I have a conspiracy theory. Bear with me a moment.

What if McCain suspending campaigning not to return to DC, but because he needed medical attention? Nothing dire, since we saw him on TV today, but something embarrassing enough that he didn't want to bring it up and be the butt of more "old jokes." You know, like an emergency toe amputation or something.

I'm not sure even I buy this, but it may pay to do some snooping.

benjamin81 said:  "I have a conspiracy theory. Bear with me a moment.

What if McCain suspending campaigning not to return to DC, but because he needed medical attention? "

Oh you mean like being pregnant and having to deliver in the next day or so?

That would solve his "manliness" problem, wouldn't it?

What a lot of disgusting nonsense this thread has been vomited up.

The only one with a “manliness problem” is Noam. Of course you would have to be a man to notice it. Noam is therefore safe.

McCain will declare on Friday that enough progress has been made that he can safely travel to Mississippi for the debate. The plane will be gassed up and on the runway, though, in case he needs to fly back in the middle of the thing.

Otherwise, he cedes 90 minutes of TV time on all the major networks to Obama. Now, everyone isn't going to watch 90 minutes of questions to one guy, but a lot of people will watch for a long time. So 1) Obama gets free face time with the American people with no one around to counter him, and 2) McCain looks like an absolute girly-man for not showing up.

McCain will have to phony up some excuse and show up, then berate Obama for not canceling in this Time of Crisis. The only alternative is something like sending a surrogate to debate Obama, and that will be seen for the breathtakingly cynical stunt it would be.  

Wouldn't it have been even better for Obama to reply that he thought that Presidents should be able to multitask, but that he wouldn't want to take advantage of an opponent at a disadvantage, and agree to have the debate at some later time to let McCain calm down and collect himself.    

Then he could announce that he would go to the debate site and make a major address on the economic crisis.

That way he would (1) appear gentlemanly, while (2) calling McCain a wuss, and simultaneously (3) keeping the attention of the nation focused on the economy.  If he were lucky, he'd also (4) get essentially a second convention speech, since all the media will already be there, and all the networks have set aside time for the debates, and everyone would just listening to him talk (which (5) is his strength, as opposed to debates which McCain is pretty good at).

Now, since Obama said he wouldn't postpone the debate, there's some chance that McCain will come, win the debate, and also make Obama look petty for insisting on holding it.

So, John McCain has gone into labor? I was thinking clogged arteries, but okay, sure.

Whatever his motives for his crash-stop of his campaign (and, again, I have no particular evidence supporting my hypothesis; it's just a WAG), McCain has come off more as a showboater than a tough, serious, realistic executive. What's he going to accomplish in DC that the rest of his party can't? Obama knows damn well that he and McCain aren't Senate leaders, and so he's wisely staying away.

Clearly, benjamin, if John McCain went into labor, the smart, prudent, wise thing to do would be to hop on a plane and fly from Texas to Alaska. That's what the In Crowd does.

benjamin81 said:

I have a conspiracy theory. Bear with me a moment.

What if McCain suspending campaigning not to return to DC, but because he needed medical attention? Nothing dire, since we saw him on TV today, but something embarrassing enough that he didn't want to bring it up and be the butt of more "old jokes." You know, like an emergency toe amputation or something......

=======

Benjamin, a toe amputaiton would be the best thing that could happen to McCain right now.  Not only would he be a POW, but now he'd be a man who sacrificed his very own toe in order to put country first.  

"My friends, Senator Obama has no experience whatsoever with toe amputations.  Is this a man who can revamp our healthcare crisis?  I ask you, my friends."

"McCain looks like an absolute girly-man for not showing up. " WoodyBombay

Said by a REAL MAN, NOT!

Well, that's pretty juvenile.

Par for the course from the racist hysteric known as jacksondyer, though.

  WoodyBombay said:  "Well, that's pretty juvenile."

This whole thread is juvenile and you are the most juvenile of them all, bigot.

"Par for the course from the racist hysteric known as jacksondyer, though."

Another intelligent comment by the antisemitic bigot known as WoodyMumbay.

Do you mean "Mumbai," maybe?

How many things will you get wrong tonight? Not just your usual hate-flecked racist vitriol, but simple things like "Mumbai" and "Occam"? Do us all a favor and stop posting after you've been drinking. It's pretty late for a Masshole like you - go to bed. Or kill yourself.

I wonder why McCain is so worried about appearing in Oxford, Miss. for a long planned debate with someone he clearly considers his inferior in matters of national security and foreign policy.

In a certain way, it all makes no sense.

Hillary: John McCain, I invite you to grow a pair, and if you cannot, I will lend you mine

Benjamin 81, I know what procedure McCain will be having.  www.theonion.com/.../another_disgusting

While on the same vein, Jackson Dyer, are you saying in your first comment that whoever smelt it dealt it?

There is at least precedent for benjamin's McCain conspiracy theory. Grover Cleveland put on a big ruse to throw off press attention while he had life-threatening oral surgery to remove a malignant tumor in a boat on the Potomac. The surgery was covered up to avoid adding political panic to an ongoing financial panic then gripping the country. (Cleveland had a very rough second term.)

Anyway, I'm sure McCain's stunt is just the attention-seeking chickenshit stunt it looks like, but the coverup-for-surgery-in-a-financial-panic thing has been done before.

The "common" American - high school graduate:

1. can't find Great Britain on a world map

2. can't date the Civil War within a hundred years

3. thinks that West Virginia and New Mexico are not states

4. has trouble naming 5 of the 6 (or 7) continents

I could go on. You get my drift.