But a top aide to Mr. Boehner said it was Democrats who had done the political posturing. The aide, Kevin Smith, said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement.

New York Times

If he can't be the star, then we're not going to participate, even though we (Boehner and friends) actually think the plan is acceptable.  I have a certain amount of respect for the hard-core free marketeers who are willing to let the chips fall where they may among the Republicans, even if I think there deregulatory schemes are verifiably and repeatedly disastrous, but the rest of these clowns?

Fricking amazing; as Josh's post earlier today (Thursday) note, citing a reader, it really brings the bizarreness of "John McCain, coming to the Convention live from the wind-blown oil derricks of the Gulf of Mexico" come through in all its true colors.  It's as if he has Bush's flight suit on under his suit, and with Rick "Sancho Panza" Davis at his side (err....Rick may have been disappeared--that was the breaking story in the campaign before the "suspension"), he is tilting his way into the outer reaches of some bizarre maverickland, where he can make sh*t up an almost hourly basis.  Because he's a leader, dammit.

Some day, and maybe before the election, some Republican is going to unload on him for being a complete egomaniacal horse's ass.