When the first news flash hit the Reuters wire, you could hear a couple network TV producers utter similar profanities in the Senate Radio TV Gallery.

McCain is coming back to DC? McCain wants to delay Friday's debate?

It was classic McCain, trying to shake things up at a time when his convention bounce is withering and Obama seems to be taking charge of this race.

"I conclude he's taken another high flying gamble," my father observed in the afternoon, "and this one may backfire."

One idea is to have the first debate on the night of the VP debate, October 2.

I'm sure Democrats will say that's only McCain trying to forestall the inevitable crash and burn of Sarah Palin, eh?

I had already chosen the title of this blog before any of that came down the News Pike, because the Wall Street mess has completely and totally overshadowed the runup to the first debate.

Without the Wall Street bailout controversy, we would probably have seen file tape of Obama's first debate and had to listen to 45 different debate experts tell us why one or the other of the candidates is really and truly The Underdog.

Instead, now we will have one action packed day in Washington, D.C. where we try to figure out if McCain and Obama are going to solve the bailout deal and then iron out the question of will they actually appear together in Oxford, MS on Friday night (or not?)

(Maybe McCain is having second thoughts because he really thought that the Ole Miss Rebels were playing at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday or something like that.)

But we digress.

I've got the best solution. After McCain and Obama come out with Congressional leaders and address drooling reporters at the West Wing stakeout position, maybe they could just walk a few blocks over to the National Press Club.

I'm sure that we could sit them down in a room there, and have them knock some issues back and forth for about 90 minutes, and start the debates right then and there.

Where will it all end?