Uhhh! Ummm! Time Out!!!!! (?)

Now, I'm just sayin'...

Here's the scenario: 2 minutes left in the game, you're on defense and you NEED a stop to win:

1st and 10 from their 20, RB breaks off a 25 yard scamper up the gut into the secondary. 1st down.

Next play, same RB runs a counter left side for another 15. 1st down.

Now, you load up 8 men in the box to stop the run, the safety bites on the ensuing play action and the QB fires one down the sideline to a streaking receiver for another 38 yards before help arrives to knock him out of bounds at the 2. 1st and goal.

Now you're winded with your hands are on your hips, all the momentum is against you, and all the offense has to do is punch it in for the score.

What do you do?

Call a time out. Or, perhaps more accurately, flop to the ground, theatrically clutching your knee, and force an injury time out.

Which is precisely what John McCain did today with the poll numbers against him, two days before he was scheduled to debate Barack Obama in what is sure to be one of the most watched debates in history. Acceptable for football. But for a presidential election?

Obama's having none of it.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama rejected Republican Sen. John McCain’s dramatic call Wednesday to delay Friday’s presidential debate because of the economic crisis.

“This is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” Obama told reporters in Clearwater, Fla.

Obama agreed with McCain on the need for the two men to issue a joint statement of support for legislation to rescue the banking industry, but he declined McCain’s call to postpone the first debate, scheduled for Friday in Jackson Miss.

Meanwhile, Pelosi joined Obama in reminding Senator McCain you need to be able to walk and chew gum:

Barack Obama rejected the proposal -- put forward by John McCain today -- that the two presidential candidates leave the campaign trail, delay Friday's debate, and return to Washington to work on a bailout package for the economy,

"Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time," he said, "it is not necessary for us to think we can do only one thing and suspend everything else."

[snip]

"The debate should take place as scheduled," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with NPR to be broadcast this afternoon. "We have to be able to do a couple of things at once. That's what leadership requires."

Oh, but there's more!

McCain was scheduled to be on Letterman tonight, but cancelled, saying he had to rush away to work on the financial crisis. But then a funny thing happened:

Then in the middle of the taping Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride [to the airport]?"

Earlier in the show, Dave kept saying, "You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?"

"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!"

And as a further demonstration of McCain's commitment to the emergency, just look at what else he did this morning:

The McCain campaign's new urgency about the financial crisis didn't entirely clear his schedule this morning.

My colleague Amie Parnes reports that he made it to his scheduled morning meeting with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, a Clinton backer who recently came out in support of him.

All while Obama was waiting by the phone for a returned call.

I'm just sayin'...