Here's McCain speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative:
"I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not..."
And here's what happened earlier today:
A McCain spokesman tells Salon the Republican nominee was in Washington before the deal was announced, and that he attended meetings on the bailout. But it appears that McCain wasn't in on the meeting that mattered, the closed-door session that ended with an agreement. Instead, McCain was in House Minority Leader John Boehner's office with Sens. Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
Sounds like the negotiators were able to do all of this without Johnny Mac's fingers in the pie; as the Politico's Jonathan Martin points out, "it's increasingly implausible to think that what [McCain is] doing is anything different than [what] he'd be doing on the campaign trail, except he's in person now instead of on his cell phone."
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12:47p PDT - Spoke too soon.
Seems like the Republicans in the House of Representatives are still "not on board." Rep. John Boehner, who was speaking with McCain at the time the earlier agreement had been reached, comes out saying that he hadn't agreed to anything yet.
Too early to tell just how much gamesmanship is happening here, but if a deal isn't struck by the end of today, or if all McCain does is get his party to support W's outlandish proposal but not the Democrats' conditions, just what exactly is his ploy proving?
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1:00p PDT - The big bipartisan meeting gets underway at 1:15p PDT, and there's been some brouhaha over who gets to be in attendance.
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1:13p PDT - Two items:
- For those who are interested, here are the details of the agreement reached earlier today.
- Regardless of the outcome of today's finagling, tomorrow, come debate time there will be "a stage, a moderator, an audience and at least one presidential candidate." Obama is prepared to turn the failed debate into an informal town hall session with Mississippi voters and televised on national TV.
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Something tells me Rep. Barney Frank's having a good time needling the Republicans.
House Financial Services chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the agreement should calm the markets, and noted, "Some of us have been invited to the White House to try and break a deadlock, and I'm glad that well be able to go and tell them that there isn't that much of a deadlock to break." He paused and added, "But I'm always glad to get to go to the White House."
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Reportedly, McCain showed up with alternative proposals for the bailout, apparently trying to start the negotiating process all over again instead of tweaking a proposal that Senate Democrats and Republicans said they had reached an agreement over this morning.
Boy, I'm sure glad McCain decided to suspend* his campaign in order to take care of this economic mess, aren't you? Salon War Room correspondent Mike Madden has more, but the link-averse shouldn't be denied this little editorial fillip:
Now Republicans seem to be getting ready to blame Democrats -- and by extension, Obama -- if they don't go along with the new scheme. Which would be a pretty nifty flip, given that the White House and Senate Republicans were ready to go along with changes pushed by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, until this afternoon; instead of being the problem, the House GOP will try to set itself up as the solution.
*And by "suspend" I mean "not suspend at all." --TBO
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Twenty four hours after the alleged "suspension" began, one is left with the following question: How does appearing on all of the major networks' news programs not count as campaigning?
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At day's end, it is perhaps best that you just simply read this account of the day's proceedings. And maybe this one, or this one.
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3 comments:
Suspending his campaign?
Another outright lie. His campaign was still running ads this morning and his immediate sprint to Warshington (why can't they pronounce it correctly?) actually took about 24 hours.
His grandstanding on this issue is nothing BUT campaigning.
I sense something. I presence I have not felt sincccccce . . .
It's Darth Rove!
In this 21st century after the year Jesus doubled the number of monotheistic religions in the Holy Land, in the century of Skype and webcams, in the century of wireless internet, in the century of conference calls, in the century of the speaker cell phone- John McCain took 24 hours to suspend his campaign then arrived Washington just in the nick of time to say "Oh, did we begin already? Well, let me tell you what I think . . ." That is such a big steaming load of Rove I think I could tell identify what he had for dinner last night.
McCain seemed to be too busy giving interviews to actually get the work that was so urgently needed. He couldn't call? He couldn't email? He couldn't he at least send Phil Gramm to Washington who is more than likely the one who drafted McCain's proposal anyway?
I've seen dinner theater more beliavable than that.
After watching part 2 or Couric's interview with Palin, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that it was not McCain's debate that is the true target of this sham, but Palin's.
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