So John (Keating 5) McCain rushes off to Washington to save the nation. After all, he does have experience trying to save corrupt financial institutions.
Dodgeball McCain — who has appeared on more TV talk shows (experience again!) than all the other presidential and veep candidates on the ballot combined — suspends his campaign soon enough to skip being treated to Dave Letterman's quirkiness, but manages a series of other interviews and appearances in New York for a day before actually heading to Washington.
Whereupon, he shows up at a photo-op show of solidarity behind an agreement he had no role in developing and refuses to support it.
But a session aimed at showing unity in resolving the financial crisis broke up with conflicts in plain view. McCain would not commit to supporting a plan worked out by congressional negotiators, said people from both parties who were briefed on the exchange.
Then his party torpedoes it.
That means, apparently, he will not show up to do what the American voters actually expect of a presidential candidate — talk to them and the other candidate about the issues they will have to deal with for real if they are elected.
McCain hauls out one of his campaign soundbites to justify his avoidance of the work of getting elected.
"I believe that it's very possible that we can get an agreement in time for me to fly to Mississippi," McCain said late Thursday. "I understand how important this debate is and I'm very hopeful. But I also have to put the country first."
In turn, Obama said: "It is my intention to be in Mississippi and obviously the biggest priority is making sure that we get this deal done. But I also think it's important to describe to the American people where the next president wants to take the country and how he's going to deal with this crisis."
McCain wants to put the country first, but his trope is really a device to signal his patriotic values without implying any specific action. It's a field-of-grain, eagle-soaring, star-spangled-waving abstraction that allows any listener to pouring meaning into his words, while committing him to absolutely nothing.
Obama says the job of the candidates is to "describe to the American people" where and how they are going to act. Here, the emphasis on the nation is conveyed in terms that reflect our individuality as well as our collective interest in what's going on in Washington and in Oxford, Mississippi — on not.
