Well, It Depends On Your Definition of Crisis ...

It's probably a good idea, that on the day you light your own hair on fire, and you happen to be booked on the David Letterman Show, you should follow through with the booking, and drag your charred, sorry-ass onto the stage.

Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain didn't do that.

Shortly after announcing he was putting the Dead Campaign Express up on blocks, he ducked out of the Letterman gig, and David Letterman spent virtually the entire program skewering Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny for it.

Especially so, when it was discovered he wasn't rushing back to Washington, to lend his thimble-sized expertise to the current economy woes, as was the reason he gave for lighting his hair on fire (and, we should add, going against the advice of his financial mentor, Phil Gramm, whined about needing to bag out of the debate tomorrow evening, if Hank's Heist was a done deal by that time).

But, wait, it gets worse.

Where Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny rushed to, was another CBS studio, the CBS Evening News, to do an interview with Katie Couric, while his Rove Rats rummage the closets to find and burn the interview Couric did a few hours earlier, with Mommy Moose.

As referenced, Letterman ragged on him for the entire night.

And, lucky for us, someone (perhaps from Letterman's staff, or CBS) condensed it down to a 9-minute video

Kick back and thoroughly enjoy yourselves.

David Letterman Reacts to John McCain Suspending Campaign




Bonus McCain Melting Links

Josh Marshall: How's the Stunt Playing?

Ron Beasley: Hail Mary Pass II

Comrade John Cole: The Latest Spin

The Raw Story: As McCain suspends campaigning, aide accidentally e-mails bailout talking points to media

Attaturk: My Brokerage Ate My Homework

Barry Crimmins: Great American Document

Hilzoy: Say What?

Crimmins Scoops McCain Debate Pullout Doc

You know, this just has to end up at the Smithsonian.

Barry Crimmins got it!

The actual document Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain sent to the Debate Commision, requesting tomorrow's debate with Barack Obama be postponed.

I could extol more on it, however, it will be better that you see it for yourself

Go over to Barry's site, to see the "Great American Document"

Top Ten Cloves: Things John McCain Will Do Friday Evening, Instead of Debating Barack Obama

News Item: McCain Calls for Debate Delay to Focus on Financial Crisis

10. Practice sending emails and using The Google

9. Teach Sarah Palin something ... Anything!

8. Work on his Electric Car Battery

7. Write up some new POW-POW-POW excuses

6. Call Phil Gramm back, for advice, and promise, on this call, he'll stop whining

5. No speeches ... No dinners ... No appearances ...Campaign suspended ... Time to hit the casinos!

4. Start reading Alan Greenspan's book

3. Bring in Bobby Jindal to exorcise his campaign

2. Help Rick Davis sort out his Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac payments

1. Review, and think about which of his seven house he wants to live in, after he loses in November

Handstands, Falling, and Frozen Strawberries ... A Respite

Not sure I'm going to get to posting everything today, so we'll put this down as a marker (and a good one, at that).

In the event you are beguiled, haunted, obsessed, or, otherwise, just curious, about the music in the newest Apple iPod commercial ("I tried to do handstands for you ... I tried to do handstands for you ..."), here it is in full.

From a group, Chairlift (here's their site, on myspace)

Chairlift-Bruises FULL SONG




Rather infectious, no?

And what, you ask do we need a respite from?

Jazz Shaw: The Paulson Plan: Filling in the blanks

Fester: Talking Points for Opposing the lBailout

Damozel: The Apocalypse of Banks Cont'd: The Economic Rescue Plan Rolls On as Skeptics Rise Up to Question the Road Map

Jeff Fecke: Medicine

Anonymous Liberal: Bailing Out The World

Adam Davidson - Now We See It: The White House Bailout Proposal

Top Ten Cloves: Ways John McCain Isn't Like Herbert Hoover

McCain in Pottersville - All's, Hee-Haw, Hunky-dory

A Tune For The Times ...

With all that's going down, time to put a soundtrack to it ...

