The Presidential Debates: McCain MIA?
Senator McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign and postpone Friday’s debate in order to deal with the proposed legislation on the financial bailout did anything but make him look presidential, decisive and altruistic, as was surely his intent. A fair reading of the situation would suggest it made him look desperate and dissembling, seeking to “steal the show,” and, as Rachel Maddow suggested, to opportunistically “press the reset button” for his troubled campaign as he has done every time events give him an opening or paint him into a corner: “We’re all Georgians,” he exclaimed, when Russia invaded Georgia; rushing to Louisiana the first night of the convention when Gustav threatened New Orleans; nominating Sarah Palin after the Democrats got a bump in the polls after their convention; “fire the chairman of the SEC when crisis hit Wall Street and now “suspend the campaign and postpone the debate.”
His reason for postponing the debate is patently obvious: he is suffering in the polls because trouble in the economy and financial markets work to his disadvantage, given his close association with the Bush policies that got us into this mess. Therefore, a presidential debate while the issue of the bailout hangs in suspense would be disastrous for his campaign. In this instance it’s “Campaign First” not “Country First” inasmuch as the few hours it would take to fly to and from Oxford, MS for the debate wouldn't seriously impair his participation or kill the deal. I find nothing admirable in McCain’s attempts to “steal the show.”
Quite the contrary. The latest attempt to steal the show is just one more example of the self-contradiction and hypocrisy underlying the McCain campaign:
A staunch supporter of the Bush administration (voting 90% of the time with the administration) running as a reformer of Bush policies and an agent of change
A lifelong proponent of deregulation suddenly a true believer in tough re-regulation
A proponent of clean politics running a slime-laden, mendacious ad campaign
A one-time opponent of offshore drilling now proposing a “drill, drill, drill” solution to the energy crisis
A “legacy” Naval Academy graduate married to a millionaire heiress owning 7 houses chastising his opponent (raised by a single mother on food stamps) as “elitist”
One of the Keating 5 criticizing his opponent’s business associations
An opponent of pork nominating a running mate from the state with highest pork per capita in the nation and claiming she is a “pork fighter,” (not to mention many other misrepresentations of her record)
A critic of Obama’s “inexperience” ludicrously claiming Sarah Palin has the requisite experience for the presidency, if called upon
An avowed opponent of special-interests and lobbyists staffing his campaign with scores of lobbyists
A candidate who acknowledges his weakness in economics, who, until a week ago, asserted that the U.S. economy’s fundamentals were sound, wanting to spearhead the process of economic recovery
And the list goes on. How long before Americans generally agree that the man who would be emperor has no clothes?