It's a lovely late autumn morning. The birds are singing, the air is wonderfully cool and seems clean as you breathe it in, the coffee gurgles in the coffee maker, Washington Mutual has gone under -- the largest bank failure in history -- and guys in suits are really freaking out on cable news. The financial wonks are climbing the freakin' walls -- "Where's the bailout?" they ask. "Where's the bailout?" And somewhere in Washington, John McCain quietly craps his pants.By pretending to be the president and to take the reigns of the economy, McCain set himself up to fail. He doesn't serve on the Senate Banking Committee, so he can't actually help draft an agreement, all he can really do is vote or not for the final bill. He has no real input on a draft. Not only did McCain pretend he was going to do something super-important to fix the economy, but he pretended he could.
I don't know which is worse for John McCain, the truth or the perception. The perception is that House Republicans threw out an all but closed deal in order to help McCain, who managed to show up in Washington after the deal was announced. The truth is that House Republicans, swamped with anti-bailout letters and calls and emails, threw the deal out to help themselves. With the exception of those who've announced their retirements, every single GOP House member is up for re-election in about a month. So they did what Republicans do in a crisis; they panicked...
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