Towards the end of the debate this week, McCain finally will know for sure that he has lost. His last hope (besides an attack on the U.S.--and even that might not work to his advantage now that America trusts Obama to be able to handle a crisis) is that Obama will make some terrible gaffe or mistake in the debate. When that doesn't happen, McCain will know that his time has run out.

He'll have two choices.

Remember Hilary Clinton's wistful moment in one of the late primary debates? "No matter what happens in this contest — and I am honored. I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored..." Some thought that was a concession at the time; if it was, the thought didn't last long since Clinton soon resumed her struggle with a vengeance and did anything but concede. But Clinton still had hopes of victories and hopes that Michigan and Florida could rescue her. But this is the moment that McCain will have reached, and there won't be time left for denial or struggle or hope.

So there will be two choices.

McCain can reach across the asile, as he likes to say, and state: "No matter what happens in this contest, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored. And whoever wins this contest and becomes President, is going to need all the help and cooperation that he can get from every American. We face unprecedented challenges at home and abroad. So while I ask for your vote, I pledge tonight to do everything I can to help Senator Obama if he is elected, and I know that I can count on his support if I am elected. We need to remember that we are all Americans and that the President is the president of the country, not a party."

In other words, he can decide that since he has lost the election he needs to at least try to salvage some last vestiges of his reputation for honor and non-partisanship, pretend that he has fought the good fight and that he is after all an honorable guy.

OR: he can decide to take the country down with him, sow the seeds of race and class warfare, do his best to de-legitimize the inevitable Obama administration, put salt in the wounds, pour gasoline on the fire, poison the well, make certain that nothing good will grow in Republican soil for generations.  

McCain doesn't care about the Republican party's prospects in this election or after him. The Republican candidates are already avoiding him. He is too old to run again and he doesn’t really want to position Palin as his heir apparent. (Besides, Palin will lose her bid for re-election as Governor in Alaska and she will end up as a right-wing talk show host. This is inevitable.) All along McCain has been driven by ego and narcissism. So does he care enough about his reputation to go out gracefully, or is he so uncontrollably angry that wants to do his best to tarnish and undermine an Obama presidency from the start?

Yesterday the MSM fawned over McCain for timidly suggesting that Obama was actually a decent guy and a family man (assuming that the woman’s assertion that Obama was a Muslim was an accusation that he was not a decent family man). They are eager to assume that he has been forced into a dishonorable campaign by the Rovians. They will welcome him back with open arms and let him become an elder statesman. But he may feel that since they have turned against him, he may not care. He may want to spite them as well.

Which will he choose? A statesman's elegy or a last suicide mission, flying his plane into the target?