Bailing Out Wall Street...Or The McCain Campaign?

John "I need more education on the economy" McCain made a splash yesterday by claiming to "suspend" his campaign (what a crock!) to go toWashington to help Congress make a deal to save Wall Street. This stunt was staged in part to try to stop the bleeding -- McCain was tanking in the polls and had nothing substantive to say about the economic crisis. No one in his campaign came up with anything to put in his teleprompter, so they did what they do best: distract, mislead, redirect.

As anyone who has been paying attention knows, John "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" McCain was not needed in Washington. His silent presence was not helpful. He was a distraction. John McCain sat there and didn't offer any help -- you know why? Because the economy is not his bag -- he has said it himself, repeatedly, recently! Moreover, he has been a champion of de-regulation throughout his political career, and what's needed right now is adult supervision of our financial institutions. The economic ideology to which McCain long subscribed (until two weeks ago) is responsible for the Wall Street Gone Wild mess we are in -- now that he's suddenly seen the error of his ways he's the guy to swoop in and fix everything? I think not.

From The Independent:

Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, could not disguise his frustration after the White House meeting, saying the last minute complications made the effort look more like "a rescue plan for John McCain". He added: "It does no good to be distracted for two or three hours by political theatre." Another Democrat said: "We're trying to rescue the economy, not John McCain's campaign."

The position of Mr McCain remained opaque. He neither endorsed the plan nor specifically spoke against it.

Yesterday many news outlets were reporting that a deal was near. Congressional Wingnuts got so excited they began parroting McCain campaign slogans, betraying the purely political nature of McCain's stunt. Work-a-day Wingnuts were ecstatic and began claiming that their boy McLiar had gone to Washington and sealed the deal. Guess what, Wingnuts. There is no deal.

Of course, no deal works well for John "No Talk" McCain at the moment. It appears to provide cover for his lame excuse to skip the presidential debate tonight. The Republican strategy is plain: once a deal is reached they are going to do everything possible to paint McCain as the leader who brokered it. It will not matter if every news report shows that McCain was hardly involved, or worse, was a stumbling block in the process, the RNC will state the lie, then repeat it until it sticks, like "Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks."

There is perhaps a bigger prize for the McCain campaign in all of this -- the change in the debate schedule could delay the vice presidential debate, giving Sarah "I'll get back to you on that" Palin more time to learn her lines. In the second part of her interview with Katie Couric Palin directly contradicted her mentor, Henry Kissenger, who had been briefing her on foreign affairs. It would seem she needs some more training before she can debate on national television about global and domestic issues she is just discovering now, a scant six weeks before election day.