Thread: McCain/Palin/Pakistan/WHATEVER OTHER POLITICAL STUFF.

Instead of making 942762498672486 threads, I figured I'd put them all in there.

Tentative meltdown deal: Bush, McCain, Obama meet

President Bush and the two men fighting to succeed him joined forces at a historic White House meeting Thursday, trying to sell resistant lawmakers on a multibillion-dollar bailout plan for Wall Street aimed at staving off what the president called "a serious economic crisis." Key members of Congress struck a deal earlier in the day but others were unwilling.

The tentative accord would give the Bush administration just a fraction of the $700 billion it had requested up front, with half the money subject to a congressional veto, Capitol Hill aides said. Even that was hardly final. Sen. Richard Shelby, top Republican on the Banking Committee, emerged from the White House meeting and said, "I don't believe we have an agreement."

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, who have both sought to distance themselves from the unpopular Bush, sat down with the president at the White House for an hourlong afternoon session that was striking in this brutally partisan season and apparently without precedent. By also including Congress' Democratic and Republican leaders, the meeting gathered nearly all Washington's political power structure at one long table in a small West Wing room.

"All of us around the table ... know we've got to get something done as quickly as possible," Bush told reporters, brought in for only the start of the meeting. Obama and McCain were at distant ends of the oval table, not even in each other's sight lines. Bush, playing host in the middle, was flanked by Congress' two Democratic leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

No one else spoke before the cameras left.

Hours earlier, private talks on Capitol Hill ended with the announcement that an agreement in principle had been reached on a financial rescue package — though changed somewhat from the one the Bush administration proposed last weekend.

Under the plan agreed to by key lawmakers at the Capitol, the Treasury secretary would get $250 billion immediately and could have an additional $100 billion if he certified it was needed, congressional aides said. The last $350 billion could be blocked by a vote of Congress under the arrangement, designed to give lawmakers a stronger hand in controlling the unprecedented rescue.

There were signs that the conservative-leaning House Republican Caucus was not on board. Both of Congress' Republican leaders, Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell, issued statements saying there was not yet an agreement.

But Banking Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Republican Sen. Bob Bennett, among others, said negotiators from Congress and the administration had arrived at a deal that could win approval. Other key lawmakers said that after days of bare-knuckles negotiations there was little of note left to resolve.

Wall Street showed its pleasure cautiously. The Dow Jones industrials closed some 196 points higher, though that was down from larger gains earlier in the day.

The plan's centerpiece is for the government to buy the toxic, mortgage-based assets of shaky financial institutions in a bid to keep them from going under and setting off a cascade of ruinous events, including wiped-out retirement savings, rising home foreclosures, closed businesses, and lost jobs.

The Bush administration has made concessions almost daily to demands from the right and the left from its original three-page proposal, including agreeing to limit pay for executives of bailed-out financial institutions and give taxpayers an equity stake in rescued companies.

The White House timed the extraordinary meeting to fit the candidates' schedules — and to convene after the close of stock markets.

It was somewhat upstaged nearly three hours before various motorcades deposited the meeting participants and their entourages, when Capitol Hill leaders reported their deal. Despite the national prominence of Bush, McCain and Obama, none has been deeply involved in this week's scramble to hammer out a package.

The developments on the Hill lent fresh and urgent purpose to the session: providing encouragement — and political cover — for lawmakers of both parties to accept a plan. It is expected to come up for votes in the House and Senate quickly, perhaps within days, so that lawmakers can adjourn to campaign for their own re-elections.

But any pitch by Bush, Obama and McCain would be no easy sell.

All lawmakers are returning to home districts packed with constituents angry that they are being asked to foot the bill to bail out Wall Street's rich guys when they and their neighbors are suffering the effects of ballooning mortgages and tightening credit. This means Obama and even the increasingly marginalized Bush could have sway with their joint resolve.

