McCain Says Debates Should be Postponed

Today (September 24), John McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign in order to rush back to Washington, D.C., to help solve the nation’s financial crisis. This is a little like sending a pyromaniac into a burning building to put out the fire he started. John McCain was one of the chief voices railing against governmental regulation…until the you-know-what-hit the fan.

John McCain is also the candidate who has openly admitted he “knows nothing about the economy.”[Barack Obama, on the other hand, has 3 former Secretaries of the Treasury advising him and is a Harvard graduate (as compared to McCain’s graduating fifth from the bottom of his class, and that, arguably, only because his father and grandfather were both Admirals.)

Voters on AOL’s main blog, when asked whether it was a good or a bad idea for McCain to suspend his campaign activities, voted 55% no and 45% yes with 303,501 total votes cast at midnight. In regards to postponing the debates, the “no” vote was even higher, with 58% saying “no,” 38% saying “yes” (not people who have bought a plane ticket to fly there to attend, obviously), and 4% saying they were “unsure” with 297,018 votes cast.

It is so patently obvious that whenever the Republicans are struggling in their uphill battle against the facts they either throw the facts, themselves under the bus (or train) or, failing that, they hike off to visit a natural disaster like Hurricane Gustav during the Republican National Convention. This time, rather than weather, they are citing the decline and fall of the American empire (aka, the current budget crisis) in order to avoid doing their debating duty. The rest of the time the Republican Presidential and Vice Presidential are apparently hiding out in Cheney’s bunker or coffin or wherever it is that our current Darth Vader VP keeps his guns, his defibrillator, and himself.

McCain also suggested not having Friday night’s debate, scheduled for the University of Mississippi in Oxford on Friday, September 26^th, but postponing it. Barack Obama responded in a Clearwater, Florida news conference, “It’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess.” He added, “It’s going to be part of the President’s job to deal with more than one thing at a time.”

Point well taken. Also, the Commission on Presidential Debates has been working out the details of these appearances for literally months, I know that I have been jumping through hoops along with AC news personnel to attempt to get Press Credentials for the second Presidential debate, scheduled for October 7^th, Tuesday, on campus at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, for literally months. If the first debate is pushed back, it will cause a domino effect and all other debates will have to be pushed back, including the third debate set for Wednesday, October 15^th on campus at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

I know from my daughter’s firsthand reports that the campus in Nashville has been working on arrangements for this debate for months and months. The place is lousy with Secret Service and the countdown has been going on since the beginning of the school year. It is completely inconsiderate to those organizations, sites and that Commission, as well as unnecessary, for the debates to be postponed or canceled, and it is clearly a political ploy on McCain’s part. McCain is not a particularly skilled speaker, yet he has constantly gone after Barack Obama, claiming that Obama won’t debate him in Town Hall meetings, when the truth is that there have always been three such meetings that an independent commission has been working out the details of for months, and now McCain, not Obama, is the one who wants to torpedo all the hard work that the groups and campuses and Secret Service have put in.

The way in which McCain handled this new idea for weaseling out of debating was particularly unsavory. The two candidates for President had just spoken on the phone and agreed to try to work together for the good of the country in solving the economic crisis and trying to get bi-partisan support for some kind of financial bailout. Then, as Obama put it, “When I got back to the hotel, he (McCain) had gone on television to announce what he was going to do.” Not really the sporting way, is it?

It has not escaped the attention of those, like Senator Harry Reid (D, Nevada) that McCain is trying to divert attention from his fading campaign and the issue on which he is weakest: the economy. Yet Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain’s advisor, announced that he would not attend the debate(s) “unless there is an agreement that would provide a solution” to the financial crisis, and that, furthermore, this solution would have to be publicly endorsed by Obama. Meanwhile, “W” has stepped in to call the two campaigning candidates to the White House to meet and talk and work together for the good of the country. Now I’m really alarmed: the last person I want guiding any kind of solution is the most inept President in history! Give George a pretzel and a beer and let him eat it while trying not to choke, but keep him away from being “the Decider.” Please!

As a person who has already secured lodging, a plane ticket, and all the other things necessary to be in attendance at the Presidential debate on the advertised-far-in-advance date in Nashville in October, I’m opposed to pulling the plug on an open discussion of the very issues we most need to be exposing the American citizens to so that we can safeguard the future of this country.