Cut and Run

What a difference a week and nine points in the national polls make.

I actually had to do a double-take when I first saw this story, figuring I was reading it wrong because there was just no way it could be true. He may be a half-batshit old man, but John McCain simply wouldn't allow himself to be put in a position where it could look to some voters like he was, well, running scared.

But nope, it's true.

John McCain wants to postpone Friday's first presidential debate with Barack Obama.

The excuse he's offering is that, suddenly, now is not the time for partisan bickering -- that he's planning to suspend his campaign temporarily to focus on the current economic catastrophe and that Barack Obama should do likewise for the good of the country. For those playing along at home, that would be the economic catastrophe caused by the deregulation, mismanagement, unfettered greed and bald-faced incompetence that his party willfully promoted and which he himself has espoused (regardless of the horseshit he's spewing now in an effort to distance himself from this disastrous mess).

So basically, McCain wants to call a time out now that his team's down by nine in the fourth quarter (and make no mistake, if the roles were reversed and it was the Obama campaign lagging behind in the polls, McCain not only wouldn't agree to such nonsense, he and his surrogates would be on every television network in America -- even the Cartoon Network -- mercilessly ridiculing Obama for his cowardice, to say nothing of his inability to multitask).

Tell you what -- Obama should agree to let McCain off the hook for Friday provided he agrees to a no-holds-barred joint press conference to include both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin -- during which they'll be grilled about their respective plans for the economy, foreign policy, anything else that comes to mind.

I figure with all that executive experience, Palin should probably have some really good ideas for solving these problems.

And McCain, well, he spent time in a Vietnamese prison camp -- surely he can handle a few pointed questions.

I mean, really, he's a war hero -- there's no way he's afraid.