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Country last

It's amusing that McCain apparently wants to avoid voting on the bailout, but is eager to have Democrats provide the votes to pass it so that he can then safely grandstand as the noble naysayer. (Details here.)

Having been shamed into a press conference, he's quoted as follows:

"This issue should be - and their vote should be determined in how we can resolve this crisis and get America going again," McCain said. "This is a huge crisis. We know, in the words of many experts and mine, this is the greatest financial crisis since World War II. So to somehow, for the Democrats to say that their vote is going to be gauged on my vote frankly doesn't do them a great deal of credit.

"Their first and only priority should be making sure this economy recovers and get back on our feet again," McCain said.

I guess it logically follows, if we define the decision as purely theirs, that they aren't "putting America first" unless they agree to commit political harikiri, and that he isn't harming the recovery (supposing it to depend on passage of a bailout package) by merely exploiting it politically afterwards. But that doesn't make his stance any less sleazy or destructive of the social and political capital that one needs for government to function adequately in a competitive political environment.

UPDATE: What a loon, with his crazy stunt of purporting to suspend his campaign. All he has to do is (as the Obama campaign apparently proposed to him) put his name on a joint statement by the two of them regarding what they'd consider an acceptable deal.

Full post as published by Start Making Sense on September 24, 2008 (boomark / email).