Matt Ortega

John McCain’s political stunt to “suspend” his campaign could not be any more transparent. As we noted yesterday, McCain’s campaign was operating like normal in the field, and surrogates were still lobbing their dishonest, misleading attacks against Senator Barack Obama. Even The Daily Show with Jon Stewart mocked McCain’s move as a ten day delay to a major crisis where the Republican presidential nominee shifted from declarations that economic “fundamentals” are “strong” to warnings that this is the greatest crisis to face the nation since the Second World War.

The New York Times reported on rundown of events at the White House summit that included McCain, Senator Barack Obama, President Bush, and congressional leaders.

Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand. [...]

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate banking committee, denounced the session as “a rescue plan for John McCain,” and proclaimed it a waste of precious hours that could have been spent negotiating. [...]

Mr. McCain was at one end of the long conference table, Mr. Obama at the other, with the president and senior Congressional leaders between them. Participants said Mr. Obama peppered Mr. Paulson with questions, while Mr. McCain said little.

TIME Magazine columnist Joe Klein ripped John McCain’s injection of purely partisan politics into a fragile Congressional negotiation.

McCain’s erratic, and irresponsible, behavior this week isn’t happening in a vacuum. This isn’t just politics–even George W. Bush, who never failed to take a partisan advantage in his presidency, realizes that. It is a time for leadership [...] We’ve seen nothing like that from McCain. Just histrionics.

Meanwhile, John McCain’s idea to solve the crisis? More deregulation and more corporate tax giveaways: