Don't hurt Baby Mac's feelings, now.

Analysis of the Presidential Drinking Game — er, Debate

I received an email the other day that stated the following:

“If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left. With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000.

With AIG, you would have less than $15 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all of the beer, then turned in the cans for aluminum recycling, you would have $214 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.”

The most shocking moment of Friday’s presidential debate wasn’t when Barack Obama mocked John McCain for refusing diplomatic contact with Spain or even when the candidates compared bracelets they had received on the campaign trail. For the most part, the candidates reiterated their well-known positions on Iraq, Afghanistan and taxes without much error. Instead, the most shocking part of Friday’s debate was how little the candidates talked about the massive economic bailout plan that fell apart on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 event until Washington had taken action to address the 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 return to Washington to continue working on the financial crisis.

Insight on the debate season and the politics of presidential elections from The Sun's Associate Editor.

WASHINGTON (AP) — John McCain and Barack Obama say presidential politics should have no role in the government's efforts to save the crippled financial system. Yet, each is playing his own politics toward the same goals — showing leadership during crisis, getting credit for any solutions, and, ultimately, winning the presidency.

The latest example: a debate over whether the candidates should debate Friday.

McCain called for his Democratic rival to agree to a postponement until Congress agrees on a $700 billion government plan to rescue banks from enormous debt, saying, "We are running out of time."

Obama rebuffed his GOP rival, saying the next president needs to "deal with more than one thing at once."