We choose the classic Cannonball Adderley 'Mercy, Mercy. Mercy', and be sure to pay close attention to the intro by Cannonball, it fits the day so perfectly.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy




Bonus Economic Mercy Riffs

Paul Krugman: Uneasy feelings

Sandy Levinson: A further Schmittian (and constitutional?) moment

Think Progress: Bush Compares The Financial Crisis He Created To The Terrorist Attacks He Never Saw Coming

Bloomberg's Catherine Dodge and John Brinsley: Bush Absent on Financial Crisis as Paulson Leads (Update3)

Mark Kleiman: John. McCain. Does. Not. Understand. The. Job. He. Is. Running. For.

Top Ten Cloves: Ways John McCain Isn't Like Herbert Hoover

Top Ten Cloves: Names Considered To Rename Wall Street

Top Ten Cloves: Names Considered To Rename Wall Street

As part of the government's pending, unprecedented, massive, enormous bailout of Wall Street, a component of the proposed plans include the renaming of Wall Street, to commemorate the crisis.

10. You Say Bailout, We Say Loan Place

9. Trillion Dollar Turnover Turnpike

8. The McCain-Hoover Highway

7. The Economy is Fundamentally Sound Street

6. Subprime Causeway

5. Sucker Street

4. Hey Buddy, Can You Spare A Billion Dollar Bailout Boulevard

3. Bush McCain Policy Promenade

2. Dewey Cheatem and Howe Highway

1. And You Thought The Keating Five Scandal Was Bad Boulevard


Bonus Road Maps

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight

Chris in Paris: Paulson's bad debt purchase to cost a HALF A TRILLION, and then some

Paul Krugman: Crisis Endgame

Fred Wilson: Trying To Make Sense of The Brokerage Bust

John Cole: You Have To Be Shitting Me

Good Post Alert - McCain’s Bush Problem, Laid Bare ... And Bush's Third Term

As we go through our latest "Black Friday", and Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain flops around all over the place, almost literally throwing it against the wall to see what sticks, running away from his record, his legacy, his maverickness (today, in a speech, blaming Obama for the meltdown!), we go with the old saying "you can run, but you can't hide".

So we point you to a post, yesterday, from Matthew Delong, over on The Washington Independent.

McCain’s Bush Problem, Laid Bare

Here's a snip;

The McCain campaign appears to have a blanket policy of not mentioning Bush. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made this painfully obvious during a recent interview with McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, when she refused to say who she voted for in 2004.

But McCain still can’t, or won’t, attack Bush, for fear that it will give the Obama campaign an opportunity to link McCain to his own party, by pointing out that McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time. Obama has a free pass to criticize the administration and to run ads showing McCain and Bush together, and McCain has essentially cut himself off from benefiting from the wealth of anti-Bush sentiment in this country.

And, here's a good video, showing us more of what would be Bush's Third Term;

John McCain and the Keating 5: Third Term




Yes, we will concede, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain does have great insight to this latest crises.

Top Ten Cloves: Ways John McCain Isn't Like Herbert Hoover

News Item: With ‘fundamentals are strong’ comments, McCain borrows Hoover’s Depression-era rhetoric

10. Pretty sure Hoover knew how many houses he had

9. Hoover's wife wasn't lifting recipes off the Internet (Okay, there was no Internet, but she wouldn't have done it, anyway)

8. Hoover didn't have Joe Lieberman around, to whisper correct answers to him

7. Hoover went to Standford, McCain didn't (Though, it may be one of the colleges Sarah Palin spent a minute at)

6. Press of the day wasn't bringing Hoover boxes of donuts

5. Hoover, as best as we can tell, didn't claim to invent radio, shortwave radio, or the telegraph (McCain's camp claimed him to have invented the Blackberry)

