1115.org

It has been a really funny kind of campaign suspension. But then it’s been a really funny kind of riding-to-the-rescue too, so it’s all of a piece. Which shouldn’t be surprising because John McCain is really some piece of work. Though work, of course, is what McCain hasn’t done an honest day’s of in a good long while. (And the good news is that nothing that happened yesterday put a blemish on that spotless record.)

(1) The Campaign Suspension Mirage

So, what does a “suspended” campaign look like? As it turns out, it’s eerily similar to a regular ol’ campaign.

What have we learned since McCain suspended his presidential campaign?

* McCain campaign offices in battleground states are open and operating, just like yesterday.

* McCain’s television ads are on the air, just like yesterday.

* McCain media flacks are all over the news networks, just like yesterday.

* McCain’s campaign staffers are working, just like yesterday.

* McCain’s campaign website is up, soliciting contributions and promoting McCain’s message, just like yesterday.

The icing on the cake is that Baby Sarah was also out suspending the campaign by putting in a non-political appearance at ground zero, where she unaccountably took questions from reporters so that she could embrace George Bush’s approach to the war on terror.

(2) The Bailout Plan Mirage
As far as the implosion of the bailout plan is concerned, everything looked nicely murky for a while last evening. By the time Johnny arrived in Washington, senior Democrats and Republicans had announced that they already had a deal:

McCain’s “Straight Talk Air” landed at National Airport just after noon, and McCain’s motorcade sped toward the Senate. But by then, senior Democrats and Republicans were already announcing that a deal in principle had been reached.

But then House Republican leader John Boehner — who has earned 700 billion dollars worth of trust by always telling the truth about everything (explanation: I just wanted to pick a really large number, and $700 billion sounds a lot better than eleventeen bushillion) — told his members that “no deal” had yet been reached.

And various people accused John McCain of scuttling the deal by suddenly springing a brand new plan on everyone at the White House meeting. People like Chris Dodd:

In an interview with CNN this evening, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) said the meeting became “contentious” when “all of a sudden there was some new core agreement floating around, which no one had heard of before, until we sort of got to the White House.” Asked who introduced it, Dodd said it was McCain and the House Republicans:

BLITZER: Who introduced that?

DODD: Well, it, we’re told it came out of the Republican House. We were even told at one point that this was, maybe, John McCain was floating the idea. That Hank Paulson was considering it. And of course Barney Frank and I, along with Republicans from the House and the Senate, of course, had spent three hours this morning working on a different core. We were told for the last seven days this was the core issue that would give the secretary the authority to move, to deal with the crisis.

Aggravated from having “spent seven straight days at this,” Dodd said that the surprise proposal at the meeting “looked like…a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours.” “It took us away from the work we were trying to do today,” said Dodd.

And Barney Frank:

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told Democratic colleagues that McCain’s involvement has destroyed chance of an agreement, sources told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Frank compared McCain’s involvement to: “Richard Nixon blowing up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968.”

But late last night, the NYT produced this detailed account of what actually happened:

The day began with an agreement that Washington hoped would end the financial crisis that has gripped the nation. It dissolved into a verbal brawl in the Cabinet Room of the White House, urgent warnings from the president and pleas from a Treasury secretary who knelt before the House speaker and appealed for her support.

“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room.

It was an implosion that spilled out from behind closed doors into public view in a way rarely seen in Washington.

By 10:30 p.m., after another round of talks, Congressional negotiators gave up for the night and said they would try again on Friday. Left uncertain was the fate of the bailout, which the White House says is urgently needed to fix broken financial and credit markets, as well as whether the first presidential debate would go forward as planned Friday night in Mississippi.

When Congressional leaders and Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, the two major party presidential candidates, trooped to the White House on Thursday afternoon, most signs pointed toward a bipartisan agreement on a grand compromise that could be accepted by all sides and signed into law by the weekend. It was intended to pump billions of dollars into the financial system, restoring liquidity and keeping credit flowing to businesses and consumers.

“We’re in a serious economic crisis,” Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room, adding, “My hope is we can reach an agreement very shortly.”

But once the doors closed, the smooth-talking House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, surprised many in the room by declaring that his caucus could not support the plan to allow the government to buy distressed mortgage assets from ailing financial companies.

Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.

The talks broke up in angry recriminations, according to accounts provided by a participant and others who were briefed on the session, and were followed by dueling news conferences and interviews rife with partisan finger-pointing.

In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

It was the very outcome the White House had said it intended to avoid, with partisan presidential politics appearing to trample what had been exceedingly delicate Congressional negotiations.

The part that stands out, of course, is “and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.” And it’s not just the NYT’s judgement that McCain declined to take a stand. That’s what his own campaign proudly declared later: “John McCain did not attack any proposal or endorse any plan”. No, he just sat on his ass. It was for this that he suspended his campaign and rode into Washington on a white horse?

Unless, of course, the McCain spokesman who said “John McCain did not attack any proposal or endorse any plan” wasn’t really the one anointed by the campaign to speak to this issue (which, you may remember, has happened many a time before):

Although John McCain hasn’t said whether he supports the bipartisan, bicameral compromise struck earlier in the day Thursday, one of his leading Senate surrogates – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – said Thursday night that McCain joined House Republicans in opposing that proposal.

In fact, the NYT description of McCain’s role — he contributed to the implosion only by declining to take a stand — sounds overly generous, even without Graham’s statement:

But a top aide to Mr. Boehner said it was Democrats who had done the political posturing. The aide, Kevin Smith, said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement.

You’re following along so far, right? The deal that everybody thought had been reached was scuttled by House Republicans who felt that McCain should be allowed an opportunity to score the political points he had postured so hard in order to score. And McCain, true leader and true patriot that he is, went right along with that.

And, of course, it gets worse:

At 4 p.m., Mr. Bush convened his meeting at the White House; Mr. McCain had already met with House Republicans to hear their concerns. He later said on ABC that he had known going into the White House that “there never was a deal,” but he kept that sentiment to himself.

That’s what real leaders do these days, is it, quietly keep such knowledge to themselves? Instead of, for example, actually working to achieve the deal that John “Country First” McCain himself has shamelessly been declaring since Wednesday to be critical for the country.

I saved the best part for last, knowing that you’d need a laugh at the end of this sordid and depressing tale of irresponsible powerlust. That alternative plan that Mr. Boehner is pushing, guess what its twin foundations are? (This would be a good time to put down anything in your hands, and expel any solids or liquids from your mouth that you may not wish to spray on your keyboard and/or innocent bystanders.) Deregulation and tax-cuts!

*** Update, 7:34 am ***

I was remiss in not pointing out that Matt had predicted this all along:

This is a stunt, and a transparent one at that. The idea of a man who openly admits he doesn’t know anything about economics riding to the rescue is obviously absurd.