Where Is John McCain?

John McCain has had a strange few weeks. He has gone from trying to recover his maverick credentials to almost completely untethered from reality -- or so it seems in what one sees in the media.

The famous series of absolute switches over a few days from "the economy is fundamentally sound" to "the economy is in trouble" to "I haven't actually read the [3-page] bailout plan" to "I am going to suspend my campaign" to "that doesn't mean I won't give speeches, run ads, and do everything else a campaign does" to "I'm going to Washington and won't leave until a deal is agreed to by all parties" to blowing up the deal that was coming together and then, today, announcing that we would, after all, show up for the debate with Barack Obama tonight in Mississippi.


Earlier this morning, before he announced that he would change his mind again and participate in the debate, his campaign web site posted an ad claiming that he had won the debate.



See Sam Stein, "McCain 'Blinked,' Campaign 'Governed by Tactics, Not Ideology,'" Huffington Post, 26 September 2008.