McCain Trying to Steal Credit

Is he behaving honorably? In a bipartisan manner? I'd say he's acting more like a coward, not tipping his hand, trying to figure which way the wind will blow, to use Sarah Palin's attack on Obama, to come out as top dog.

NYT: At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, according to people in the meeting.

In subsequent television interviews, Mr. McCain suggested that he saw the bipartisan plan that came apart at the White House meeting as the proper basis for an eventual agreement, but he did not tip his hand as to whether he would give any support to the alternative put on the table by angry House Republicans, with whom he had met before going to the White House.

He said he was hopeful that a deal could be struck quickly, and that he could then show up for his scheduled debate on Friday night against his Democratic rival in the presidential race, Senator Barack Obama. But there was no evidence that he was playing a major role in the frantic efforts on Thursday night on Capitol Hill to put a deal back together again.

On the second floor of the Capitol on Thursday night, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and one of Mr. McCain’s closest confidants, complained to a throng of reporters that Democrats were using Mr. McCain as a scapegoat for the failure of the rescue package. But Mr. Graham was met with a barrage of questions on why Mr. McCain never explicitly said that he favored the bailout proposal. read the rest.