Barack Obama has regained his lead in the national polls, liberal bloggers eagerly note. Obama, however, has showed he's running a negative campaign by airing a Spanish-language ad that distorts Rush Limbaugh's words and John McCain's position on immigration, conservative bloggers write. McCain makes his own Spanish gaffe when he seemed to forget in an interview that Spain is a U.S. ally, according to liberal bloggers.

Obama, thanks largely to attacks on McCain for his response to the Wall Street crisis, has regained the campaign momentum and blunted the appeal of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), writes The Huffington Post's Thomas B. Edsall. Obama is up nationally by five percentage points, 49 percent to 44 percent, in the New York Times/CBS poll, and by six percentage points, 49 percent to 43 percent, in the Daily Kos/Research 2000 tracking poll, writes Daily Kos's DemFromCT, who notes that Obama is seen as the "change" candidate and is even with McCain among white women voters. According to the state polls, Obama's road to victory is likely to go through some combination of victories in Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico, instead of wins in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, where McCain still leads, writes kos.

Obama's new ad distorts Limbaugh's position on immigration and unfairly tries to link his anti-illegal immigration stance to the more lenient record of McCain, writes Political Punch's Jake Tapper in a factcheck. Obama's ad is a "nasty smear" that serves as evidence that the Democrat is the most negative campaigner, writes Contentions' Jennifer Rubin. The press should follow Tapper's lead and heap criticism upon Obama for the false ad, just as it did when it found McCain's ads to be less than truthful, writes Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau.

McCain, in an interview with a Spanish reporter but conducted in English, talked about standing up to America's enemies when asked about U.S. ally Spain and its prime minister, Jose Luis Zapatero, writes TalkingPointsMemo's Josh Marshall. The blogger agrees with foreign press accounts that McCain confused the European nation with a more leftist Latin American country. McCain, who either didn't know Spain was part of NATO or the prime minister's name, undercut his own argument that he's the candidate with experience and national security credibility, writes Matthew Yglesias.

FROM THE BLOGS:
Campaign Momentum Shifts to Obama - Tom Edsall, Huffington Post
Kos/R2K Poll: Obama Leads by Six - DemFromCT, Daily Kos
The Battleground - kos, Daily Kos
CBS/NYT: McCain Still Tied to Bush - DemFromCT, Daily Kos
Obama's False, Racially Divisive Ad - Carol Platt Liebau, Townhall.com
Obama Ad Es Erroneo - Jake Tapper, Political Punch
Who's The Most Negative? - Jennifer Rubin, Contentions
Back to The Sixties - Victor Davis Hanson, The Corner
Oy - Josh Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo
McCain Unsure If He'll Meet With Spain P.M. - Matthew Yglesias

OTHER NEWS SOURCES:
Lawmakers On Sidelines As Fed, Treasury Act - Washington Post
McCain Can't Seem to Find Economic Footing - Los Angeles Times
McCain Seen Less Likely to Bring Change, Poll Finds - New York Times
Big Three Ask for Billions - The Hill

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

McCain adviser Carly Fiorina

The government bailout of American International Group and the House's passage of an energy bill allowing some expansion of offshore oil drilling are dominating the blogosphere. The $85 billion federal loan to keep insurance giant AIG afloat appalls conservative bloggers and worries liberal ones. The House's bill also disappoints activists on both sides, as conservatives had hoped for more oil exploration and liberals had hoped for a greater emphasis on renewable energy development.

By taking over AIG, the U.S. government is now the world's largest insurer and has stopped holding investors accountable for their own failures, writes Hot Air's Ed Morrissey. With the government bailing out yet another firm, previous talk by federal officals about allowing Lehman Brothers to fail in order to preserve "moral hazard" now counts for nothing, writes The Corner's Jonah Goldberg. "The Mother of All Bailouts" was all too predictable once the government started giving stimulus checks away and taking over private companies earlier this year, according to Michelle Malkin.

But the government is right to bailout AIG because its failure would have led to a financial market meltdown, writes The Plank's Noam Scheiber, who backs Barack Obama's call for greater regulation. The unanswered question is how public officials will run all the big companies now owned by the government, writes Matthew Yglesias, who notes that the companies could be used to serve the public interest or could become places to reward political cronies.

The energy bill passed by the Democratic-led House is a "sham," since it still blocks oil exploration within 50 miles of the shore, which is where experts think the oil is, writes Townhall's Amanda Carpenter. The 15 Republican House members who voted for the bill with Democrats stabbed supporters of drilling in the back, writes RedState's haystack. But according to liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong, Democrats lost the drilling issue by allowing a bill that may still be blocked by Republicans and by failing to frame the issue around renewable energy sources.

FROM THE BLOGS:
Mother of All Bailouts -

John McCain adviser Carly Fiorina has become a favorite among liberal bloggers for saying that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is not ready to run a major company. Conservatives applaud the McCain camp for granting CBS anchor Katie Couric the next network interview with Palin and Barack Obama is stepping his attacks on the economy.

When asked on a St. Louis radio show if she thought Palin has the experience to run Hewlett Packard, as Fiorina did, the McCain adviser answered bluntly "no, I don't," The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reported. Top of the Ticket points out that the Obama campaign was giddy over the comment, quickly issuing a statement backing Fiorina's sentiment.

Putting Palin back out in front for a network interview is a smart move to the McCain campaign, showing it

A John McCain adviser

John McCain shouldn

Fox News is in the rare position of being praised by liberal bloggers after a spokesman for John McCain took a beating on what many would assume is friendly territory. Conservatives express doubts that Barack Obama's latest attacks against McCain will hurt the GOP standard-bearer and McCain