Was it all an act?

Rumors are flying now about McCain’s actual role in the whole bailout negotiations thing. Going by an NY Times article, here’s what I’ve managed to piece together, starting from the beginning.

Last week, firms start to go ass-up. Banktruptcies are declared, talk of bailouts emerges. Paulson drafts a plan that gets published in the New York Times on Saturday, discussions over the $700bil bailout to be shouldered by the taxpayers start. Outrage from all corners either at the proposal in general, its shortcomings, or the fact that it’s come to this.

McCain, despite not having taken the time to read the three page proposal that I whacked through in 20 minutes, announces that he’s going to suspend his campaign and run to Washington, breathlessly burst through the doors of Congress and (I assume) rally the legislative branch together and Get Things Done. He went so far as to suggest the debates should be put on hold until a deal passes.

Having delayed for somewhere in the area of 22 hours, he finally headed to DC. By the time he got there, a deal was already on the verge of being made. Forcing a giant meeting of himself, party leaders, Bush, and Obama, he sat by and said nearly nothing for the duration of the meeting. At the very end, he finally piped up, seemingly just to say he didn’t like the plans and offer an incoherent pseudo-statement about his personal position. Somewhere in there he suggests an absolutely awful plan that involves less regulation and cutting corporate taxes.

Now we’re in a gridlock, the parties are at each others’ throats, Chuck Goddamn Schumer is begging Bush for help to get the GOP united, and McCain’s the X-factor.

It’s easy to just accuse McCain of political grandstanding, but it doesn’t seem that simple. That doesn’t explain McCain’s silence during the meeting, the fact that he’s effectively put a lock on negotiations on this bill. The talking heads are, either to decry or praise him, saying McCain’s purpose in this was to make a big show of putting country before politics. Uh-uh.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, McCain really did think he could save the day. Some part of him wanted not to look presidential, but to show that he’s a true leader and a man of action, not words. So he announces to the world his campaign suspension, making sure to tell as many people as possible, and then leads the charge to Washington, where he orchestrates a big meeting and sits down at the table, ready to take the bull by the horns and show American just what he can do, dammit.

Something goes wrong.

McCain remembers that economics are his weak point. If this were a terrorist attack or a catastrophe in Iraq, then he’d know what was going on. Right now they’re talking over his head on a topic he struggles with. He asked that the first debate not be on economics so he’d start off on his good foot, and here he is in a make-or-break meeting on economics.

That’s not all. Between Saturday and Tuesday, he hadn’t read Paulson’s three-page proposal. Now over a day has passed and Congress has trudged through long negotiations. They’re discussing details and logistics of plans and ideas he wasn’t there to hear about. While he was talking on TV, flying, and sleeping, they were pushing on. Not only is it a bad subject for him, but he’s out of the loop. Even the proposal he didn’t read is behind the times.

Maybe he finally read Paulson’s proposal on the flight over, and was ready to kick the door in and tell them what’s wrong with that sumbitch, only no one’s talking about that any more. They’ve moved on and McCain’s out of his league. He has nothing to contribute, they’re talking over his head and referencing things he hadn’t heard of. The end comes and all he can do now is feebly throw in the objection he was hoping to make at the beginning. Far from solving it, thanks to his big production combined with his ignorance of the subject matter he’s made the problem worse.

John McCain really did think he was going to take charge, he’s not the type to fake bravado. He practically staked his campaign on this moment, undoubtedly hoping to prove to America that he’s the true leader while Obama’s just a mouthpiece. And now it’s gone about as badly for him as you can possibly imagine.

In many ways, this is more telling than anything else. Simply soapboxing and putting on a charade (he didn’t really suspend his campaign, this whole thing was a form of campaigning) is standard fare for politicians. If he was just making a big show out of it, we’d know he was a standard politician. Maybe an especially shameless one, but a politician.

McCain wanted to show the country what he’d do as president, and now we know: he’d overreact, hold press conferences, not do his homework, and make things worse in the process.