Today, for purely political reasons, John McCain suspended his political campaign for President of the United States because he said “now is not the time for politics.” He said he planned on returning to Washington to help with the bailout bill and implored Barack Obama to do the same. There’s only one many problems with that.

First, the bill is almost done. They are drafting the final bill tomorrow, so what exactly is McCain planning on accomplishing? Even assuming those news reports are all lies and they are nowhere close to a deal (which, again, is not true) McCain cannot help crafting the bill anyways. He is not on any of the finance committees, which are the only parties that are in on the negotiations. So he could sit there looking over their shoulder and pretend like he has some say in what goes on, but everybody knows that’s a farce.

He also suggested that they postpone the debate that is scheduled for Friday, which is an odd request in itself considering John McCain thinks debating his best strength. Granted, after the pummeling he has taken in the polls this past last week, it’s no wonder he does not want to be seen on TV not knowing what he’s talking about in front of 100 million people.

But it wasn’t until later on in the day that we learned he is proposing to move the debate to next Thursday and indefinitely postponing the Vice Presidential debate. Now the move doesn’t seem so odd. Sarah Palin is still being shielded from ANY questions from the press because she is so obviously unqualified. They are going to want to keep that a secret for as long as possible. The last thing they need right now is “Bulldozer” Joe Biden (I just dubbed him that) eating her for dinner in front of half of America next week.

Barack Obama, of course, called McCain’s bluff and raised him. “It is my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” Mr. Obama said. “It is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.”

The debate is still on and from the looks of it, it might already be over.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer