Hmmm ...

Another piece? From Marc Ambinder [ellipsis orig.]:

A senior Obama adviser says that the CPD [Commission on Presidential Debates] has told both campaigns that there will be questions about the economic crisis during Friday's debate.

They were told this last week...

This really strengthens my earlier suspicion that in addition to the panic over the poll numbers, there was also concern about McCain's lack of preparedness for the debate. I said then that this was the first thought to cross my mind when I heard about McCain's attempt to back out, but rejected it, since the debate was supposed to be on foreign policy. But now that we know that the McCain people have known for a week that economic matters were going to be added to the mix, it's really starting to smell like McCain knew he'd have no better answers than his boss running mate.

I now propose that we refer to this incident as the McCain Bailout.

As in unscheduled egress from an airplane in distress, I mean.