Bush fails to calm doubters and McCain stalls campaign

George Bush's plea on rescue plan and John McCain's call for a suspension of the campaign dominate US coverage

Two stories dominate the US media. The first is George Bush's attempt to drum up public support and stiffen Republican resolve to accept the administration's $700bn (£377bn) financial rescue plan in the face of widespread scepticism in Congress. The second is John McCain's bombshell about putting his campaign on hold, a decision that drew criticism from late night talk show host David Letterman (see above).

Andrew Leonard at Salon criticises Bush for not doing enough to reassure Americans as Roosevelt had done during the Depression. But Bush failed to bring along "angry Americans or doubting members of Congress that the Paulson plan delivers a fair and equitable resolution to the crisis that faces us".

Henry Paulson, the US treasury secretary, gets a thorough roasting from Anatole Kaletsky in the Times. The financial commentator says his impressions of Paulson's ineptitude at the start of the financial crisis were reinforced by Paulson's clueless and waffling performance on Capitol Hill when questioned about the rescue plan.

Not only did Mr Paulson not know what he was doing. He did not know what he was talking about.

For Kaletsky the former chairman of Goldman Sachs "is to finance what Donald Rumsfeld was to military strategy, Dick Cheney to geopolitics and Michael Chertoff to flood defence."

Similar blows rain on the Bush administration in Timothy Garton Ash's report card on the Bush years in the Guardian.

Summing up the last eight years as hubris followed by nemesis, Garton Ash writes: "The irony of the Bush years is that a man who came into office committed to both celebrating and reinforcing sovereign, unbridled national power has presided over the weakening of that power in all three dimensions: military, economic and soft."

The other big story is John McCain's extraordinary decision to call for a postponement of tomorrow's TV debate and a suspension of the presidential campaign, in a move described as a huge gamble by the Washington Post.


At Slate, John Dickerson is unsure whether the McCain move was desperate or brilliant. Either way, there will be probably more such stunts.

The beneficial effects of the Palin Hail Mary lasted only a few weeks, and another adrenaline injection was needed. If this one doesn't work, that's OK - in due time they can try another razzle-dazzle play. And if it does work, that's great - in due time they can still try another razzle-dazzle play. It all makes the prospect of a McCain White House very exciting. So exciting, he might want to schedule periodic suspensions of his presidency to get anything done.

McCain's announcement led to much fun-poking from Letterman. Letterman's barbs, picked up by the Huffington Post, include this one: "What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

The Daily Kos has a poll asking who Obama should debate if he turns up tomorrow. Nine percent vote for Paulson, but the biggest vote – 31% - goes to a picture of McCain.

On a more serious note, the Guardian's Nils Pratley writes that the idea that Congress might not back the bail-out unveiled by the US treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, is terrifying the markets.

You can't see the strain in share prices but in the money markets. Overnight money is flowing only because central banks are pumping money into the system. But the rates at which banks are lending to each other have rocketed.

This is an extended extract from The Wrap, guardian.co.uk's digest of the day's media.