4. Hoover could, correctly and knowledgeably, make reference to "Czechoslovakia"

3. Hoover didn't blame the Depression on his being in a POW prison for five-years

2. Sturgis Biker Rally hadn't been launched yet, so, Hoover couldn't have attempted to whore his wife out

1. Hoover couldn't have selected a "Sarah Palin" for his VP - Alaska wasn't a state yet


Bonus Hoover-McCain-Same Economy Riffs

Kathy at Comments From Left Field: Herbert Hoover Said It First

Eric Rauchway: McCain's Dangerous Do-Nothing Economics; The Great Depression was caused not by a stock crash but by a banking system left to self-destruct by a conservative president who, like John McCain today, insisted that the economy's "fundamentals" were strong

Paul Krugman: Fundamentals

Think Progress: FLASHBACK: In 2007, McCain Admitted He ‘Did Not’ Anticipate Financial Crisis

Top Ten Cloves: Other Things John McCain Thinks Are "Fundamentally Sound"

Well ... In Her Defense, She Can't See Hewlett Packard From Alaska

This is truly inexplicable ...

Why would she even go there?

Why would she take on a hypothetical question, on a day, where her boss was already being pummeled, directly, for his stunning vision on the economy, and the campaign, overall, for their journey over the past few weeks, into their "Lie, Lie, Lie' strategy.

I suppose, it goes to, in some degree, why she tanked at Hewlett Packard (as a good friend of mine this evening offered, when was the last time you heard someone raving about "that great HP computer" they have).

But there she was, not once, but twice, today, putting her foot between her lipstick-covered lips.

Carli Fiorina, one of Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain's Economic/Financial/Business advisors, extolling on how Sarah Palin, with all her Wasillian experience, couldn't run a company, like, say, Hewlett Packard.

That was on radio (Go here to check that out)

Apparently, fearing the campaign wouldn't be ridiculed enough, Carli goes trudging onto television, on MSNBC (Here's the video), and, remember from above, the part about backing away from hypothetical questions, plows right into again, saying her boss, Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny couldn't run a company like Hewlett Packard either (and, for good measure, perhaps the thought of being tossed under a bus quickly flashed through her mind, she included Barack Obama and Joe Biden in it as well).

Jesus!

That Ms. South Caroline Teen USA contestant would have been better off repping the McCain crew today.

Now, I'm quite confident, if she was asked to take over Hewlett Packard, Palin would become a Hard Drive, with lipstick, in a flash

She'd say, something like this;

I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this company and victory in the markets, you can't blink.

Likely, she would also throw in that "God's will has to be done, in unifying people and companies ... And that the people of Hewlett Packard's hearts have to be right with God, so we can work together to make sure God's will be done here."

That is, she'd say this, if her teleprompter was working...

Especially if gets a deal on a parachute comparable to Carli's!

And McCain?

Likely, he wouldn't be interested.

He'd be too busy, tinkering with his invention, looking to build a a bigger and better Blackberry.

Yes, it's needed, again ...

Help Me Mr. Wizard!


Bonus Carli Fiorina Foot-In-Mouth Riffs

No Intel Inside

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Carly Fiorina should stop "helping" Sarah Palin

BooMan: If the Presidency Were a Hiring Job

Think Progress - Fiorina clarifies: ‘I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation.’

Jennifer Skalka: Off Message, Squared

Ron Beasley: Foot Shooting

Alex Koppelman: Does McCain really oppose golden parachutes?

McCain in Pottersville - All's, Hee-Haw, Hunky-dory

It's A Wonderful Life bank run



(Watch the full-version of the scene here)

If Stumblin' Bumblin John McCain lived in Bedford Falls, perhaps the town's Mayor (or, we can even keep him a Senator), no doubt he would be extolling the virtues of Pottersville, saying that things there were 'fundamentally sound" and that Mr. Potter "and his innovation and his entrepreneurship, his businesses, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong.”

He'd be doing this, having tossed away is first wife, and now toting around his second, Violet Bick.

His policies would have benefited Sam Wainwright, to move his business overseas.

His aide-de-camp, Sarah Palin, would have shuttered the library, banning virtually all of the books, leaving poor Mary Hatch unemployed.

