There are lots of things that should not happen in an election year and having a major crisis is one of them. If he is elected, I hope that David Brooks is right about McCain because if he is not the US will decline further than it has under the incompetent President Bush.

McCain's errors of judgement have continued to multiply. His behavior in this crisis is inexcusable. He has only made things far worse by his grand standing. Obama has acted presidential and constructively while McCain has behaved like Chicken Little. The Democrats in the House and Senate have worked effectively with the administration to try to overcome the impasse while the House Republicans have revolted.

There is so much uncertainty as I write this that I simply am at a loss to know where things are going. Will they debate tonight? If McCain is a no show, will Obama be willing or able to go on stage as planned? Will they find some workable solution to an impasse that was caused by the president's own party in the House? Will another major financial institution fail while the Republican's in the House work against their own party?

Meanwhile, Washington Mutual, the largest thrift in the country, was taken over by the Feds and sold to JPMorgan. When you have seven years of totally incompetent presidential management of the country, you get this kind of disaster. I wish I could believe that McCain would, as Brooks implies, be a better president than he has been a candidate. His choice of Palin as his running mate tells me that Brooks is wrong and, if anything, McCain would be worse.