Pitch perfect

There's no keeping up with all this news--but I do have to say that I was deeply impressed by Obama's performance yesterday in the press conference in which he announced that he won't suspend his campaign or cancel the debate but will do "everything possible" to see that a bill is passed. I don't seem able to embed the video (Theo, if you read this a fix would be welcome) but can at least give a link to where you can watch it.

It's worth noting the precise context: Obama, in response to a plea from a Republican senator, had called McCain early in the morning to suggest a joint statement on the principles for a satisfactory bailout bill. McCain returned the call at 2:30 PM, (by which time he had already scheduled a press conference) he thought a joint statement was fine and raised the possibility of suspending the campaigns and delaying the debate. Obama suggested they get the statement done first; McCain hung up, marched into his press conference, and announced his plans to stop campaigning.

In other words, McCain responded to the bipartisan gesture by jerking Obama around. And Obama? His press conference a couple of hours later was calm, reasoned, logical without a hint of anger at McCain. He says he thinks the American people need to hear a debate and calmly refused to back out; he also says that "presidents need to be able to do more than one thing at a time", a phrase which is resonating all over the TV news this morning. I found it very moving to watch him-he looked and sounded like a president at a time when McCain is behaving like an hysteric.

Perhaps the funniest detailed McCain news is the fact that he canceled an appearance on David Letterman because he was too busy with fixing the bailout--but then proceeded to give an interview to Katie Couric ON THE SAME NETWORK and at the same time without ensuring that someone mentioned the fact to Letterman.

The irony is that McCain is needed in Washington but not to craft a plan--that's been pretty well done by the relevant experts in House and Senate and he doesn't understand the details well enough to be any help--but to get the more conservative end of the Republican Party in line to vote so that the bill doesn't go down in flames. The Democrats are committed to a solution and don't need pushing. It will be interesting to see how the press spins the meeting George Bush has called for this afternoon.

In all of this chaos, one commentary well worth reading is George Will's column in the Post two days ago. He talks about the unsuitability of the McCain personality for the White House--and George Will is very conservative.

A few problems of our own

And back here in Connecticut we are having a passport crisis: passports sent to the Mozambican embassy in DC for expedited visas were not returned when they should have been (the explanation is that "the machine is broken"); they promised to mail them yesterday without the visas, even assuring Roger that they were in the out box. But the tracking number doesn't track and Roger is supposed to leave tomorrow. Just to make matters worse, today is a Mozambican national holiday and the embassy is closed. Roger's off now at the local post office looking for the envelope but we're not optimistic. The next step is to go to Washington in the hopes of retrieving his passport tomorrow morning in time for his afternoon flight from NY.