So, it looks like the original plan was for John McCain to go to Washington, huddle with Republican leadership, figure out how to brand Democrats as obstructionists and then hold several highly-covered but ultimately pointless meetings about “ideas” he had for the bill long enough to disrupt the entire flow of the campaign but not so long that he wouldn’t be able to whip out a bill for which he could take credit.

Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans reached a compromise while he was en route to doing absolutely nothing.  John Boehner first said there was no deal, then said there kind of was, then said there wasn’t.  And why?

Rep. Spencer Bachus (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, attended the meeting at which some say a deal was reached. But he later issued a statement saying he wasn’t authorized to negotiate or approve any deals for House Republicans.

“There was progress on many issues, but no agreement other than to continue discussions,” Bachus said.

He added that McCain is interested in using loans or insurance rather than having the government purchase the toxic debts of Wall Street institutions.

“We would prefer a loan or supplying insurance,” Bachus told reporters. “These are the ideas Sen. McCain tried to maximize. He feels strongly we have to design a program where taxpayers won’t lose.”

Bachus, wearing a “McCain-Palin” lapel pin, said he’d talked to McCain on Wednesday night and had breakfast with McCain’s advisers Wednesday morning.

Pretty much, the only goal of the bill for the GOP now is to get enacted a vaguely articulated set of goals that John McCain has kept secret up until…well, they’re still secret, but whatever.  The proposed bailout first came onto the Senate’s plate last Saturday.  It took John McCain until Wednesday to decide that he needed to not-quite-suspend his campaign in order to go ensure that Congress enacted a set of standards that he’d told abso-fucking-lutely nobody about. 

Josh Marshall, I think, said this was like faking an injury in the fourth quarter of a game that you’re losing, badly.  This isn’t that.  In the NBA, there’s a sometimes-endearing, sometimes-obnoxious practice where a team will keep or put in a player in the fourth quarter who’s trying to reach some benchmark - a triple double, their 5,000th point, their first point, something.  This is the GOP calling up their end-of-the-bench scrub in the last game of the season and passing him the ball every play until he finally makes a bucket. 

Also, Nancy Unspellable Last Name from the McCain campaign just got called on on MSNBC.  Yesterday, McCain could possibly come back and vote if the bill was to his liking.  Twenty four hours later, it’s inconceivable that anyone couldn’t be right in the thick of things, trying to call shots.  Was there no one available to think this through?

It’s time to call them out on this endless BS:

Karl Rove lambasted the Obama campaign on Fox News Sunday for its recent ad criticizing Sen. John McCain for his supposed inability to use a computer.

Asked by Chris Wallace to comment on negative campaigning by Sen. Obama, Rove said that McCain’s injuries suffered in a Vietnamese prison camp were responsible for his computer illiteracy.

“But they then say he doesn’t …send e-mail. Well, this is because his war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can’t type. You know, it’s like saying he can’t do jumping jacks,” Rove said. “There’s a reason he can’t raise his arms above his head. There’s a reason he doesn’t have the nimbleness in his fingers.”

Please. If anything, this excuse is horribly offensive, not just because it is a baldfaced lie, but because it ignores thousands of people with physical disabilities, some far worse than those of the Arizona senator, who can and do use computers all the time.

Perhaps he has not heard of the Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP).

CAP supports Wounded Service Members (WSM) by providing needs assessments, assistive technology and training throughout all phases of recovery and transition to employment…Established by the Federal government, the Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP) is a centrally funded program that provides assistive technology (AT) and reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. CAP’s mission is to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to information and employment opportunities in the DoD and throughout the Federal government.

There is an entire section on dexterity limitations and assistive devices:

Disabilities that impact the range of motion, from minor to major finger movement and include: quadriplegics, paraplegics, individuals with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy, and individuals who have developed disabling conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis. Below are a number of assistive technologies that CAP recommends as appropriate accommodation solutions for people with this disability.

And...

CAP covers the cost of training for Federal agency employees to learn to use all types of assistive technology accommodations. CAP provides personnel who teach the user how to operate the assistive technology in conjunction with the hardware and/or software while in the user’s office environment. CAP customers also have the option to request self-paced tutorials. Customers may request both on-site and tutorial training. If training is needed, please indicate on the CAP Request Form which type you are requesting at the time you are requesting the software or hardware.

Given the senator’s power, privilege (and comprehensive health insurance), he’s entitled to benefits many civilians in his circumstances are not. Moreover,  this smear perpetrated by the McCain campaign and surrogates like Rove against the disabled who are able-bodied when it comes to computer literacy is disgusting.

POW!  Woman!  POW!  Woman!  POWoman!

The Palin pick is interesting for the brutally patronizing simplicity of it all.  She’s serving the same purpose that Dick Cheney served in 2000 - a pick from nowhere whose only real purpose is to comfort the base that the person at the top of the ticket isn’t going to totally fuck them ideologically. 

You’ve probably read her copious problems elsewhere, and I won’t rehash them - but the oddest part about the pick is that as a push towards Clinton supporters (which is what this is), it essentially assumes that the only reason Clinton drew support was because of the Grand American Vaginocracy.  It doesn’t matter that John McCain thinks his wife is a cunt, because he’s got a babymaker on the ticket!  This is John McCain’s platform on women’s issues.  This is Obama’s.

Even stepping outside of the women’s issues perspective, Palin’s main addition to the ticket is that likes guns, drilling and pretending she’s a reformer while being a part of the most corrupt state Republican Party in the nation.  She’s Alaska’s McCain, a mavericky maverick with a penchant for acting disturbingly like a member of the system she’s bucking.  Chances are, we won’t talk about her much from here on in, because her main appeal is going to be pulling the anti-choicers who think that Obama’s a genocidal maniac to begin with. 

It’s a joke pick for what’s rapidly become a joke candidacy.  But, to be fair, John McCain never got to pick a vice-POW.  Especially not a woman.

McCain on Leno last night:

Leno didn’t let McCain off the hook, offering him $1 million to answer how many houses he owned and noting that the White House would be a nice addition.

“You’ve got enough of those. ... You need a white one, too?”

McCain used that to turn serious for a few moments, and had a ready answer after stumbling over the “How many houses do you own” question in last week’s interview with Politico.

“I spent 5½ years in a prison cell; I didn’t have a house,” McCain said. “I didn’t have a table. I didn’t have a chair. ... You know, I’m very proud of Cindy’s father. ... He made the American dream.

“This has nothing to do with houses. It has to do with putting Americans in houses and keeping them in their houses.”

There’s a ready made series of web videos here: John McCain: Post-Vietnam Roommate.

“Uh, John, did you take a shit in the middle of my bed?”

“Why yes, yes, I did.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I spent five and a half years taking shits in a rancid hole.”

“Yes, I understand and respect that, but we have toilets.”

“And beds.”

“Toilets are for shitting, beds are for sleeping.”

“I didn’t have either for -”

“Five and a half years, I fucking know.  But did they torture you stupid, asshole?”

“I didn’t have books for sixty six months, I forgot some things.  I haven’t paid the electric bill in four months, either.  I don’t remember how to write checks!”

Lights go out.

“You’re moving out tomorrow, McCain.”