The Widening Gyre, Reloaded

There appears to be a burgeoning debate as to what prompted John Sith McCain to take the extraordinary step of suspending his sinking presidential campaign and go back to Washington to resume his roll as the betrayer of everything the Republican Party is supposed to stand for.  I shared some of my thoughts on that yesterday.  This morning there's a story that it wasn't originally McCain's idea at all:

Don't think for one moment that Sailor answering Secretary Paulson's call to action wasn't, and isn't, entirely political.  Indeed, it is an act of desperation, in my estimation.

Why?  Look at the polling composite/Electoral College map widget on the left sidebar.  A week and a half ago McCain was ahead in the EC 270-268 and two points up in the popular vote (a composite of state composites based upon an average of the most recent seven days' polls of likely voters).  When the Wall Street Meltdown hit last Monday, New Mexico immediately flipped to Obama, and ever since that popular vote number has inexorably eroded to the point where today, North Carolina has flipped as well and Obama has taken the composite popular vote lead.

How did this happen?  Simple: a large plurality of Americans is blaming the GOP for the Democrats' disaster.  Why?  (1) Bush is president; (2) the Dems spent last week bellowingly reinforcing the vile misconception; but most importantly, (3) Team Sith did virtually nothing to refute it, other than run a few ads pointing out that Obama's top two economic advisors are corrupt ex-FNMA CEOs, and otherwise me-tooed the other side's populist rhertoric about "Wall Street greed" and "predatory lenders".  Since McCain wouldn't play the "blame game," he forfeited with only token resistance, and as a result, the campaign has been slowly to steadily slipping away from him ever since.

Then comes Henry Paulson's phone call, and what Darth Queeg and his braintrust recognized as a golden "hail Mary" opportunity to jiu-jitsu this political death blow into a huge trump on B.O.  By suspending his campaign and gallantly inviting Lucifer to do the same and jointly return to Washington to save this misbegotten statist brontosaurus from its well-deserved extinction - and anticipating that The One would get that deer-in-the-headlights look and turn him down - Maverick would have the chance to put his "country first" motto into action before the entire country, swoop into the Capitol to save the day and the economy and America itself, and make Barry look like the empty suit/poseur/dilletante/pretender/numbnut he really is, all as the entire country breathlessly watched.

The downside, on the other hand, is that "McCain providing cover" translates to "bullying Republicans into combusting their principles and acting against the best interests of their party and their country.  But I suppose Palinmania is supposed to cover that.  The massively bigger hazard is as I alluded to yesterday: by buying into the "WE'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING, NOW!!!!" panicmongering, McCain handed the negotiating catbird seat to the Dems, who have nothing to fear politically from being obstructionists (since they're going to gain seats in November regardless and their presidential candidate is already pulling away in the polls because of this mess) and everything to gain from blocking a bailout deal, humiliating McCain and possibly knocking the economy over into the deep recession or even depression that would entrench them in power for the next hundred years - for which the GOP would also get tarred with responsibility.

That caveat appears to never have occurred to Lord Queeg.  Or if it did, he just shrugged and modifiedly regurgitated one of his standard catch-phrases, "I'd rather lose an election than lose the American economy."  Ironic, since losing this election guarantees the collapse of the American economy once the Dems get unchallenged control over it whether or not Hank Paulson's downpayment on it wins congressional passage.

We'll have to see whether Ensign Ed and Double H, or yours truly, has the right immediate take on this over the next week.  But even if it isn't me, the longer term forecast of galloping socialism and a long, dark, Donk age is graven in stone.

UPDATE: Here's a thought: if McCain does swoop in and gets a deal done within hours, doesn't that make an argument for why he should stay in the Senate rather than move to the White House?

UPDATE II: Me, from yesterday:

Meanwhile, Lucifer is left with an el primo opportunity to turn Friday's debate into an unopposed solo national address that systematically hacks to bits McCain's foreign policy manifesto - or subtley co-opts it.

The Author and Perfector of the Marxist Faith, today:

Barack Obama is committed to hosting a public, televised event Friday night in Mississippi even if John McCain does not show up, a source close to the Obama campaign tells the Huffington Post.

The senator, the source says, is willing to make the scheduled debate a townhall meeting, a one-on-one interview with NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer, or the combination of the two in McCain’s absence.

AP thinks McCain will blink this time, and the polling backs it up.  If this were two weeks ago, I'd say the HotAirster was nuts, but now?  The Sith Master really doesn't have much of a choice.

Here's an original exit question: If Maverick does jump through Messiah's hoop like the latter did the former's yesterday (with a bit 'o help from his presidential "running mate"), how much does that undercut any benefit he gained from "putting country first"?  More or less than what he'd lose from letting The Golden Child pound away at his national security/foreign policy advantage before the entire nation unopposed?

UPDATE III: Chris Dodd is full of shit.  The very fact that he's a point man on this mess from the Senate when he's one of the prime SOBs that pushed the policies that created it and from which he handsomely and corruptly benefitted is like the two rolls of bathroom tissue it'd take to wipe it all up and would never go down the bowl no matter how many times we flushed.  Neither would he, come to think of it.

Enough of the scatalogy metaphor.  As aforelinked, Dodd claimed this morning that a deal had been reached.  Thing was, even National Barack Company was reporting that Barney Frank's scheme to use part of this seven hundred billion to, in essence, keep afloat the frakking Community Redevelopment Program that was the genesis of this meltdown in the first place was going about as far with already-skeptical Republicans as Reese Witherspoon running for a seat in the Iranian parliament.  Coming back from lunch, Sean Hannity reported that Senate Banking Committee ranking member Dick Shelby (R-AL) emerged from this "summit" at the White House disavowing that ANY agreement had been reached.  House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) echoed Shelby earlier, if not quite as bluntly.

Hannity also reported that while Light-Bringer exited the meeting and made a beeline for his press buddies, Darth Queeg ducked out the West Wing entrance and into his limo or whatever and sped away.  Not surprising to me if his angle was to "parachute" into D.C. and use his mighty maverickiness to whip everybody into line behind a modified Paulson plan, which clearly isn't happening (yet).  Doesn't say much for his vaunted leadership qualities if even his own GOP colleagues balk at his grandstanding effrontry.  Or maybe Sailor has played the "maverick" card one time too many.

Either way, it's no wonder he didn't want to face the media.  He might finally have had that stack-blowing that everybody's been expecting for the past year and a half.  Given that his "country first in action" gambit is fizzling, and bailing out to the debate tomorrow night would earn him "flip-flop" ridicule, and he just might have blown the election, it'd be hard to blame him.

UPDATE IV: Here's another question that's been vamping through my brain of late: We've got the federal government trying to cram a socialistic b[uy]out of Wall Street down our throats that is roughly equal to 5% of current gross domestic product - i.e. the aggregate annual national income - or a quarter of the "official" annual federal budget (to which they claim this wouldn't be added because it would be [snicker] "investments").  That's a lot of money, even for the feds.  And even if this mountain of "investments" were ultimately unloaded for a net profit to the taxpayers, what do you think would be done with it - returned to us, put toward the Social Security and/or Medicare "trust funds," or porked?

So here's the question: if this b[uy]out of Wall Street fails to fix the underlying problem - and it will, absent wholesale regulatory changes as well as wholesale electoral ousting of Democrats across the board - and We, The People, end up on the hook for all this worthless Donk-inspired paper, might that not bring the federal government's solvency into question (even sooner than the looming entitlements crunch will)?  Who will bail them - US - out then?

That should be McCain's next ad, assuming he ever resumes his campaign.  Talk doesn't get any straighter than that.