How lovely. Just when we need to hear from the candidates about the “financial crisis”, we learn that McSame’s canceling the Friday debate, urging Obama to do the same. It’s a replay of the Hurricane Gustav “strategy”. Things are, apparently, too important for politics. Too important to thrash it out. No. What we need is to act presidential, and let somebody else figure out what to do.
The NY Times reports:
Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he would temporarily suspend his presidential campaign on Thursday to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis and the $700 billion bailout package now before Congress.
Mr. McCain said he told Senator Barack Obama that he was asking the Commission on Presidential Debates to postpone the debate scheduled for Friday night.
“I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself,” he said. “It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.”
That’s what we need. No debates about how we got into this mess and how we get out of it. No debates about who’s paying the tab. No debates about Congressional review, reports to Congress, and judicial review of the plan. No debates about the price of securities and how they’re selected. Oh no. Nothing about the details. When it comes to important issues, and in this case, the singular most important issue facing the country, what does McSame propose? We have a nice meeting with lame duck Bush and the leadership, all of whom are directly responsible on some level for the mess, to make yet another backroom deal.
Give me a break. What we need is a vigorous, no holds barred, forthright, face to face debate on precisely how the present “financial crisis” is going to be resolved. Anything else, I bet, is just another smoke filled room and a rescue to the people who least deserve it.
Obama should say no, the debate must go on. But don’t hold your breath for that.
Update: Another thing. According to Reuters McSame is making the exact, same argument he made about Gustav and the convention:
“It’s time for both parties to come together to solve this problem,” the Arizona senator said. “We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved.”
He doesn’t get that we’re all Americans and Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and/or third party supporters. The parties are supposed to stand for something, they’re supposed to be involved in finding solutions to problems, in discussing alternatives, in pressing their viewpoints, in debating, in reasoning, in trying to convince others that theirs is the best course. That’s what Americans do. That’s what democracies do. The idea that we drop those viewpoints to solve problems is ridiculous. And it leads to backroom deals in which The People get thrown under oncoming transportation devices.