"It's the economy, stupid."

In spite of McCain's highly sincere (snort) remark that now is not the time to affix blame (said right after blaming Obama and the Democrats), let's affix blame anyway. But before we do that, let's pay another visit to that hard-nosed reporter, Katie Couric.

Couric interviewed both McCain and Palin last night. Did you know that Palin's response to that question about Pakistan was a "gotcha" moment? And that the question was shouted at her from across the room, so how could she really hear it? I give Couric credit for pointing out that it was not a reporter asking the question and that Palin's answer was pretty specific, so how could it be a gotcha moment? Anyway, you should watch the clip just to see McCain squirm in his chair whenever Palin speaks. Palin, for her part, looks like a 16-year-old who desperately wants to impress daddy by showing what an adult she is. Creepy.

Back to the finger-pointing. So the House was unable to pass the bailout bill in order to avert a collapse of the financial markets. On the surface, it appears the Democratic leadership delivered the votes needed to pass the bill; the Republican leadership did not. And they failed in a spectacular fashion - 2/3 of the House Republicans voted against the bill. Even though they initially blamed Pelosi for that, they have backed off, apparently realizing how childish that sounded. That said, right before the vote may not have been the best time for Pelosi to blame Bush and the Republicans for the current mess. However, that's no excuse for not doing the right thing. Didn't somebody famous once say, "Country first"?

Speaking of which...McCain rode into town last week on his high horse, promising to save the day. He had to be here in person - not "phone it in" - so, when he finally arrived in town, he of course spent all his time on the Hill, working the crowd, right? Or maybe he instead went to his campaign headquarters in Arlington and made phone calls, then went out for an expensive dinner. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt here. Perhaps his campaign is in dire financial straits and he didn't want to spend the money on long distance calls. Maybe he saved enough money to cover the tip at dinner.

Would the bill have passed if he hadn't stuck his nose in and stirred things up? Unfortunately, we'll never know. But he clearly didn't achieve what he wanted to achieve, or claimed he had achieved when he took credit for the bipartisan agreement only hours before it failed to pass. I think it's fair to say that he didn't help the situation. And a real leader would have accepted at least some responsibility for the bill's failure.