McCain, in particular, was being leaned on by Democrats and fellow Republicans alike to deliver GOP votes, as some conservatives are in open revolt over the astonishing price tag of the proposal and the heavy hand of government that it would place on private markets. Placating them enough to bring them in line could be a tall order for the Republican presidential nominee who has a checkered relationship with the right wing of his party.

A group of GOP lawmakers circulated a less government-focused alternative. Their proposal would have the government provide insurance to companies that agree to hold frozen assets, rather than have the government purchase the assets. Rep Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the idea would be to remove the burden of the bailout from taxpayers and place it, over time, on Wall Street instead.

Layered over the White House meeting was a complicated web of potential political benefits and consequences for both Obama and McCain.

McCain hoped voters would believe that he rose above politics to wade into successful, nitty-gritty dealmaking at a time of urgent crisis, but he risked being seen instead as either overly impulsive or politically craven, or both. Obama saw a chance to appear presidential and fit for duty, but was also caught off guard strategically by McCain's surprising gamble in saying he was suspending his campaigning and asking to delay Friday night's debate to focus on the crisis.

McCain leaves presidential debate up in the air

Prospects improved that John McCain and Barack Obama would hold their first presidential debate on Friday as Congress made progress toward an agreement with the Bush administration on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry.

McCain's campaign has said the Republican wouldn't participate in the debate unless there was a consensus. Obama still wants the face-off to go on, and the Democrat is slated to travel to the debate site in Mississippi on Friday.

"There's no deal until there's a deal," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said after Republicans and Democrats agreed in principle to terms of the bailout. He said the developments did not change McCain's plans, though he added: "We're optimistic but we want to get this thing done."

Senior McCain adviser Mark Salter did not rule out attending the debate, saying: "We've got to see."

The debate over the debate is the latest campaign twist as McCain and Obama try to navigate the uncharted politics of the financial meltdown and show leadership at a time of national angst. The two met with President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders Thursday afternoon at the White House on the crisis. They sat three seats away from the president, McCain to his right, Obama to his left.

"With so much on the line, for America and the world, the debate that matters most right now is taking place in the United States Capitol — and I intend to join it," McCain said while addressing former President Clinton's Global Initiative in New York early Thursday.

Obama argued the debate should proceed because a president needs to be able to handle more than one issue at a time.

"The American people deserve to hear directly from myself and Sen. McCain about how we intend to lead our country," he said. "The times are too serious to put our campaign on hold, or to ignore the full range of issues that the next president will face."

In Oxford, Miss., debate organizers continued to prepare.

At a news conference, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, said he expected the presidential debate to go ahead, though he said he had no inside information. "This is going to be a great debate tomorrow night," Barbour said.

Television networks, too, were moving forward. "We're proceeding as if it's on and will until someone tells us that it's not," ABC spokeswoman Cathie Levine said.

The two candidates spoke to the Clinton Global Initiative — McCain in person, Obama via satellite — before heading to Washington.

Presidential politics was running smack into the delicate negotiations over how to stop further weakening the sagging economy without putting an enormous new burden on taxpayers or rewarding corporations or their executives who share the blame for the woes.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic and Republican negotiators emerged from a closed-door meeting to report an agreement in principle they would present to the administration.

Rogers said McCain didn't participate in that meeting, but was in talks with Republican leaders afterward. Conservative Republicans were among the holdouts, and there were indications they were waiting for McCain to make a move before they did.

An Obama campaign official said the Illinois senator called into the earlier meeting. His campaign said Obama learned of the tentative agreement upon landing in Washington; he had no immediate response.

As Thursday began, McCain again portrayed his announced halt to campaign events, fundraising and advertising — which he said would begin after the Clinton speech — as an example of putting the country ahead of politics. But in doing so he also hoped to get political credit for a decisive step on a national crisis as polls show him trailing Obama on the economy and slipping in the presidential race.

Despite McCain's stated campaigning hiatus, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, paid a highly visible visit to memorials in lower Manhattan to those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. However, the usual flood of McCain campaign and Republican National Committee e-mails to reporters attacking the other side slowed to a trickle. Still, McCain campaign aides appeared on news programs earlier in the day and it was unclear whether all of McCain's TV ads were off the air.

