It seems that today during the time Barack Obama was waiting to hear back from Sen. McCain about their planned joint statement — and while McCain says he was meeting with key advisors and becoming increasingly concerned about the financial crisis facing the country — he was actually holding a special meeting with Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the expat international financier who once supported Hillary Clinton but now is supporting McCain because she thinks Obama is “elitist”.
These guys are just digging into such depths of nonsense and desperation that pretty soon they’re going to pop out in China, which will be helpful since they can ask the Chinese for the trillion dollars it’ll take to bail out McCain’s pals on Wall Street for the mess his economics advisor Phil Gramm made possible. Here’s the latest attempt to exploit the financial market crisis for political ends (from CNN)…
McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there’s no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.
So we need to put the country first and cancel the vice presidential debate.
“A few moments ago, President Bush called Senator Obama and asked him to attend a meeting in Washington tomorrow, which he agreed to do. Senator Obama has been working all week with leaders in Congress, Secretary Paulsen, and Chairman Bernanke to improve this proposal, and he has said that he will continue to work in a bipartisan spirit and do whatever is necessary to come up with a final solution. He strongly believes the debate should go forward on Friday so that the American people can hear from their next President about how he will lead America forward at this defining moment for our country,” said Obama-Biden spokesman Bill Burton.
Read the content free joint statement from the Obama and McCain campaigns.
Seems like only yesterday the McCain was explaining to us, no, lecturing us on how Rick Davis has completely severed his ties from his lobbying firm that was taking $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until August.
Guess that didn’t pan out. Turns out he’s still a director and treasurer of the firm.
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.
DOJ monitoring reports of Michigan GOP’s lose your house, lose your vote scheme.
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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.