One of the strangest things about the past two weeks is the complete absence of the president. I don't solely mean in terms of him making his presence known during a crisis, I mean that in the midst of discussing the credit crisis, we all seem to be talking around him. It's as if he isn't even really president.
But if anyone could have stopped this spectacle of John McCain riding into Washington at 4 PM to do absolutely nothing after pretending to "suspend" his campaign, it was President Bush. He is the man in charge. He could have ended this farce at any time. All he had to do was tell McCain to win his own election, and that the situation was too serious to endanger by politicizing it. Instead, he went on TV and told everyone to panic, before acquiescing to McCain's lunatic impulses. What's worse, none of us expected him to do anything else, because we've become accustomed to Bush failing every test of leadership that has ever been put before him.
I had a strange realization last night that there are no adults running this country. Paul Krugman came to the same, much better articulated conclusion. The Bush administration has been running this country like a bunch of teenagers joyriding in a stolen car. Their great victory, and the tragedy for the country, is that we have become so used to it we don't even think about it much anymore. We don't even expect the president to do his job.
--A. Serwer
