Capt. McCain Bombs Washington DC

Today, John McCain, with all eyes on his actions, returned to Washington, DC, after many months of not making a single vote or appearance on Capitol Hill, and did what he is best known for. He dropped bombs:  

During the White House meeting, it appears that Sen. John McCain had an agenda. He brought up alternative proposals, surprising and angering Democrats. He did not, according to someone briefed on the meeting, provide specifics.     

Yes, he had an agenda, all right.

According to the source with knowledge of the White House gathering — which featured both presidential candidates, congressional leaders and the President — virtually ever key figure in the room, save McCain and GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, were in agreement over a revised version of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s plan.Towards the end, McCain finally spoke up, mentioning a counter-proposal that had been offered by some conservative House Republicans, which would suspend the capital gains tax for two years and provide tax incentives to encourage firms that buy up bad debt. McCain did not discuss specifics of the plan, though, and was non-committal about supporting it.  

McCain’s entire suspension, debate-skipping gambit would have collapsed if a deal had been reached before Friday afternoon on the bailout, so having started a crisis on top of a crisis by insisting on this pointless meeting, he then did his level best in that meeting to make sure no deal would be reached and he would not have to go to Mississipi, where he has been scheduled for months to debate Barack Obama tomorrow night. The McCain-White House crafted stunt meeting was still going on when the markets closed higher today, because of earlier announcements of a bipartisan deal on the Hill; as the news spreads that the Bush-McCain’s show-meeting was unproductive, this will set up a very bad situation for tomorrow as the market teeters on the brink.UPDATE: Paulson and Bernanke have been sent back to Capitol Hill TONIGHT, attempting to repair the damage and no doubt to steady the markets in the morning after McCain’s tantrum.Ask yourself, do you want to be forced to work until age 68, age 70, due to the debts of the US government, and the losses in your retirement fund, caused by John McCain’s political trickery of this week? Why not age 72? He’s still “working” at that age, causing quite a stir. Apparently he thinks you shouldn’t retire either.UPDATE 2: ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos has more details from the stunt meeting:

ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Reports: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson fears the Wall Street bailout deal is falling apart after a chaotic White House meeting, sources say.Paulson walked into the room where Democrats were caucusing after today’s meeting at the White House and pleaded with them, “Please don’t blow this up.”Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chair of the House Financial Services Committee was livid saying, “Don’t say that to us after all we’ve been through!”House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We’re not the ones trying to blow this up; it’s the House Republicans.”“I know, I know,” Paulson replied.