In honor of the day, today's guest Altercator is the late, great Sam Cooke:

I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It's been too hard living
but I'm afraid to die
Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me don't hang around
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knocking me
Back down on my knees ...

There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come

Oh yes it will ...

See you tomorrow, people, in a better world ...

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Mike Steele
Hometown: Forest Grove, Oregon

Eric...thank you for your piece on Scarborough. I've been watching him carefully in recent days and he's in full “wish fulfillment” mode...latching on to any and all dribs and drabs of stuff from the Mason-Dixon polls to make the race seem ever-tightening--completely bypassing the larger story, the more accurate story.

This is completely insidious. MSNBC might as well have Fox people running this segment ...

Name: Jim Carlile
Hometown: Burbank, California

Hi Eric,

You're right. To deliberately go to Zabar's and then tsk-tsk at the mild reactions of the patrons towards McCain/Palin is intrinsically anti-Semitic. Why did they go to that place in particular? They could have gone a little lower down to Whole Foods. And hey, I'm a goy but I can see it clearly.

Name: Andy Cranmer
Hometown: Santa Barbara, CA

Regarding Ed in Boulder's idea, I'm not a lawyer but I believe that there are several different standards for libel. Ordinary people have the most protection, public figures are less protected and political figures have almost no protection against libel. This lack of protection is intentional and it's supposed to encourage open and free debate in the political arena.

Name: Mark Frei
Hometown: St. Louis

I second a national holiday for election day. Our economy has changed so much from when I worked evenings, nights and weekends in hospitals in the early eighties. Now, so many more people in the service industry work non-traditional Monday-to-Friday jobs (not to mention the emphasis such a holiday would do for civic duty). Just imagine where we might be now if we had a voting holiday in 2000.