NYT on McCain: Why did he bailout of the debate, and what is his position on the bail out???

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: News Analysis
McCain Leaps Into a Thicket
Published: September 25, 2008

Senator John McCain had intended to ride back into Washington on Thursday as a leader who had put aside presidential politics to help broker a solution to the financial crisis. Instead he found himself in the midst of a remarkable partisan showdown, lacking a clear public message for how to bring it to an end.

At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, said people in the meeting.

In subsequent television interviews, Mr. McCain suggested that he saw the bipartisan plan that came apart at the White House meeting as the proper basis for an eventual agreement, but he did not tip his hand as to whether he would give any support to the alternative put on the table by angry House Republicans, with whom he had met before going to the White House.

He said he was hopeful that a deal could be struck quickly and that he could then show up for his scheduled debate on Friday night against his Democratic rival in the presidential race, Senator Barack Obama. But there was no evidence that he was playing a major role in the frantic efforts on Capitol Hill to put a deal back together again....

***

(A)s a matter of political appearances, the day’s events succeeded most of all in raising questions about precisely why Mr. McCain had called for postponing the first debate and returned to Washington to focus on the bailout plan, and what his own views were about what should be done. Those political appearances are a key consideration for Mr. McCain less than six weeks from Election Day and at a time when some polls suggest he is losing ground against Mr. Obama, especially on handling the economy....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/us/politics/26campaign.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

[napi21]

1. I've heard speculation that this whole thing was planned to get

attention off Palin & Davis and put McNuts at the top of the news cycle again. I think it was Thom Hartmann who said that this AM. He said it looked to him like a Rove/Schmit diversion plan. You have to admit, if THAT was the plan, it worked! All this "will he debate or won't he debate" is STILL keeping McNuts in the headlines!!!!

[DeepModem Mom]

2. That is probably the most likely explanation. nt