In an inexplicable move yesterday, Sen. John McCain suspended his campaign for president and announced he would not participate in tomorrow's presidential debate, citing the lack of progress in Washington on the proposed Wall Street bailout plan.

The move is inexplicable for a number of reasons, the first of which is that a mere ten days ago, Sen. McCain pronounced the fundamentals of our economy "strong." Now, such a fundamental misdiagnosis of the state of our economy should not come as a surprise. Last December, Sen. McCain told the Boston Globe "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. [But] I've got Greenspan's book ... and I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night."

So Johnny has come lately to the economic crisis. And now he feels compelled to rush to Washington to solve it - and incidentally cast his first vote in the Senate since April. Where has he been? And what is his plan?

There is a plan being debated vociferously in the House and Senate this week, a plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to relieve Wall Street firms of $700 billion worth of bad assets by purchasing the debts with taxpayer money.

You would be excused for getting whiplash trying to follow McCain's position on the economy and the plan to save it. He has minimized the economic crisis. He made the bold, irrelevant recommendation that Securities and Exchange Commission chair Christopher Cox be fired, a veritable non sequitur universally disregarded. He has issued scathing criticisms of the Paulson plan. He has not said how he would vote on it.

If he has a plan of his own, he is keeping it a secret.

Here are two interpretations. By kicking up dust and making a fuss, Sen. McCain is distracting us from the fact that he does not understand the nature of the crisis. But he understands its political magnitude enough to think it's worth trying to flee from the campaign under cover of its gravity. Really, who believes that we should do anything so frivolous as hold a debate under current circumstances? How about a moment of silence?

Perhaps more to the point, he is distracting us from the fact that his miserable performance in the face of the crisis thus far has pushed him so far down in the polls that he now trails by almost double digits.

You can run for president, but you can't hide.

The second interpretation is more sinister, but just as plausible.

When the United States enjoyed a budget surplus and the economy was robust, then-Sen. (and more recently economic advisor to McCain) Phil Gramm, said that if the Democrats presided over such a large and growing surplus, they would be the majority party in the United States for fifty years. For Gramm, Bush, McCain and company, the surplus was like a cancer, something to be rid of, and quickly. Dick Cheney set the course of GOP fiscal policy, announcing that "deficits don't matter."

Maybe they didn't matter that much when Cheney said that and the national debt was only $5.5 trillion. Do they matter now, when the Paulson plan includes a provision for an increase in the debt limit to $11.3 trillion?

Now, perhaps, you can see the urgency. The crisis is serious and must and will be addressed in due course. Most people in Congress are of the view that the Paulson plan to spend $700 billion - deficit spending, of course - is a dead letter because it includes no taxpayer protection. Take from the taxpayer and give to Wall Street? Even if Paulson were making a halfway decent case for it in Congress, the proposition is not a winner.

The thought at the outset had been: Put a plan on the table. Arrogate extraordinary and exclusive powers for the Treasury Secretary. Permit no judicial review of his actions. Provide almost no details at all regarding implementation - no joke: the proposal submitted to Congress is three pages long.

It didn't work. Congress wasn't cowed. The administration brought Cheney in to lobby the recalcitrant GOP. They put the president on TV to address the nation, underscoring the urgency of the situation. And they got John McCain to reinforce the sense of urgency by suspending his campaign and calling off the presidential debate. Hysterical?

If it works, if the Paulson plan is passed, the United States will be saddled with twice the largest deficit in history. It will take years to work that off. Most importantly, it will utterly prevent the next president from pursuing his agenda. Health care? Forget it. Middle-class tax cuts? Please. Money for education, investment in alternative energy sources, safe roads and bridges? Don't make me laugh.

But it's not a laughing matter. Fortunately, most members of Congress see right through the gambit and will ensure that taxpayers are protected and the budget isn't busted, even if Mr. Straight Talk is.