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The foreign policy debate will air tonight as originally scheduled, seeing as John McCain is no longer attempting to singlehandedly fix the financial state of the U.S:

Republican John McCain agreed to attend the first presidential debate Friday night even though Congress doesn’t have a bailout deal, reversing an earlier decision to delay the forum until Washington had addressed the financial crisis.

With less than 10 hours until the debate was scheduled to start, the McCain campaign announced that the Arizona senator would travel to the University of Mississippi. The campaign said that afterward McCain would fly back to Washington to continue working on the economic crisis.

McCain is said to be “optimistic” about the financial crisis. And has managed to teach Sarah Palin to say “No comment.” Golf clap.

McCain had taken a gamble with the move, trying to appear above politics and as a leader on an issue that had overshadowed the presidential campaign and given him trouble. But Democratic rival Barack Obama had not bowed to McCain’s challenge, and instead questioned why the Republican nominee couldn’t handle two things at once — the debate and involvement in the bailout negotiations.

That plan went awry as McCain’s campaign was surprised to learn that potential voters expected possible future leaders to talk openly about issues:

An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll out Friday just before McCain’s announcement showed the public overwhelmingly wanted the candidates to debate, 60 percent to 22 percent, with the rest undecided.

Yesterday, both McCain and Obama, at the prompting of President Bush, flew to Washington in order to attend a congressional meeting at the White House:

McCain’s campaign said the meeting “devolved into a contentious shouting match” and implied Obama was at fault — on a day when McCain said he was putting politics aside to focus on the nation’s financial problems.

And, now, an interview with John Lehman, McCain’s foreign policy advisor (who is touting the original suspension of the debate as “heroic”), and Ambassador Wendy Sherman, foreign policy advisor for Obama. Take care to watch how the anchor tries to get Lehman to explain exactly how Mccain attempted to solved the financial crisis while in Washington:

More on the McCain campaigns thoughts on how Obama handled the congressional meeting yesterday:

“The difference between Barack Obama and John McCain was apparent during the White House meeting yesterday where Barack Obama’s priority was political posturing in his opening monologue defending the package as it stands,” said the McCain campaign statement.

“John McCain listened to all sides so he could help focus the debate on finding a bipartisan resolution that is in the interest of taxpayers and homeowners. The Democratic interests stood together in opposition to an agreement that would accommodate additional taxpayer protections.”

Tense!

The debate is on; McCain agrees to participate [Yahoo]
Debate Is On [NYT]