Appropriating Wanker of the Day

by dday

I hope Atrios doesn’t mind, but this qualifies for serious wanker status:

After declaring he’d return to Washington to help with the bailout negotiations immediately after last night’s debate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) never went to Capitol Hill today. In fact, McCain stayed largely holed up in his Arlington apartment, leaving only to go to his campaign headquarters just around the block, the New York Times reports:

Asked why Mr. McCain did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington to help with negotiations, [McCain adviser] Mr. Salter replied that “he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone.”

So this diva gets the cameras assembled on Wednesday and gravely intones that he has to jet to Washington to save the economy. By Thursday he’s blown up the negotiations, by Friday he’s unsuspended the suspension, and she he shoots back to Washington to continue the swashbuckling, which consists of cleaning out the refrigerator and puttering around the house.

And then there’s that coup de grace comment by Mark Salter, that “he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone.” Um, then why couldn’t he have done that on, you know, Wednesday?

I wonder what exciting reality stunts The John McCain Show will have in store for us next week? Maybe he’ll eat a live scorpion to grab himself immunity!

UPDATE: I think we have our answer!

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

There is already some urgency to the wedding as Bristol, who is six months pregnant, may not want to walk down the aisle too close to her date of delivery. She turns 18 on October 18 . . .

. . . McCain is expected to have a front-row seat at Bristol’s wedding and to benefit from the outpouring of goodwill that it could bring. “What’s the downside?” a source inside the McCain campaign said. “It would be wonderful. I don’t know that there has ever been a pre-election wedding before.”

As usual in the McCain campaign, a good idea is described as an idea that’s never been tried before.

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