Playing sick

As usual, Michael Tomasky brings some common sense to the day's biggest news story:

This is like a man who gets caught cheating on his wife and then, with his back against the wall and with confrontation looming, goes out and intentionally wrecks the car, contriving to break a few ribs and get rushed to the hospital, all to delay the inevitable conflict and in the cynical knowledge that, in front of the doctors and until the wounds are bound, the wife will be forced to offer sympathy.

and

Obama came out and looked presidential. Presidents need to be able to handle two problems at once, he said. Now is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from us. We both have big planes. They can get us from Washington to Mississippi pretty quickly if need be. His press conference offered, in fact, a good look at how he would be as president. He seeks non-confrontation. But he slips his points in steadily and coolly. Pretty smooth performance.

I think it'll be interesting to see where McCain goes from here. Obama and the commission on presidential debates have indicated the show will go on Friday night. What's the next move?

In that light, I can sort of relate to McCain's predicament: when I was 10-years-old, I was the quarterback for a little league football team. Somehow, I had fought off serious nerves to pilot the team wins in our first five games. But then we were set to face the Richmond Hornets, a team that was also undefeated and had a rep as a gang of preteen assassins.

The morning of the game, I faked sick. I came up with all sorts of phony ailments: fever, cough, stomachache, groin pull, etc. I tried it all. And it almost worked, I think. But my father gently coaxed me to ride in the car with him to the game - once I arrived at the field, I was pretty much shamed into playing. Good thing: I ran for over 100 yards and we won in a nailbiter.

So, there's always that silver lining for McCain. Or he could check out WebMD and look up the symptoms for laryngitis.

Because, somehow, I imagine Obama will hit a lot harder than the Hornets.