Ernie and Bert would have been stop-lossed, and now overseas fighting in a 100-year war.

And, as he would be dead wrong standing in the middle of Bedford Falls' Main Street, he's as dead wrong today, standing on the main political stage, painting himself as the savior of the American way of life.

This morning, as Wall Street melted, like a Hershey bar lying on a dashboard in July (or, one of those American workers McCain once mockingly challenged to work in the hot Yuma summer sun - H/T The Jed Report), Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny stuck to his stump script and pronounced, that despite the troubles of the day, our economy was fundamentally sound.

By noontime, he was being, rightfully so, derided as woefully out-of-touch, and his talking heads were rushed onto the cable news sets to start spinning "what he actually said", which caused severe technical problems with the broadcasts, having the sets spinning so ferociously.

Then by late today, Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny was doing the spinning himself, offering “The American worker and their innovation and their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong.”

Nice, jingoistic compliment, but it doesn't address the reality, or have anything to do with what's going down with the economy.

Kind of an Economic POW-POW-POW story.

However, it's almost like gushing, glowingly, over the bin of bright, shiny colorful oranges, when the issue is the bin of rotten apples right next to them.

One has nothing to do with the other.

Paul Krugman, today;

The new system was supposed to do a better job of spreading and reducing risk. But in the aftermath of the housing bust and the resulting mortgage crisis, it seems apparent that risk wasn’t so much reduced as hidden: all too many investors had no idea how exposed they were.

And here’s the thing: The defenses set up to prevent a return of those bank runs, mainly deposit insurance and access to credit lines with the Federal Reserve, only protect the guys in the marble buildings, who aren’t at the heart of the current crisis. That creates the real possibility that 2008 could be 1931 revisited.

But Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was adamant that he wouldn’t sweeten the deal by putting more public funds on the line. Many people thought he was bluffing. I was all ready to start today’s column, “When life hands you Lehman, make Lehman aid.” But there was no aid, and apparently no deal. Mr. Paulson seems to be betting that the financial system — bolstered, it must be said, by those special credit lines — can handle the shock of a Lehman failure. We’ll find out soon whether he was brave or foolish.

Hmmm ... Sounds like there was no oversight, or regulatory process in place.

Whether it be Krugman, or any other analyst today, I didn't see any vibes, any allusions, any blame been plastered on the worker bees of Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, or that other teetering elephant in-the-room, AIG.

McCain is desperately, to the point of looking utterly foolish, of trying to rip off his Republican suit, as if he (and, specifically, his prime financial advisor, Phil Gramm, he of "Mental Recessions" and "Whining"), had nothing to do with the melting economy.

What's going down now is the direct result of the Republican administration, and rubber-stamp Congress for six-of-the-past-seven-years.

Let the free markets be free, and not burdened with the government looking over their shoulders and everything will take care of itself.

Policies that will continue in a McCain-Palin administration.

Hee-Haw!

Bonus McCain's Economy's Strong Riffs

BusinessWeek: Wall Street's Perfect Storm - Investors deal with a Lehman bankruptcy, the sale of Merrill Lynch to BofA, and a possible AIG restructuring

Joe Klein: Their Brand is Collapse

No More Mister Nice Blog: CHANGE? McCAIN CAN'T EVEN CHANGE HIS CATCHPHRASE

Space Cowboy: McCain: Economics Supergenius in Training

Chris In Paris: The Sunday night Wall Street tsunami, Part I: What happened?

Hilzoy: Donald Luskin Reclaims His Title

Pam Spaulding: Greenspan's "once-in-a century" financial crisis counters McCain's economic hallucinations

NYT Dealbook: Counting the Cash for Lehman’s Chief

Top Ten Cloves: Other Things John McCain Thinks Are "Fundamentally Sound"

News Item: As Wall Street collapses, McCain declares that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong.’

