Senator McCain yesterday defended his running mate, Governor Palin, even as she contradicted his policy against talking publicly about attacking terrorist targets in Pakistan. Mr. McCain chided Senator Obama during Friday’s presidential debate for saying publicly he supports striking terrorist targets inside Pakistan if the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to do so. But on Saturday, Ms. Palin said much the same thing to a customer at a Philadelphia restaurant, with the press nearby. “If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should,” Ms. Palin said in the exchange, which was captured on video and reported by CBS News. “She was in a conversation with some young man,” Mr. McCain said during his own interview yesterday on ABC’s “This Week.” “She understands and has stated repeatedly that we’re not going to do anything except in America’s national security interest and we are not going to, quote, announce it ahead of time.”

DEMOCRATS ACCUSE McCAIN OF SKIMPING ON CAPITOL HILL

Democrats yesterday noted that Senator McCain spent very little time on Capitol Hill over the weekend talking directly with lawmakers, instead preferring to work the phones from his Crystal City, Va., headquarters. And an Obama spokesman sent out e-mails to reporters reminding them that while lawmakers and congressional staff members worked into Saturday night to hammer out the deal, Mr. McCain was at one of Washington’s priciest restaurants. Campaigning in Detroit, Senator Obama continued to attack Mr. McCain, saying the Republican’s backing of deregulation laws helped cause the economic crisis. “You can’t make up for 26 years in 26 days,” Mr. Obama told a crowd of more than 15,000 at a rally in downtown Detroit. “For most of the 26 years, he’s been against the common-sense rules and regulations that could have stopped this problem.”

OBAMA’S BRACELET GETS A CODA

The mother of a Wisconsin soldier who died in Iraq says she was “ecstatic” when Senator Obama mentioned during Friday’s debate the bracelet she gave him in honor of her son. Tracy Jopek of Merrill, Wis., told the Associated Press yesterday she was honored that Mr. Obama remembered Sergeant Ryan David Jopek, who was killed in 2006 by a roadside bomb. Ms. Jopek criticized Internet reports suggesting Mr. Obama exploited her son for political purposes. “I don’t understand how people can take that and turn it into some garbage on the Internet,” she said. Ms. Jopek acknowledged e-mailing the Obama campaign in February asking that the presidential candidate not mention her son in speeches or debates. But she said Mr. Obama’s mention on Friday was appropriate because he was responding after Senator McCain said a soldier’s mother gave him a bracelet.

FEY SPOOFS PALIN, AGAIN, ON ‘SNL’

Tina Fey reprised her role as Governor Palin on “Saturday Night Live,” again appearing as the Republican vice presidential candidate in an opening sketch. Amy Poehler played CBS’s Katie Couric, parodying the interview with Ms. Palin last week. When Ms. Poehler’s Couric pushed Ms. Fey’s Palin to specifically discuss how she would help facilitate democracy abroad, Ms. Fey gave in: “Katie, I’d like to use one of my lifelines. … I want to phone a friend.” When a confused Ms. Poehler informed her that wasn’t how the interview worked, Ms. Fey’s Palin responded — alluding to one of the governor’s most quoted lines from the interview — “Well, in that case, I’m just gonna have to get back to ya.”

PASTORS PROTEST TAX LAW

Defying a federal law that prohibits American clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation yesterday that voting for Senator Obama would be evidence of “severe moral schizophrenia.” The Reverend Ron Johnson told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee’s positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist “in direct opposition to God’s truth as He has revealed it in the scriptures.” Rev. Johnson showed slides contrasting the candidates’ views but stopped short of endorsing Senator McCain. Rev. Johnson and 32 other pastors around the country set out yesterday to break the rules, seeking to generate a legal battle that will prompt federal courts to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.