multi-tasking and masking

I don't get it. First McCain plays the bold maverick who cancels a $5 million debate at the last minute to "suspend" his campaign so that he can focus on the Masters of the Universe Wall Street Welfare Act of 2008.

Yet McCain still has yet to read Sec. Paulson's now thankfully defunct power grab bailout plan. And both Republicans and Democrats who have been working on their version of the bill have implicitly and explicitly stated that they don't need or want McCain around the negotiations.

And nothing really has been suspended in McCain's campaigning for the presidency. His ads are still running in the 15 battleground states. McCain surrogates are still on TV and online forums attacking Obama and praising their guy. So was this all bluster and stunt? Can McCain not handle debate prep on foreign policy and reading a 4 page bill/calling his colleagues to find out the latest on the bill?

I don't think so. If you noticed, in McCain's proposal to scrap tomorrow's foreign policy debate, he proposed rescheduling that debate for the night of the VP debate between Palin and Biden and having those two debate at some other undetermined time. Given the fact that Palin has been terrible in TV interviews unless the "reporter" is a right-wing activist, and Palin has been secluded from scrutiny for weeks now, this is a pretty transparent effort to scrap the VP debate altogether.

All and all, I doubt this move will actually make McCain look mavericky, but rather it will make McCain look frightened and Obama cool and collected. In a word, presidential.