Lemme see, two of McCain’s press spokespeople on TV attacking Obama; McCain attack ads up on TV across the country. This is the suspension? What did I miss?

The guy is literally out of control. At what point do his friends need to start discussing an intervention?

I guess suspending your campaign doesn’t including taking your talking head surrogates off the cable nets.

We’ll have video soon of top McCain surrogate Nancy Pfotenhauer who was just on Fox attacking Obama.

Late Update: Doesn’t preclude Pfotenhauer from doing live chat right now with Washington Times either.

Later Update: Latest McCain camp line, in response to question of whether debate will go on Friday with an empty podium: Obama can always debate Joe Biden instead.

Readers have been sending in reports all morning that John McCain’s attack ads are still up in swing states around the country, notwithstanding McCain’s puffed-up and vainglorious claims to have suspended his campaign to go to Washington and destroy the giant meteor hurtling toward earth save the economy. We are, as I write this, working the phones to confirm just what’s up. In McCain’s possible defense it can take a while to get ads down off the air. But we’ll be getting to the bottom of it shortly.

If you see McCain’s ads up, definitely let us know.

The TPM Election Central Morning Roundup is proud to announce that it is not suspending operations and will soldier on in the face of all crises, foreign and domestic (except maybe the occasional hangover), to bring you the day’s latest political news.

DOJ monitoring reports of Michigan GOP’s lose your house, lose your vote scheme.

Perhaps this will shine an unflattering light on my psyche. But, like many of you, I have a busy schedule, with lots of work obligations and meetings. I also end up doing a decent number of panel discussions and speeches, though I try hard to keep those to a minimum. And like everyone, sometimes I get tired or overwhelmed and I wish I could get out of this or that responsibility.

Occasionally in these moments, in a perverse kind of private entertainment, I’ve found myself imagining what would happen if I pawned off on someone just the ballsiest, most inane excuse for flaking on some commitment. And not something that people might buy — nothing entertaining about that — but just something completely off the wall and nonsensical. What would people’s reaction be? Speechless, laughter, tearing me limb from limb? Would they ever speak to me again?

So, let’s see, I can’t moderate the panel because I’ve been called to Washington to give a special briefing on guerilla tactics to be used against the Taliban?

Or maybe, I want to be at the meeting, but as weird as this sounds, all the bridges and tunnels out of Manhattan have been shut for the day. Some counter-terrorism thing probably. I tried renting a helicopter but they’re all booked by people at the UN.

Isn’t this pretty much what John McCain tried to pull today? But actually really did it? And on a national stage? He wants to cancel the debate? And maybe also Palin’s debate. Are you kidding? Why not cancel the election too? And because he has to go back to DC to solve the financial crisis? Really? The topic he knows nothing about and after he’s shown up less in the senate in the last two years than anyone but Tim Johnson, the guy who had the stroke? Which of my employees is going to call from home tomorrow and say they can’t come to work because of the financial crisis?

One of the advantages of running a presidential campaign is that roughly half the country is deeply committed to believing or at least saying that virtually anything you do or say makes sense. And so it is here. But, look, if you were living in the real world, if you were some hotshot young executive at a Fortune 500 company trying to rise in the ranks, and you pulled some whacked crap like this, it would probably get you blackballed permanently. People would think you were either deeply unreliable or maybe just had a screw loose. And yet here he is — is he kidding? He can’t debate Barack Obama because he’s got to go to Washington and save the economy? It’s like the biggest ‘dog ate my homework’ in history.