That thing you see between his legs, as he slinks to Oxford, Mississippi for the debate, is his tail.

Somebody evidently got him to see that this skipping the debate thing wasn’t going to work. They got him to agree to reverse his absurd position.

But he had boxed himself in by declaring loudly and firmly and very very clearly that he wasn’t going to attend the debate unless there was a clear, firm deal: “McCain would take part in the debate as scheduled if Congress reached agreement on the measure by Friday morning.” Only if Congress actually reached agreement. His campaign had underlined that by making it clear that “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.”

So McCain did what he does best. He put out this statement:

Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners.

First, in blatant disregard of the obvious facts — namely that all the very significant progress that had been made by yesterday afternoon was personally smashed into very small pieces by crazy little Johnny himself, leaving the negotiations in a complete shambles — McCain declares that he “is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement”. (What? He couldn’t quite get himself to say: there has been significant progress? So he squared it with what he is no doubt pleased to call his conscience by saying he “is optimistic that there has been significant progress”? )

Then he somehow manages to totally ignore the fact that he is going back on his own grand promise that only an actual deal would allow the proud, principled, country-first patriot that he is to attend the debate. He blithely presents his optimism that there has been significant progress as sufficient reason for the debate to be on again.

To see the total hypocrisy of this stand, here’s what the McCain campaign was saying yesterday afternoon when every indication was that a deal had been all but reached:

John McCain’s campaign expressed cautious optimism Thursday as congressional Republicans and Democrats agreed in principle on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry hours before the two presidential candidates were to meet with President Bush on the crisis.

Even so, the action didn’t appear to be strong enough to convince McCain to attend Friday’s scheduled presidential debate. His campaign has said he wouldn’t participate unless there was consensus between Congress and the administration, and a spokesman said the afternoon developments had not changed his plans.

“There’s no deal until there’s a deal. We’re optimistic but we want to get this thing done,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.

When a deal looked imminent, that wasn’t enough to convince Honorable John to attend the debate. But now that we’ve gone several steps backward from that point, and no one has any idea when a deal might be reached or what it might look like, that’s somehow enough to convince him to attend the debate?

And there are still people who swear by this man (as opposed to at him)? Who are determined to give him their vote? Mindboggling!