Sleight of Hand

I've seen this pop-up a few other places, but one of benefits for delaying Friday's debate is that they push it to the VP Debate's time and date. And then the VP thing moves further away, and maybe disappears completly.

Causus belli? As Penn and Teller quite beautifully illustrate, sleight of hand has to either be deliberately choreographed and practiced or the practitioner has to be a virtuso of it's spontaneous use. Has the McCain campaign (or for that matter, even the Obama campaign) convinced you of it's ability to misdirect us skillfully and regularly? Can they pull lit cigarettes from our ears convincingly?

So I consider it doubtful, but once some McCain staffer noticed postponing might also displace the VP debate & make it go away, I'm sure the idea to postpone really did begin to glow like a Godsend.

Update: Chez works up 855 words more.

By announcing the temporary suspension of his campaign, John McCain hopes to lure Barack Obama into a kind of trap that only the most craven and cynical of political operatives could dream up. He truly believes that he's concocted his own little Kobayashi Maru scenario whereby Obama, no matter his move, can't win: If he agrees to McCain's ludicrous suggestion that both sides call a truce until the economic bailout bill is negotiated -- which would include postponing Friday night's debate -- McCain can claim victory; if he refuses to relent and continues to campaign even as his opponent doesn't, McCain can point to it as an example of Obama putting his own interests above those of his country. McCain once again can wrap himself in the big banner of "Country First."

It's a Hail Mary pass like nothing we've seen in American politics in, well, perhaps ever.