Industry officials said Obama's campaign was inquiring about buying airtime made available where McCain was absent. But McCain's campaign also has indicated to TV stations that they may soon return to the airwaves.

Obama's campaign derided McCain's claim to have halted activity as a political stunt. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: "John McCain hasn't suspended his campaign, he only wants us to suspend disbelief."

The Democrat also rolled out a new 60-second TV ad to run in "key targeted states" in which he cited economic policies endorsed by Bush and McCain as essentially to blame for the troubles.

"For eight years we've been told that the way to a stronger economy was to give huge tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest. Cut oversight on Wall Street. And somehow all Americans would benefit," Obama says in the ad. "Well now we know the truth. Instead of prosperity tricking down, the pain has trickled up. We need to change direction. Now."

Pakistani troops fire on US helicopters at border

Pakistani troops fired at American reconnaissance helicopters near the Afghan-Pakistan border Thursday, and ground troops then exchanged fire, the U.S. military said.

No injuries were reported, but the incident heightened tensions as the U.S. steps up cross-border operations in a volatile region known as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Two American OH-58 reconnaissance helicopters, known as Kiowas, were on a routine afternoon patrol in the eastern province of Khost when they received small-arms fire from a Pakistani border post, said Tech Sgt. Kevin Wallace, a U.S. military spokesman. There was no damage to aircraft or crew, officials said.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Rear Adm. Greg Smith said Pakistan and American ground troops exchanged fire after Pakistani forces shot at the helicopters.

He said a joint patrol of Americans and Afghan border police was moving about a mile and a half inside Afghanistan with the helicopters above them. The ground troops reported that Pakistani forces fired toward the helicopters and when they saw that happen, they fired off suppression rounds toward the hilltop.

They did so, Smith said from Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Fla., "to make certain that they (the Pakistanis) realized they should stop shooting."

The Pakistani border patrol forces then shot back down on the joint location of the U.S.-Afghan patrol. "The whole thing lasted five minutes," Smith said.

The Pakistani military, however, said its troops fired warning shots after the helicopters crossed "well within" Pakistani territory.

"On this, the helicopters returned fire and flew back," the Pakistani military said in an English-language statement.

And in New York, Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, said his military fired only "flares" at foreign helicopters that he claimed strayed across the border from Afghanistan.

Zardari said his forces fired only as a way "to make sure that they know that they crossed the border line."

"Sometimes the border is so mixed that they don't realize they have crossed the border," he told reporters before he began a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Pakistani military said the matter was "being resolved" in consultations between the army and the NATO force in Afghanistan. A NATO statement said the militaries were "working together to resolve the matter."

The U.S. has stepped up attacks on suspected militants in the frontier area, mostly by missiles fired from unmanned drones operating from Afghanistan. The incursions — especially a ground raid into South Waziristan by American commandos Sept. 3 — have angered many Pakistanis.

Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said last week that Pakistani field commanders have previously tolerated international forces crossing a short way into Pakistan because of the ill-defined and contested nature of the mountainous frontier.

"But after the (Sept. 3) incident, the orders are clear," Abbas said. "In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or in the air: open fire."

On Wednesday, Pakistan's army said it had found the wreckage of a suspected surveillance drone in South Waziristan, but denied claims by Pakistani intelligence officials that troops and local people shot down the aircraft.

In Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the coalition immediately requested an explanation from Pakistan for what he described as a "troubling" incident.

"It would be fairly hard to mistake a helicopter flying in that region as anything but ISAF or U.S.," Whitman said.

He said militants have always tried to exploit the border region.

"It's a challenge along the border and that's why we continue to look for ways to improve our coordination," Whitman said.

Asked how Pakistani forces could mistake U.S. helicopters for enemy forces — especially since Taliban and al-Qaida forces don't have aircraft — Whitman said: "Only Pakistan can articulate their intent."

Pakistani civilian leaders have condemned the cross-border operations by U.S. forces, which have been authorized by President Bush, while the army has vowed to defend Pakistan's territory "at all cost."

