From here on it's a PR thing. I'm sure Obama is two steps ahead. Only insane idiots would think old fucker can parade around TV networks but too busy to attend a debate.

Interesting that on the question of who will win, BigO leads McSame 52% to 41%.

Damn.  Still can't crack that 53% barrier.  When is he gonna close the deal?

This whole thing seems so bizarre. It's the worst choke I can recall ever seeing on this level. How can this not seem pathetic and bizarre to a majority of average people? We've all had to face things that scare the hell out of us, and wished like hell that we could run away or somehow find an excuse to just disappear. But that isn't what most of us do most of the time. We swallow our gorge and show up - deal with it - keep your head and keep on swinging. What ever the real reason behind this move, McCain can't avoid looking like a fucking coward.

We're going to win Ohio.

Obama just did a great job on NBC. Both McCain and Palin looked like idiots.

CNN and WaPo are reporting: no deal on the bailout.

I think McCain's strategy has emerged: force Obama to go to the debate alone, then try to pass something while he's there by himself, thus upstaging him.

Obama's not naive. He's got to know this is at least a possibility. I've got to wonder what card he holds.

Now assuming this debate goes forward, and also assuming this weird problem with McCain's left eye (whatever the cause may be) continues to plague him ... does anyone know which side of the stage each candidate will be standing on? Will McCain be able to keep his eye hidden from the camera most of the time?

I know this seems a trivial and somewhat mean-spirited detail, but we all remember Al Gore's unfortunate makeup job, and some of us remember Nixon's bad shave. My own belief is that even if such things have little intrinsic significance, they (so to speak) concretize other, larger matters that may be lurking unexpressed beneath the surface of collective awareness. I.e., Nixon is a little uncouth, isn't it? This version of Al Gore seems kind of fake. Jeez, McCain is really old.

I think McCain has just jumped his last shark.

His final noble deed reminds me of another famous interaction:

King Arthur: [after Arthur's cut off both of the Black Knight's arms] Look, you stupid Bastard. You've got no arms left.
Black Knight: Yes I have.
King Arthur: *Look*!
Black Knight: It's just a flesh wound.

Denial is a wonderful thing if you've become hopeless and helpless.

I thought my attempt at humor was a good one. But, again, real life is even funnier (see "Mighty Mouse") http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/barney-frank-gop-colleagu_n_129322.html
Enjoy

--
Kevin B

I'm saying it now: President Barack H. Obama, Jr., 2009 - 2017
www.VoteForChange.com

McCain better start pushing. Congressional Republicans, and even Senator Shelby, are rejecting the entire Paulson request, in all it's current permutations.

Capt Suspender McCain, better pull up his suspenders, and get his own Republican colleagues on board now, or he will get exposed to the nation, once again, as the dithering Drama Queen that he has always been.

"Today all Americans are Georgians" John Drama Queen McCain

Americans are not amused by the antics. The Republicans are starting to look like they are both hyping the "crisis" and trying to make political points trying to undermine a "solution".

Say Greg - comments is really wack in a whole new way.

Now I have to sign in with every other comment, like the old days, but when I hit send, the URL loads instantly, without allowing the page to load, so I have to hit reload to post.

The Pew Poll released Wednesday night showed that 63% of voters wants the debate to go forward and only 10% wanted it postponed. McCain needs to man up and get his wrinkled butt to Friday's debate.

McCain will show up. How terrible would it look for him if Obama was the only there with 25 million TV viewers.

Will he probably will have is a snide opening remark about how what he did was the right thing. Problem is, he didn't suspend anything.

Re: Palin's interview.

The truly odd thing is that buried underneath her garble-speak is buried a salient point:

The Russian air-force has recently resumed their 24-hour bomber patrols, which means that surveillance and response duty falls to the Alaskan air base (I'm forgetting the name).

Problem is, that's a SAC issue, not a state issue, and probably not one that they spend a whole lot of time sharing intel about either. (Somehow I doubt that the intel folks buried 100 feet under San Angelo, TX spend a whole lot of time on the phone with Gov. Hairy . . .)

Greg, the startling thing in these numbers to me is not that 50 percent have no confidence in McCain's ability to handle it,but how close the No-confidence figures of McCain and Obama are.

Cleavermeat's (Should be Clevermeat)suggestion that this situation is best explained with strawberries needs to be explained for younger readers. He is referring to the movie The Caine Mutiny that was released in 1954 or thereabouts. Humphrey Bogart played Captain Queeg, a mentally unbalanced despot who takes command of a navy vessel from a popular captain. He's paranoid and a coward, not to mention an incompetent who almost gets the vessel capsized in a storm. But nobody on board has the courage to speak up (He has had an exemplary career) and say the unspeakable: the captain is crazy. In a wonderful stretch of the movie Queeg becomes obsessed with what he feels are strawberries missing from the officers mess. The GOP candidate for president is showing definite symptoms of being another Captain Queeg, but nobody has the courage to speak up.