FLASH: JOHN MCCAIN, DESPERATE, NOT READY TO DEBATE, AND KNOWING HE IS GOING DOWN TO A CERTAIN LANDSLIDE DEFEAT, SUSPENDS CAMPAIGN

You can't make this sh*t up HP'ers.

McCain, after his party created the biggest financial debacle since the Great Depression, is pulling out all the stops in a desperate and flailing attempt to cover up his and his party's misdeeds.

This one though takes the cake.

(This is so big and so tied to housing that it belongs here on HP, instead of the political blog AmericaPANIC)

McCain, who has run the most desperate, most cynical, most dishonest and most dishonorable campaign for president in modern American history, is now supposedly taking the high-road. Yeah, right. If you believe that America, then you truly are a ship of fools.

So HP calls McCain's bluff. If the economics and morals-challenged McCain REALLY cared about America more than he cares about himself, he'd step aside, right now, tonight, and return to the Senate. He'd drop his incompetent and in-over-her-head joke of a running mate Sarah Palin, and recommend that his party go with a true fiscal conservative outsider and reformer as the GOP nominee in 2008.

Michael Bloomberg

With Mitt Romney or Rob Portman as the VP.

Then, and only then, will we have a race on our hands. Then, and only then, will McCain reclaim his legacy.

McCain suspends campaign, Obama plans to continue

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the "historic" crisis facing the U.S. economy.

McCain said it was time for both parties to come together to solve economic crisis.

Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama in a news conference later Wednesday said that he and McCain had spoken by phone and had agreed to issue a joint statement about shared principles in the approach to resolving the economic crisis.

But he disagreed with McCain's call for postponing Friday's first presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi.

"It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person will be the next president," Obama said. "It is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once. It's more important than ever to present ourselves to the American people."

Regarding McCain's call to join him in Washington to help participate in the debate over the economic recovery plan, Obama said: "I will be anywhere at any time," he said. "If you need us I'll be there."

Obama called McCain early Wednesday morning to ask for a joint statement, a McCain senior advisor said.

An Obama campaign source confirmed the call and said that McCain returned his call six hours later, and accepted the concept and suggested the two of them return to Washington to join the negotiations. The source says that Obama told him that he would do that only if negotiators saw it as useful.

According to the Obama source, soon after they ended the call, McCain announced he was suspending his campaign and returning to Washington.