Good Wednesday morning. The Washington Capitals hockey team held a media day recently, and there's nothing funnier than the resulting footage of local sportscasters spending the balance of their time on their rear ends. Now if we could only get the lead anchors out there. Here's what Washington is watching today:

-- The Senate will continue work on the Defense Authorization bill this morning, likely the only appropriations measure that will make it through Congress this year. The House is handling other legislation before taking up Speaker Nancy Pelosi's energy legislation tomorrow, a package with which Republicans are not happy. And President Bush has a meeting today with Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq, at the White House.

-- On the campaign trail, there are three kinds of facts, to modify a saying: Lies, damn lies and swift boating. Barack Obama's campaign, long concerned with the possibility of an underground rumor like that which wounded John Kerry so much, set up his rapid response team months ago, while John McCain launched his only this week, aimed at beating back attacks on his running mate, Sarah Palin. Their goal in needing rapid response operation is the same reason both campaigns will propogate facts about themselves that aren't quite true either: Say it enough and in the minds of voters it becomes reality, as the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman writes today.

-- For example, McCain's truthsquad team blasted Obama last night for allegedly calling Palin a pig. "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig," Obama said yesterday. This morning, McCain's camp launched a web ad comparing Obama's phrasing with Palin's own comments about pitbulls and hockey moms, then not so subtly including CBS anchor Katie Couric's comments about sexism in the primary campaign.

-- Did Obama call Palin a pig? The unanimous consensus among objective observers like Marc Ambinder and Ben Smith is no, he didn't (In fact, both point out other moments in which Obama and McCain have each used the phrase, McCain in the context of a proposal from Hillary Clinton). But repeat it enough, as the McCain campaign is doing, and it becomes the truth.

-- McCain's campaign slammed Obama for allegedly playing the race card a month or so ago, when Obama said he didn't look like other presidents. Now, McCain has jumped all over his Democratic rival for nothing other than the word "lipstick," which is close to the very definition of playing the gender card. Sometimes responses to attack ads can go over the line, and when they do, they undermine the responder's credibility. Perhaps Obama's campaign now has a little more wiggle room on the race issue, especially if McCain's credibility on the claim starts to slip.

-- Thirteen days until Election Day begins! That's right, the first votes of the 2008 election will be cast on or around September 23, when Iowa begins voting. The Hawkeye State is just the first of more than 30 states that allow some form of early voting, forcing both campaigns to change the pace of their advertisements and focus on turning out their voters, the New York Times' Adam Nagourney writes today. The old formula of happy biographical spots followed by contrast jabs and a strong close all at once across the country is obsolete, strategists said. How big a deal will early voting be? Obama senior adviser Steve Hildebrand estimates to Nagourney that a third of all voters will cast early ballots.

-- So voters will actually get to cast a ballot before Obama and McCain debate for the first time. At least two states will start voting before the October 2 vice presidential debate. That's too bad, because they'll miss a clash of the titans when media darling Sarah Palin and media lover Joe Biden face off at Washington University in St. Louis. Biden told Chicago donors last night, per the Chicago Sun-Times, that he's not afraid of the Alaska governor, and he's got Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to stand in and play debate coach. Careful, Joe: It'll be easy to look like an older man is hectoring a younger woman, and that's a great way to lose women voters.

-- Trouble Brewing Of The Day: House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel is paying back taxes on previously unreported income from a vacation home in the Carribean, the Washington Post reports today. Rangel, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Democrats in the House, failed to report income from his Dominican Republic property for several years, either on his taxes or his financial disclosure forms. Could it be a serious thorn in Democrats' side in November? It's not yet, but the National Republican Congressional Committee has been hitting Democratic candidates for their ties to Rangel, and yesterday one GOP leadership aide told Politics Nation they hope to make Rangel's taxes a serious issue. Keep an eye on this one.

-- Today On The Trail: Obama starts his day in Norfolk, Virginia for a discussion on education, then heads to New York to film an interview with CBS' David Letterman. This evening he attends the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's annual dinner before returning to New York in advance of tomorrow's rememberances of September 11. McCain and Palin have a rally set for Fairfax, Virginia before parting ways. McCain heads to Philadelphia for a roundtable discussion, while Palin flies back to Alaska for her son's deployment ceremony and other events. Biden has a town hall meeting planned in Nashua, New Hampshire today.