Handicapping

Understandably, there’s tons of reaction to John McCain’s decision to “suspend” his campaign to go back to Washington and work on the Wall Street crisis. My own feeling is that Wall Street crises should be solved on — wait for it — Wall Street, and that Washington is likely to accomplish little except to pass a massively expensive Law of Unintended Consequences.

How the pundits, professional and otherwise, reacted seems to depend entirely — surprise! — on whether they supported McCain before his big move.

Oliver Willis wonders if McCain realizes that “that there’s no ‘time out’ in the White House?” John McCormack thinks that Harry Reid is the one “playing politics with [the] economic crisis.” Andrew Sullivan accused McCain of having become “a national and international joke.” But “a shrewd move” is Richard Miniter’s take. HolyCoast is “appalled.” Dave Mataconis awards McCain “leadership points,” but worries “that McCain could be seen as over-reacting and acting impulsively.”

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza says it’s “an obvious attempt by McCain and his campaign to paint the Arizona senator as above politics.” US News & World Report calls it “a gamble.” And Newsweek says “There’s no doubt that much of Arizona senator’s motivation is political.”

My own take? Typical for McCain, it’s a gutsy move. Also typical for him, we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out before deciding if it was a smart move.