So, John McCain says he's needed in Washington to help solve the financial crisis.  Sounds like "the dog ate my homework" to me.

This is an incredibly transparent move by McCain to avoid a likely embarrassing for him debate with Obama.  McCain is clearly not  a the "change" candidate and his handlers fear that even more people will recognize that after a debate.  You gotta hand it to the him though, he sure knows how to play the gullible public.  This is just another example of the do-whatever-it-takes-high-road-be-damned McCain I wrote about in McCain: Victory with Honor (or Not... Whatever Works).

This election is about who we should hire for the next four (and maybe eight) years to lead our country out of many messy problems and into a new and better tomorrow.  We, the voters, have the right to hear the candidates address questions in a forum other than self-controlled political ads and campaign stop appearances.  But John McCain is afraid of that idea.

McCain is afraid of what voters will decide if they hear him debate, face to face, with Obama about how to move forward.  This is especially true in light of the recent financial turmoil.  For decades McCain has pushed for more and more deregulation.  Now, when even George Bush is pushing hard to essentially socialize the mortgage industry, it is difficult to explain the wisdom of all that deregulation.  On top of that, McCain has said--and very recently--that that the health care system needs less regulation and more privatization.  McCain has been promising that as president he will do for health care what we have already done for banking.

Whoops!  No wonder he's afraid to meet Obama in an open debate tomorrow.  There is simply no time for his spin meisters to prepare damage control by then.  His only hope is to avoid the debate, and that is just what he is scrambling to do.

But lets not underestimate the skill of his spin meisters.  They are good.  They even enlisted President Bush to play a role in this massive spin effort.  By getting the President to call for a meeting with both McCain and Obama, it creates a sense of legitimacy (at least among those who respect the president's wisdom, of which, apparently, there are some) to skipping the debate to attend more pressing matters--a presidential calling, no less.  But it is all just part of a scheme to keep McCain from the debate.

The GOP strategy for victory this year includes limiting real access to both McCain and Palin because they are literally afraid of what their candidates might say.  Throw in some low-road ads to mislead and stir up bigotries and, sadly for most of us, and for most of the world, it just might work.