Yesterday, John McCain suddenly announced he would be suspending his campaign, and returning to Washington to help broker agreement on the rescue/bailout package that congressional leaders and Secretary Paulson have been negotiating. He also called to cancel tomorrow night’s debate.
David Letterman was miffed that McCain blew off a scheduled appearance on his show last night, in his “race to the airport,” but sat for an interview with Katie Couric instead. So, Letterman rolled live footage of McCain getting his face powdered before the interview. “Hey, I’ve got a question for you,” Letterman yelled at the onscreen image of McCain. “Need a ride to the airport?!”
For his part, Barack Obama wasn’t having any of it.
“With respect to the debates, it’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once . . .”
“I think there’s no reason why we can’t be constructive in helping to solve this problem and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand … So in my mind, actually, it’s more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people and try to describe where we want to take the country and where we want to take the economy.”
President Bush went on the air last night to calm us all, and to explain why we won’t be able to get a car, home or school loan next year, even with a great credit record, if we don’t act now to stabilize our capital markets. He’s right, actually. But George Bush isn’t exactly someone most Americans feel confident in.
We are looking to the guy who, just over a month, is going to inherit this mess. So, as Obama said, there is no better time to hold a nationally televised debate than now.
Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain’s debate negotiations pointman, had this to say yesterday: “We need a solution on this crisis more than we need a foreign policy debate.” Oh, really? I wonder what Mr. Graham had to say today, after Pakistani and American troops exchanged fire — with eachother — and Pakistan’s Prime Minister had this to say:
“We will not tolerate any act against our sovereignty and integrity in the name of the war against terrorism,” Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told reporters on Wednesday. “We are fighting extremism and terror not for any other country, but our own country.”
And that’s not all. Terrorist violence in Pakistan has been escalating, and there are now reports that a “grim” new National Intelligence Estimate on the situation in Afghanistan is ready, but that it won’t be released until after the election. Iran’s nuclear development activities aren’t on hold while Washington works to rescue Wall Street. The North Korea deal still hangs precariously on the cliff of failure. A new Israeli Prime Minister may or may not be able to hold a coalition government together to continue peace talks with the Palestinians, and with the Syrians. Hugo Chavez gallivants off to see his new BFFs in Moscow every other month. But hey, no biggie. All that stuff can wait.
I agree with Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (never one to mince words) that McCain’s announcement was “the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of football or Marys.” The negotiations include Senate and House leadership and the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committes. John McCain will not be in the room at 10:00am this morning when the negotiators hammer out their remaining differences. In fact, the negotiators will have to take a break from the actual business of negotiating to troop over to the White House and have a meaningless photo op with the President. The president has little juice left for effective arm-twisting, and whatever lines in the sand he wants to express, are obviously represented for him by Hank Paulson. The only thing that meeting could be good for is if Congressional leaders and Paulson have reached an agreement by the time they all arrive at the White House, and President Bush announces the deal when the “meeting” wraps.
At this stage, the arms that still need twisting are those members who don’t want the government, and thus the taxpayers, to have to front this money for Wall Street. They are understandably angry, but they need to realize that things will only get far worse if we don’t act to stabilize the markets. So the parameters really are around how much money truly needs to be fronted (Paulson is erring on the side of as much as he can have the authority to move around), what measures will be taken to penalize those at fault (limiting CEO pay, for example), what measures can be put in place to increase the likelihood and the amount of profit the taxpayer, and not the bailed out companies, will get later for fronting the money now, and, is there anything Congress can do to prevent more homes from being foreclosed (I have read about a proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to reset mortgage terms, but I doubt that would fly).
If John McCain wants to be useful, he should march over to Jeb Henslaring’s (R-TX) office and twist his arm. “Jeb, I don’t like this anymore than you do,” he should say. “But I need the caucus with me on this one. I don’t want to be responsible for the deal failing, and Reid and Pelosi are threatening not to move if the GOP sits back on this one. It sure would be nice to all buck the president, vote no and let the Democrats pass a socialist government takeover of Wall Street, but Harry and Nancy aren’t going for it. So, I’ve come back to save the deal, right? Seriously, I need you to shut up and fall in line. You know, as if I were the leader of the Party now and I carried some real sway with you jerks?”
