There are a lot of qualities that are important to look for when you're voting for someone to become President of the United States. Obviously, intelligence, honesty, and patriotism are pretty key, and since we blew it the last two elections, I think we'd better pay closer attention this time around. Now, I'm not going to question John McCain's patriotism, but he's proven pretty weak on the rest of the list. In addition to the standard stuff, one critical criteria in choosing a President, as with all good executive hires, is the ability to multi-task, and although John McCain can't seem to do his job as a Senator and still run a campaign, Barack Obama can.

In response to McCain's call to cancel Friday's debate, Sen. Obama explained that now is exactly the time that the candidates need to speak to the American people about how they will handle the economic crisis. Sen. McCain apparently doesn't think it's important that we understand these things, and (although he hasn't been in Washington to vote on legislation since April 8th, missing more votes than the guy who had a brain hemmorage, and missing 117 more votes than his opponent who had a protracted primary battle) he's got it in his head that the Senate is going to need him for some reason on Friday night at 9 (check local listings), the precise hour of the scheduled Presidential debate.

On it's face, the argument for canceling the debate is pretty lame, and an obvious pander, until you dive in a little deeper and discover there's another reason the McCain camp is proposing a delay -- to postpone the VP debate until a time TBD (read 'never'). I'm not sure how many people McCain thought he could bamboozle with that sorry attempt to keep his running mate from facing the cameras, but it turns out it was not many, with 71% in a CNN online poll calling McCain's campaign suspension a 'political gimmick'. In addition to the continued cover for Palin, there are some other things Sen. McCain might not want to discuss in a debate, including his long history of pushing deregulation, his role in the Keating Five scandal, and the fact that it's been less than a week since he proclaimed the economy was strong, before he said it wasn't, and was against an AIG bailout before he was for it.

"Cut and Run" McCain wasn't satisfied with ditching the debate with Obama, now we find out that he blew off an appearance with Letterman as well, claiming a need to return to 'Warshington' (although he was still in NY last night), and was quickly caught in a flat out lie when Letterman discovered him taping an interview with Katie Couric at the very time he was scheduled to be taping Letterman's show.

McCain may not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, but he's pretty good at talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Did I mention one of those critical qualities is honesty?