According to the latest Gallup tracking poll, the presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama is extremely close. John was joined by political analyst Dick Morris, who disparaged McCain's current strategy. "McCain is somewhere in South America," Morris pointed out, "and I don't know if anyone has told him that Columbia and Brazil and Mexico don't have any electoral votes. He's sleep walking through this race." Morris also delineated the issues on which Obama may be most vulnerable. "Obama wants to cover illegal immigrants for health insurance - that issue alone could give McCain the election. He's going to propose tax increases and the weakening of the Patriot Act. If you look at the specifics of what Obama proposes, McCain should be tearing him apart."

News Link: McCain and Obama remain close, according to polls

Returning for a second segment, Dick Morris examined a new Obama television commercial in which he claims credit for welfare reform. "The subtext of that ad," Morris said, "is 'I'm not Al Sharpton, I'm not Jesse Jackson, I'm in favor of work.' But he made a big mistake - Obama took credit for the welfare reform bill, but he opposed it. This is a chance to destroy his credibility because in a week and a half, one or the other of these guys will be ten points ahead. If Obama gets this ad unanswered, he'll never be caught. If McCain answers and jumps out to a lead, Obama's in deep trouble." John reminded Morris of the challenges facing John McCain and Republicans: "There's $4 gas, a terrible stock market, rising unemployment, the possibility of inflation and a war that's unpopular."

News Link: Video: Obama releases new ad

Vermont State Police have found a body believed to be that of 12-year old Brooke Bennett, who had been missing for two weeks. The prime suspect is the little girl's uncle, Michael Jacques, who reportedly tried to force Brooke into a child sex ring. John spoke about the case with former sex crimes prosecutor Wendy Murphy. "Michael Jacques was first convicted of a sex crime in 1985," Murphy reported, "then in 1993 he was convicted of a brutal kidnapping and rape. He only got four years behind bars, then while he was on probation he was raping another little girl. Folks in Vermont have criticized me, they've criticized Bill, and they've criticized this program because they say Vermont has the best treatment for sex offenders in the whole world. Well, this guy graduated from that program in 2006, and look what he's done now! If the people in Vermont don't rise up now, I don't know what they're waiting for." John condemned Vermont's history of leniency toward sex offenders. "This is so unbelievable that Vermont authorities would operate like this for so long. What can they be thinking?"

News Link: Body of 12-year-old VT girl found

General Electric and CEO Jeffrey Immelt stand accused of not doing enough to clean up the Hudson River, where GE formerly dumped toxic PCBs. John introduced an interview Bill conducted last month with Alex Matthiessen of the environmental group Riverkeepers. "It's high time GE clean up the Hudson River PCB contamination," Matthiessen said, "and all the other 'superfund' sites they're responsible for. "Immelt continues to be very defensive, saying it's safer to leave the PCBs in the river. That has been categorically rejected by the EPA and by five independent scientific panels." Bill accused Immelt of putting profits before principle. "GE is not doing what it should do in the Hudson River. Immelt doesn't care, he just wants to make money. How he keeps his job remains a great mystery of the universe."

Some far left activists are disparaging John McCain's war record, even accusing him of being a "war criminal." John was joined by Medea Benjamin, founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, who refused to concede that McCain is a war hero. "When young soldiers are sent into wars we shouldn't be in," Benjamin said, "I don't think we can call that heroism. It was a terrible tragedy for our soldiers and the Vietnamese people. What we need now is a peace president, and I don't think John McCain represents a peace president. He has a militaristic attitude." Pete Hegseth of Vets for Freedom took issue with Benjamin and her colleagues. "John McCain volunteered to serve in a war because he believes in his country. To take on his service is very irresponsible, and I think it's part of a concerted effort on the left to tear down John McCain on his strengths. Medea wants to find a way to tear down the military." John concluded that "the attack on John McCain is backfiring, people respect his service."

News Link: Code Pink smears McCain

Model Christie Brinkley and her estranged husband Peter Cook are embroiled in a sordid divorce case involving pornography and Cook's affair with an 18-year old woman. Family law attorney Jennifer Brandt laid out the basic issues at stake. "From her perspective, she's looking to clear up some misconceptions and really show what happened, while he wants custody of the children. He says he's been the primary caretaker. This will all rest upon the best interests of the children, but that's hard to determine." John worried about the "collateral damage to all the family members who get hurt in this."

News Link: Shocking testimony at Christie Brinkley divorce trial

Finally, John re-aired a segment featuring the Russian-born woman known simply as Marina, who blends sexuality with vocabulary lessons on one of the Internet's most popular sites. Marina entered the No Spin Zone in April and explained what her HotForWords.com is all about. "People request a word, I do my research and report on it. The magic of it is that they look at me and they also learn something at the end of the day." Bill asked the comely philologist for the origin of a few words, beginning with "blooter." "It's a foolish person," she explained, "and it comes from the Latin word 'blatterata,' which means to babble." Marina on "popinjay: "It comes from an old French and Persian word for parrot, someone who can talk all day long. I actually found that you are the one who is responsible for bringing back this word." And here's Marina on the adjective "Pecksniffian:" "There was a character named Pecksniff in a Charles Dickens novel who was a very mean person, but who would walk around and tell people he was full of high morals." Bill complimented Marina for being the very antithesis of a blooter.