John McCain has decided to completely ruin my Friday night plans of staying in, ordering a pizza, and ranting and raving at the television the way most people do during sports broadcasts or the way my dad does during the ten o’clock network news.

To wit, McCain is dodging the presidential debates in a feeble attempt to distract voters from his recent drop in the polls (because out-of-left-field stunts, like Sarah Palin, have worked for him before) and to try to make it look like Barack Obama doesn’t care about fixing his country (even though it was Obama who reached out to McCain’s camp this morning to suggest they write a bipartisan statement on the economy), thus buying himself some time to beef up on his econ and to be photographed looking stern and important in Washington (consequently distracting the media and the rest of Congress from the actual crisis they’re trying to solve), even though he (admittedly!) lacks an acceptable understanding of the global economy and really has nothing meaningful to contribute whatsoever.

Because that’s how McCain would lead this country in our time of need: by pulling media stunts to improve his own image, by shuffling papers in Washington, and by hiding and stalling when the going gets tough.

Where have we seen this before? Oh, that’s right … in the very same self-serving politicians that McCain is supposedly going to kick out of Washington.

The world knows that now, during this economic crisis, is actually the most important time for the candidates to defend and debate their plans and qualifications for the presidency of the free world, the way Lincoln did during the Civil War, and Reagan during the Cold War, and Bush during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (both of which he started!) (and he still won the election!).

But The Maverick is going to break from that precedent and … take a time out for a nap and a cookie. He may have invented the Blackberry – the very device that keeps the candle burning at both ends for millions of people — but he sure as hell can’t multi-task.

McCain forgets that it is the independents to whom he needs to pander in order to win this election. And if the independents are what they say they are, they’re going to see straight through this malarky.

Now Ole Miss is going to lose a lot of money if the debates are canceled altogether. So are we going to get a full two hours of Obama, then?

Or how about a debate between Obama and Palin? She has learned a lot in the past few weeks, and she has things to say! In fact, just this week, she sat down with Henry Kissinger and discovered that he can not, in fact, see England from his house. And just today, in her interview with Katie Couric, Sarah was oddly reminiscent of the infamous Miss South Carolina …

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Maybe my Friday night isn’t ruined after all!