Earlier today, I jokingly speculated that the reason McCain was trying to delay or postpone or cancel the debate was really because his polling sucked, and he was stalling for time. It appears that I’m not the only one that thinks this. And now, it looks like Palin’s debate will either be postponed or cancelled – the events are being held hostage, in a way, as bargaining chips in the deal McCain thinks he must make with Senate Democrats in order to look all leaderly ‘n shit.

If they don’t wise up and fall into line on the bailout debate, see, Ferris McBueller threatens a debate bail-out. He gets his girl out of school while the weather’s still nice, too.  He says “Life goes by pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” And although there’s a lot of drama and smoke pouring out of various bodily tailpipes, in the end it may turn out to be a lot of fuss and bother for no reason.  There’s a fairly good chance the Senate is perfectly capable of carrying on and getting things done without him, and McCain elbowing in there would just upset the delicately balanced apple cart.

No, I suspect that the real reason is much simpler.  Fear of failure. Short-term in the debate, and long-term with polls that keep on slippin, slippin, slippin, into the future.

And that means Fail Chicken is the real reason Johnny Can’t Campaign. He’s not ready, his numbers are not good, and what’s more, Palin’s even farther from being ready and her numbers are sucking him down even farther. He can’t afford to look old and confused against a young, smooth opponent, and he needs time to let his handlers figure out how to keep from screwing a very, very big pooch over the preparation for the debate in addition to coming up with something coherent to say about the economy.

Frank Schaeffer: McCain Chickens Out of the Debate

McCain’s poll members are tanking. The war and deficit-driven economic Armageddon that McCain, the Republicans and President Bush unleashed is in full flower. McCain’s joke running mate has to be protected from the press, but claims she’s ready to go up against the world’s dictators. McCain’s creeping senility becomes more evident each day as he stumbles around confused as a punch drunk boxer. His cynicism also deepens, as he sells out to the racists and the Religious Right’s extreme America-hating lunatic fringe gearing up for last ditch smears. In other words McCain’s campaign has had a disfiguring accident. Time to cut and run.

Okay, a little harsh and over the top, but this quote lets me use that cute Fail Chicken graphic again.

Here’s another take, with some added juicy goodness in the details:

The move permeated with political opportunism: an attempt by McCain to grab the leadership mantle he did not own and divert attention from poll numbers that were plummeting. Indeed, on Wednesday morning a Washington Post-ABC poll had McCain trailing Obama 52 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. The internals were even worse: 54 percent of white voters with economic anxiety favored Obama.

So McCain changed the script, announcing his imminent departure from the campaign trail. And members of Congress were left scratching their heads.

“I’m delighted that John is expressing himself on this issue,” said Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. “I have heard form Obama numerous occasions these last couple days. I have never heard from John McCain on the issue… I’m just worried a little bit that sort of politicizing this problem, sort of flying in here, I’m beginning to think this is more of a rescue plan for John McCain and not a rescue plan for the economy. (emphasis added-BR)”

McCain’s mixed messaging on the bailout proposal was not just bizarre. It was emblematic of his actions the entire week. Indeed, the Senator has been all over the map when it comes to addressing the current situation. When the market crisis originally surfaced, McCain – now infamously – was the one to declare that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Later he would call the situation the worst since World War II.

Even his actions on Wednesday seemed either oddly calculated or at conflict with the image he was trying to present. It was, in fact, Obama who first proposed to form a unity front in addressing the issue, calling McCain at 8:30 in the morning to discuss the issuance of a joint statement. The call went unreturned for six hours. McCain’s campaign would later claim he was huddling with economic advisers. But during that time he made a scheduled stop with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, a high society New York Democrat who recently endorsed his campaign. Rothschild did not return repeated request for comment.

Did you know that Obama hobnobs with elitists? John McCain is a man of the right kind of people.

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Two pictures may tell us more than twice as much. The first picture is from an article at the Washington Post and shows two senior advisers working the press room, and the second picture shows the same two advisers with a couple more guys, purportedly outside in the street after the announcement is made, deal is done, shit is spun like spidersilk, whatever.

What’s the story there, boys? You look tense. Back-to back spinning sure takes a lot of energy.

Ladies and gentlemen, those are what we used to call “shit-eating grins.”  We sure spun ’em!  Miller time!

It’s uncanny how this deal plays like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, too. You’ve got a guy with big deadline who has to come up with the goods or risk exposure as a failure (or maybe carry the previous guy’s Googlejuice). And there’s this other thing that’s a great distraction from the fact that he really should just buckle down. It’s a nice day, he’d like a break from the punishing, crushing schedule.

Ferris: The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It’s a good non-specific symptom; I’m a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh… you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor’s office. That’s worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you’re bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It’s a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.

Wow… childish and stupid, just like high school and political campaigns.

He’s not really into doing the studying and preparing, it’s all a bunch of boring bullshit anyway:

Ferris: I do have a test today. that wasn’t bullshit. It’s on European socialism. I mean, really, what’s the point? I’m not European. I don’t plan on being European. So who cares if they’re socialists? They could be fascist anarchists. It still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t own a car.

Heh, heh. Well, Johnnie owns 13 cars, but that’s another blog post. And this is kind of like how Republicans can go socialist at the drop of a major investment bank or two. Or three. In a sort of domino effect that Johnnie DeReg helped to put in motion decades ago. Hey, there’s Neil Bush benefiting from some of Johnnie Dereg’s heroics. He might be President one day! Isn’t that a thought?

Let Ben Stein tell you all about economics, because, he’s really an economist (the game show thing was just a lark)  And he’s been trying to tell McCain stuff he should be doing, or deploring things he thinks McCain shouldn’t have done, moaning like Cameron about “Let Your VP Go!” But here’s what he was teaching Ferris in the 80’s:

Economics Teacher: In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. “Voodoo” economics.

Honestly, you cannot make this shit any funnier.

In the early days of Sarah Palin’s ascension to First Runner-Up, some people noted how she talked and sounded kind of familiar:

Grace: Oh, he’s very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads – they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.

Yeah, she scares me, with the righteousness thing.

Now unfortunately my movie metaphor starts to run thin, because after all Bueller is a loveable hero, and McBueller is an irascible jerkface (by reliable accounts). But nothing sticks to Ferris, not unlike the Teflon-like attributes of the President of the Bueller era) and by movie’s end, he’s not only off the hook, he was never caught. I’m starting to suspect that the liberal blogosphere, from plankton like me to sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads, are going to turn out to be like Principal Rooney, which is not good. All this incessant yapping at HuffPost and dKos (yes, yes, when you bundle it all together, it’s both incessant and yappy) about what Obama should do or say isn’t worth diddly. Strangely enough, I think that most of us should buckle down to boring bullshit work (like volunteering or canvassing or hosting events) and let Obama the hell be Obama.

And as for Obama himself, I think he’s in another movie entirely… he’s cool, freakishly talented, but spends a fair amount of time doing the hero walk without doing anything of substance before ultimately pulling all kinds of different people together into a united community, to fight evil and waste. Why? Because our way of life and the planet depend on it, dammit.

We don’t have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

Yes, it looks like I’ll have to go back to the quote mines and spelunk “Buckaroo Banzai.”