The AP: "it was hard to tell who had suffered a worse evening, Bush or McCain."


Any article with the line "it was a remarkably bad day for Republicans" in the first paragraph is going to pique my interest:

 Quote:
Even for a party whose president suffers dismal approval ratings, whose legislative wing lost control of Congress and whose presidential nominee trails in the polls, it was a remarkably bad day for Republicans.


The drama that unfolded yesterday wasn't as much about the underlying policy, but on the underlying politics -- internal Republican politics. Neither Bush or McCain have any leadership abilities:

 Quote:
By midnight, it was hard to tell who had suffered a worse evening, Bush or McCain. McCain, eager to shore up his image as a leader who rises above partisanship, was undercut by a fierce political squabble within his own party's ranks.

The consequences could be worse for Bush, and for millions of Americans if the impasse sends financial markets tumbling, as some officials fear. Closed-door negotiations were to resume Friday, but it was unclear whether House Republicans would attend.

Republicans and Democrats alike seemed unsure which way McCain was leaning. His campaign's statement late Thursday shed little light.

"At this moment, the plan that has been put forth by the administration does not enjoy the confidence of the American people," it said. It was unclear whether McCain would attend Friday night's scheduled debate against Democratic nominee Barack Obama in Oxford, Miss.


So, get this straight: McCain made a big announcement that he was suspending his campaign (which he didn't do) and planning to bag the first debate because of the economic crisis. He swooped into D.C., caused a stir -- but no one knows what his position is. That's some kind of crazy. He hasn't solved the problem. It's no kind of leadership.

In fact, watching how McCain has handled himself in the economic crisis has put his temperament front and center in the campaign. There's no way to avoid it. McCain made it the issue himself. From Politico:

 Quote:
McCain’s high-wire intervention in the financial crisis is his latest showstopper move – and his riskiest. He might succeed, but the candidate’s penchant for the dramatic has also raised anew potentially damaging questions of his age, executive abilities and, most of all, his temperament.

"He has been pretty erratic – there's no other way to describe what we've seen out of this guy in the last week," an Obama aide said of McCain's conduct during the financial crisis.

Another Democratic official cited McCain's "erratic, all over the map response to the economic crisis."


"Erratic" is one of the best words to describe McCain. "Erratic" is one of the worst words to describe a president.

Ok, granted, I realize G-man is going to complain that it's Democrats lobbing the criticism of McCain... So lets hear what an EX McCain staffer, a Republican has to say.

From Huffington Post:

 Quote:
After days of saying that John McCain would not attend Friday's presidential debate unless an agreement on a bailout package for the markets was "locked-down," the McCain campaign has gone back on its word.

On Friday, it announced that the Senator would head down to Mississippi even though, as they readily admit, much work remained needed on the bailout agreement.

The whole episode left even conservatives admitting that the McCain campaign looked erratic and a bit foolish with no apparent direction or guiding principle.

"It just proves his campaign is governed by tactics and not ideology," said Republican consultant Craig Shirley, who advised McCain earlier in this cycle. "In the end, he blinked and Obama did not. The 'steady hand in a storm' argument looks now to more favor Obama, not McCain."

Shirley added, "My guess is that plasma units are rushing to the McCain campaign as we speak to replace the blood flowing there from the fights among the staff."


Ok, granted that I know G-Man's game well by now. he'll probably accuse this guy of being "disgruntled" or something. So let's hear what other Republican lawmakers have to say...

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) was just interviewed by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, and he told Mitchell that McCain killed the deal yesterday at the White House:

 Quote:
"I do think that John McCain was very helpful in what he did. I saw him this morning, we've been talking with his staff. Clearly, yesterday, his position in that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from, uh, finalizing that no House Republican, in my view, would've been for. Which means it probably wouldn't have passed the House. Now, Democrats are in the majority, they can pass anything they want to without a single Republican vote. But they don't seem to be willing to do that. I'm please we can have negotiations now that guess us back to things that we think can protect the taxpayers better, create more options, are, frankly, be better understood in the country than the plan, than the path that we were on just a couple of days ago."





McCain was "helpful," Blunt says, because McCain killed the deal - he didn't help get a deal, he helped kill it. That isn't a maverick bringing everyone together, it's an erratic, confused bull in a China shop doing what his trigger-happy gut tells him (if I may mix my metaphors). When the choice is between making war brokering peace, John McCain always goes for war. It's what hot-heads do. Especially when they're no longer at their prime.

But knowing G-Man, he'll spin this as good because if you're a partisan Republican who puts ideology ahead of the future of this country, you don't do "weak" things like compromise with Democrats and your own President. You think about yourself and the ideology that caused this mess in the first place and you stick to your guns all the way down the cliff.

Sort of like with Iraq.