The American Pundit

He refuses to hold joint townhalls with John McCain across the country, but he’s just fine holding a one-sided televised event version.

Barack Obama is committed to hosting a public, televised event Friday night in Mississippi even if John McCain does not show up, an official close to the Obama campaign tells the Huffington Post.

In McCain’s absence, the Senator is willing to make the scheduled debate a townhall meeting, a one-on-one interview with NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer, or the combination of the two, the official said.

A spokesman for Obama says he believes McCain will show up for the debate.

“I actually think he’s going to come to the debate,” the adviser, Robert Gibbs, told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

And echoing a talking point that Senator Obama used in his press conference on Thursday, Mr. Gibbs added: “I think he will decide that a president is capable of doing more than one thing at a time.”

The last line is moronic. According to Democrats at least, this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. On 9/11, I wanted the president only concentrating on handling that situation. During Katrina, the president should’ve only been concentrating on handling that situation. When the economy is on the verge of collapse, the president should be concentrating on that — not furthering his political ambitions.