10. The Sturgis Beauty Contest

9. Czechoslovakia

8. Backing up the Georgians, against the Russian invasion

7. The Palin Truth Squad

6. Joe Lieberman

5. The Iraq-Pakistan border

4. All the lies he, and his campaign, are putting out

3. The vetting of Sarah Palin

2. His $300-Million challenge for a new Hybrid or Electric Car Battery

1. Cindy's Recipes


Bonus Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain Riffs

Things Younger Than McCain

Jukebox John keeps changing his tune

Count the Lies

Well, I Guess It Rules Out On-Line Gambling Too ...

We Told You He Was Just Like Bob Dole

This Was Too Surreal ...

Ed. Note - Just popping in for a quick post, while it's hot (both literally, and figuratively; I may not get to posting to later tonight, due to both, things on the homefront, and the OPPRESSIVE HEAT AND HUMIDITY rolling in here today, and staying around another two days).

I had been sitting here, going through email, responding, etc, with the television on in the background (tuned, at the moment, to MSNBC).

Not really paying attention to what was on, I suddenly heard a voice railing against Barack Obama, that he's raise your taxes and if you want someone who will lower your taxes, then I am the candidate to vote for.

The voice sounded tinny, and false ... Feigning enthusiasm and, straining to create a pace and cadence ...

I thought, quickly, that MSNBC must have been showing a report on the comical and satirical YouTubes aimed at the campaign, as they do from time-to-time.

Well, when I swung around to see what was one, I almost fell out of my chair.

It was a live report, from Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, speaking at an "Economic Town Hall", in Denver.

I believe he was unwrapping his grandiose Economic Plans, the one that promises to balance the budget by the end of his first term (if elected, of course) and, since he's including the money in the plans, victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(You can look at Josh Marshall's post to get a feel for how much this is already being derided; Think Progress's Wonk Room also has "McCain’s Victory Dividend" and Steve Benen offers "When a candidate unveils an economic plan — without any numbers", and, the plan is, reportedly, being rejected by his own economists)

It was nearly surreal, for to match the voice, Stumblin' Bumblin' John had a cheesy, shit-eating grin plastered on his face, obviously struggling with attempting to speak and smile at the same time.

I mean this was really, truly bad ... Really bad public speaking.

It was a man giving a speech, as if he was standing in front of his bedroom mirror, practicing giving the speech ...

Man ... Saturday Night Live has to bring back Dan Aykroyd this fall, to have him reprieve his Leonard Pinth Garnell character, run one each week until the election, perhaps changing the skit title from 'Bad Theatre" to 'Bad Campaign Speeches', and have him, ever so drolly, take Stumblin Bumblin' John apart.

As far as Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain and public speaking goes, if this were boxing, the ring doctor and referee would be calling the fight, seeing that he was being brutally beaten, and not letting him injury himself any further with continuing to go on.

And, almost as if on cue, this appeared yesterday;

McCain Battles a Nemesis, the Teleprompter

By his own admission, Mr. McCain is not a great orator. He is ill-suited to lecterns, which often dwarf his small stature, and he tends to sound as if he is reading his lines, not speaking them. His shortcomings have been accentuated in a two-man race, particularly because the other man — Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee — can often dazzle on stage.

You don't need to compare him to Obama, to see how awful he is.

The McCain Campaign does seem to recognize this problem, and, in the classic American "Can-Do" spirit, they're spinning the ol' "making lemonade out of lemons" saw;

Indeed, Mr. McCain and his advisers seem to be trying to present him as a kind of anti-Obama whose weaknesses as a political performer underscore his accessibility to regular voters.

Yet, in the same article, a former aide has a different perspective;

Dan Schnur, Mr. McCain’s communications chief during his 2000 presidential campaign, said, “Besides his convention speech, the only time I would even put him behind a podium at all between now and the end of the campaign is when he’s announcing a policy position.”

This has the makings, of a good, old-fashioned screwball comedy, with a gaggle of people running around crazy, trying to keep Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain away from a microphone, and/or giving speeches.

Hmmm ... That would have to star William Bendix... He was a big lug-of-a-guy, always good playing someone that was clueless ...Not, necessarily, the brightest bulb in the patch ...