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Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame — Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

Elite Officer Recalls Bin Laden Hunt, Delta Force Commander Says The Best Plan To Kill The Al Qaeda Leader In 2001 Was Nixed — The original plan that we sent up through our higher headquarters, Delta Force wants to come in over the mountain with oxygen, coming from the Pakistan side, over the mountains and come in and get a drop on bin Laden from behind […] The next option that Delta wanted to employ was to drop hundreds of landmines in the mountain passes that led to Pakistan, which was bin Laden’s escape route […] But they didn’t do that either, because Fury says that plan was also disapproved […] “How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that’s disapproved by higher headquarters?” Pelley asks. “In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before,” Fury says […] And then something extraordinary happened: Fury’s Afghan allies announced they had negotiated a cease fire with al Qaeda, something the Americans had no interest in. When Fury’s team advanced anyway, his Afghan partners drew their weapons on Delta.

Bush Administration Adds Over $4 Trillion To National Debt — It’s the biggest increase under any president in U.S history. On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That’s a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush’s watch.

Lesson From a Crisis – When Trust Vanishes, Worry — In 1929, Meyer Mishkin owned a shop in New York that sold silk shirts to workingmen. When the stock market crashed that October, he turned to his son, then a student at City College, and offered a version of this sentiment: It serves those rich scoundrels right. A year later, as Wall Street’s problems were starting to spill into the broader economy, Mr. Mishkin’s store went out of business. He no longer had enough customers. His son had to go to work to support the family, and Mr. Mishkin never held a steady job again. “We are facing a major national crisis,” as Meyer Mishkin’s grandson says. “To do nothing right now is to do what was done during the Great Depression.”

Gas: Desperate Atlantans Use Twitter To Find Gas — “They’re tagging their posts #atlgas whenever they spot some and letting others know the price and location.” View a twitter search for #atlgas.

Freddie Mac Money Trail Catches Up With McCain — But the payments to [campaign manager Rick] Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, are especially problematic because he requested the consulting retainer in 2006 — and then did barely any work for the fees […] Freddie Mac also had no dealings with the lobbying firm beyond paying monthly invoices — but it agreed to the arrangement because of Davis’s close relationship with McCain, the source said, which led top executives to conclude “you couldn’t say no.”

Hugh Hewitt’s Memo To House Republicans — Wow, it’s a Red Letter Day … Hugh actually makes sense.

McCain Meltdown Moves To Mississippi — “It just proves his campaign is governed by tactics and not ideology,” said Republican consultant Craig Shirley, who advised McCain earlier in this cycle. “In the end, he blinked and Obama did not. The ‘steady hand in a storm’ argument looks now to more favor Obama, not McCain […] My guess is that plasma units are rushing to the McCain campaign as we speak to replace the blood flowing there from the fights among the staff.” Adding to the rocky perception was a McCain campaign web ad released this morning declaring “McCain Wins Debate!” — put out even before the candidate had announced he was planning to debate.