How quickly it turns. The press is so predictable. Maybe media bias hunters should study Pavlov's dog instead.

According to the LexisNexis® Analytics 2008 election dashboard, Sen. McCain was the subject of 59 percent more U.S. media coverage than Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) last week, the first week that Sen. McCain has received more press coverage than Sen. Obama since the election dashboard began tracking U.S. press coverage in early July. Moreover, Gov. Palin herself was the subject of 10 percent more coverage than Sen. Obama and received nearly nine times the amount of U.S. press coverage than her Democratic Party counterpart, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

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I woke up this morning and did a double take at my blackberry: only 20 new messages today? And then I remembered, it's 911 and the Alex Conants and Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza's of the world are taking the day off – at least publicly. No political tv commercials, no spam about what the Cleveland Plain Dealer's editorial board is saying about Obama or the headlines that greeted McCain in New York this morning. What are we going to do all day? Perhaps a day of peace – a little time out, as Michael Duffy notes – is what every one needs. Obama and McCain are even making two joint appearances: one at Ground Zero and another with my boss for a forum on Public Service. Enjoy the calm. Given the last week, this cease-fire is likely to last about as long as lipstick would on a pig.

A new rule here: Rather than do the McCain campaign's bidding by wasting space on Senator Honor's daily lies and bilge--his constant attempts to divert attention from substantive issues--I'm going to assume that others will spend more than enough time on the sewage that Steve Schmidt is shoveling and, from now on, try to stick to the issues.

Today's issue: health insurance. John McCain wants to tax your employer-provided health care benefits. He wants to replace those benefits with an insufficient tax credit--$2500 for individuals and $5000 for families (the average cost per family for health insurance is $12000).

There is a positive, progressive tax aspect to this: wealthier people should have to pay for health insurance themselves, without tax breaks from the federal government.

But make no mistake: this plan will do little or nothing for those who do not have insurance now--unless they are young and healthy--and it may well hurt a fair number of workers, especially unionized workers, who get gold-plated benefits from their employers.

It will certainly do nothing for families with members who have pre-existing conditions or children with special needs--because it makes no provision to regulate the insurers, forcing them to cover all comers at "community" rates that don't discriminate against the people who need health insurance most.

It is amazing to me that Obama campaign has let things go this far without pointing out that McCain--who opposes the energy bill because it would increase taxes on oil companies--is actually proposing a tax increase on health care benefits for American workers. But that is precisely what the Senator from Arizona is doing.

On the mythology surrounding the Palin phenomenon.

What we lost.

"It was nice to win something this year," the former Arkansas Governor told me, as he left the stage of the D.C. Improv last night after being named Funniest Celebrity in Washington. "My ego needed this."

Yes, I know, Funniest Celebrity in Washington sounds more like an oxymoron than a contest. I was a judge again this year in the annual stand-up comedy competition, and though our own Ana wasn't competing this time around, Huckabee was up against some formidable opponents, at least by the standards of The Village--anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist (who got third place), Westwood One Radio's Jim Bohannon, Libbertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr, CNN's Jamie McIntyre, Politico's James Kotecki (a last-minute entry who rapped his way to second place) and al-Jazeera's Riz Khan (full disclosure: Khan, who came in third, was my own top pick). California Congressman Brad Sherman was a no-show.

This year, there were no themes that dominated quite the way Larry Craig's bathroom adventures did a year ago, though there were a few limp shots at Sarah Palin. (Barr: "Anybody know what the difference between a bulldog and a hockey mom is? The bulldog gets vetted." Huckabee on McCain: "I'm hurt he didn't even vet me. That's okay. He didn't vet Sarah Palin.") Khan won me over with his funny riff on how un-random those airport searches are when you are going through airports as a brown Muslim man.

UPDATE: Commenter Slowhand Ted found the video:

UPDATE2: A spokesman for Congressman Brad Sherman called me to inform me: "He was a no-show, because he never agreed to do it."