposal to cancel Friday's debate and grind the presidential campaign to a halt. An excerpt:

McCain's desire to seize the initiative is understandable, for the meltdown on an ill-regulated Wall Street is the harshest indictment possible of Republican stewardship of the economy.

Here's the "Breaking News" update currently topping Reuters.com: "McCain says will suspend campaign to return to Washington Thursday to help with bailout negotiations, asks that Friday debate with Obama be postponed so bailout negotiations can continue."

And here, linking to Reuters, is how Time's Mark Halperin describes the same development: "McCain suspends campaign, wants debate postponed."

It's easy, when grappling with questions like how mortage-backed securities actually work, to lose sight of the fact that Wall Street's current crisis has moral as well as financial implications.

So thank you, Joan Vennochi, for your column in today's Globe, which admirably captures that point. An excerpt:

The country's conservative moralists shake their finger at low-income home buyers who dared to make a grab for a humble piece of the American dream.

According to the Minnesota Independent, my hometown won't be prosecuting those journalists who were charged with "presence at an unlawful assembly" during the course of covering the Republican National Convention.

The Independent also reports that St. Paul won't be charging* Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, Nicole Salazar, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

That would be Boston magazine writer-at-large Joe Keohane, who's departing both the city and the publication.

With the recent departure of John Gonzalez, BoMag has now lost two big bylines in a span of three months. Like Gonzalez, Keohane is a very talented writer. He also brought a native's perspective to a publication dominated by transplants from out of state.

From the CNN Political Ticker's report that former Hillary Clinton backer Lynn Forester de Rothschild now supports John McCain:

In an interview with CNN this summer, Forester did not hide her distaste for eventual Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

“This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don't like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns.

Today's presidential must-read: a sharp piece by the AP's Glen Johnson that examines John McCain's deeply ambivalent relationship with Washington, D.C. The whole story is good, but the lede is pure genius:

John McCain embraces and expels Washington like an accordion player belting out a song.

Squeeze in and he touts his vast knowledge of the capital city.

Now that John McCain's post-RNC bounce has almost entirely dissipated, it's worth considering how his supporters might explain away a loss this November. Take it away, Bill Kristol!

[W]hy the foot-stamping snit by liberal journalists? Not because "the press is being manipulated." Rather, because the American people are resisting manipulation by the media.

Read the beginning of Gallup's new poll on coverage of the presidential race, and you might think that John McCain's decision to declare war on the press hasn't worked out that well. Only 33 percent of adults polled, and only 54 percent (!) of Republicans, think that coverage of Sarah Palin has been "unfairly negative." And more adults (53 percent) now think that coverage of McCain has been "about right" than thought that in late July.