As Richard notes, and is all over the news at this hour, John McCain has announced he is suspending his campaign and seeking to postpone Friday’s debate in order to rush to Washington to handle the financial crisis, a Washington where he has not voted since April. This is just the latest in a series of rash and reckless stunts on the part of John McCain. He needs to show judgment, and at every point along the way he is displaying a lack of judgment so glaring as to escape even satire. Yes, every time John McCain feels he’s backed into a corner he trots out a rash stunt, hoping the voters will think he’s bold. Well, the voters are going to get the main point, if they haven’t already, that John McCain is reckless and power hungry. That’s what this latest stunt shows.

What are those stunts of McCain’s before this? When Barack Obama came out of the Democratic Convention with a lead, having just played to a house of 70,000 supporters, McCain countered it with a stunt, the nomination of the Soccer Mom Sarah Palin. Alas, that move has been proven to be a lack of judgment, as the bounce he got nominating Palin lasted ten days or so.

When McCain was confronted by the enormity of the financial crisis, he put together some proposals, and one of them got headlines. He said CEO salaries of the firms helped out by the bailout should be capped at $400,000. That’s attractive as a populist measure, but it is a stunt that goes against the American brand of capitalism. Sure, we have a minimum wage, but there’s no need to have a maximum wage as that is the shareholder’s responsibility. Mr. McCain, look to the major shareholders of AIG and Lehman and all of those other Wall Street miscreants, and put their feet to the fire, but a salary cap on CEOs is just a stunt, and an anti-capitalist stunt at that. McCain also pulled the stunt of threatening to fire Christopher Cox, but George Will called McCain on that stunt. It’s time for everyone to call McCain on these other stunts.

All the whining by the McCain campaign about the press when they do their job and find the McCain campaign tied as closely to lobbyists as it is? The whining is a stunt, too. And that one is backfiring as well.

Now, on the very day the Washington Post comes out with a poll showing John McCain nine points behind in the race for the Presidency, John McCain pulls the stunt of suspending his campaign. Sure he’s put Obama in a bind with this farce. McCain thinks he will look the hero, and if Obama refuses to postpone the debate McCain thinks he can point to Obama as not willing to drop everything and run to the rescue. But let us call this what it is, a surprise stunt. A reckless surprise stunt.

You see, the day started with Obama calling McCain, suggesting they agree on a set of issues concerning the financial crisis, announce the agreement together, then let the proper people handle the issue. Here’s the announcement of the Obama campaign overture from MSNBC:

The Obama campaign’s Bill Burton said in a statement: “At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.”

Yeah, it was Obama who made the move towards bipartisanship, and it is McCain who pulled the rug out from under the plan while keeping Obama waiting on an answer. “Working on the details” for McCain meant stepping out into the limelight and playing hero. But let’s get that straight, too. It is not McCain’s job to ride to the rescue.

John McCain is merely a Senator. He holds no leadership position in the Senate besides his seniority. McCain’s portfolio of success on financial matters is limited to having a stable of lobbyists running his campaign who have been paid oodles of money by financial firms. Oh, I forgot his role in the Savings and Loan crisis of nearly 20 years ago. Not only is it not McCain’s role to usurp the powers of his 99 fellow Senators, the hundreds of members of the House of Representatives, or of his lame duck friend President Bush, he hasn’t got the skills needed here, nor the judgment.

Ducking the debate? The National Post documents how McCain was lowering expectations for his performance, and also how he likes to debate by sticking a knife in his opponent. McCain maybe figured out being ugly in this debate wasn’t going to work, so he decided to pull a reckless stunt (Jonathan Capehart agrees with me on this one). Hey, John McCain should have worked on figuring which of his dogs he should have blamed for eating his homework.

The biggest joke here is that the McCain campaign and many Republicans have for a long time characterized Obama, derisively, as “Messiah.” McCain’s stunt here makes him look like the man with a Messiah complex, and that sort of megalomania is dangerous in a leader.