"We will not tolerate any act against our sovereignty and integrity in the name of the war against terrorism," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told journalists Wednesday. "We are fighting extremism and terror not for any another country, but our own country. This is our own war."

Pakistan's tribal areas have become a breeding ground for Taliban and al-Qaida militants, who are launching attacks inside Pakistan but also across the border into Afghanistan, where the levels of violence have reached record heights since the ouster of the Taliban from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

More than 4,600 people — mostly militants — have died this year in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan, and the levels of violence in the eastern Afghanistan are 30 percent higher compared to the same period last year, officials say.

Palin defends Alaska-Russia foreign policy remark

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin defended her remark that the close proximity of Russia to her home state of Alaska gives her foreign policy experience, explaining in a CBS interview airing Thursday that "we have trade missions back and forth."

Palin has never visited Russia and until last year the 44-year-old Alaska governor had never traveled outside North America. She also had never met a foreign leader until her trip this week to New York. In the CBS interview, she did not offer any examples of having been involved in any negotiations with the Russians.

Palin's foreign policy experience came up when she gave her first major interview, on Sept. 11 to ABC News. Asked what insight she had gained from living so close to Russia, she said: "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

The comment met with derision from Palin's critics and was turned into a punch line for a "Saturday Night Live" skit featuring actress Tina Fey. Appearing as Palin, she proclaimed, "I can see Russia from my house!"

In the interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric, Palin said: "It's funny that a comment like that was, kind of made to ... I don't know, you know? Reporters ..."

Couric said, "Mock?"

"Yeah," Palin said, "mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah."

When Couric asked how Alaska's closeness to Russia enhanced her foreign policy experience, Palin said, "Well, it certainly does because our ... our next-door neighbors are foreign countries." Alaska shares a border with Canada.

Palin didn't answer directly when Couric inquired about whether she had been involved in any negotiations with the Russians.

"We have trade missions back and forth," she replied. As she continued, Palin brought up Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

"It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where — where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is — from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to ... to our state," she said.

Earlier Thursday, Palin held a rare exchange with reporters outside a ground zero firehouse in New York, and declined to endorse the candidacy of indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. On trial for seven counts of making false statements stemming from allegations that he concealed gifts on Senate financial documents, Stevens is running for re-election to retain the seat he has held since 1968.

When a reporter asked Palin if she supports the re-election of Stevens, she replied: "Ted Stevens' trial started a couple of days ago. We'll see where that goes."

Outside the firehouse just across from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Palin took just a handful of questions from reporters. She has yet to have a news conference in the four weeks since Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her to be his running mate and has submitted to only three major interviews — with ABC, Fox News and CBS.

Palin was asked if she thought the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was helping to mitigate terrorism

"I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security for our nation. We can never again let them onto our soil," she said.

In keeping with McCain's decision to halt his campaign activities to deal with the financial markets rescue plan being negotiated by Congress and the Bush administration, Palin was heading to Philadelphia but not planning any events for the day, the campaign said.

Wrapping up a trip to New York, the Alaska governor toured a visitors center dedicated to those who lost their lives in the 2001 attacks. She later walked past a bronze memorial built into the wall of a firehouse, which commemorates the 343 firefighters who died on Sept. 11. She touched the wall several times.

"To come here and see these good New Yorkers who are not only rebuilding this area but rebuilding America, it's very inspiring," she told reporters.

Palin asked several questions during the tour about progress rebuilding the trade center site, victims' families and particularly the health problems suffered by ground zero workers, said Jennifer Adams, CEO of the tribute center. Health advocates believe thousands of people became ill from exposure to toxic dust from the ruins of the trade center site.

Palin's parents went to New York in January 2002 to help control the rat population in Staten Island's Fresh Kills landfill as part-time contract workers with the Agriculture Department, her mother, Sally Heath, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Their task for two weeks was to control the rats so that they did not disturb the debris from the World Trade Center that was being brought there and searched by forensic teams for human remains.