MAVERICKED!

What's this? We were close to a deal for UberBailout at 4 PM going into Preznitman's photo op.

Now, three hours later the deal is dead...and guess who killed it?

Efforts to resolve differences over a $700 billion Wall Street bailout hit a major snag late Thursday, with a person close to presidential candidate John McCain saying "there is no deal"—a sentiment echoed by sources close to Democrats involved in the negotiations.

The source close to McCain told CNBC that the agreement as it has been described publicly by Congressional and Senate staffers is "dead."

I stand corrected, but I'm not surprised. Sarah Palin was a Hail Mary. But "suspending his campaign" (cough cough) was only HALF his plan. The other half is being The Maverick That Saved America From UberBailout, apparently.

Joe Sudbay, Taegan Goddard and Marc Ambinder were right eariler today and they called it. This IS an elaborate plot for McSame to vote no on the UberBailout.

Obama and the Dems are about to get MAVERICKED right out of this election unless they can stop it.

This might be the key pivot, folks.

[UPDATE] I'm watching MSNBC and they are talking about a House Republican plan that pays for the bailout not with taxpayer money, but through "removing tax and regulatory barriers" for the private sector so they can pay for this themselves.

It's brilliant. McSame will get behind this plan 100%. He can play Plan A or Plan B out of this.

[UPDATE 2] It's worse than I feared. He's going for the whole ball of crazy GOP neocon masturbation here.

A group of conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives offered a mortgage insurance plan on Thursday as an alternative to the Bush administration's $700-billion Wall Street bailout.

As Congress struggled to find agreement on modifying the massive Bush proposal to attack the housing market crisis, three members of the Republican Study Committee criticized the administration's proposal and presented their own ideas.

"We think this insurance model works... This is an alternative," Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan said at a press briefing where he distributed a one-page proposal.

He said dozens of House Republicans are involved in the group developing the alternative insurance approach.

Texas Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the study committee, said its more than 100 members "remain skeptical, fearful and unconvinced" about the administration's plan.

"The insurance model is one that appeals to us," he said.

The conservative group called for the U.S. government to offer insurance coverage for the roughly half of all mortgage-backed securities that it does not already insure.

The Treasury Department, they said, should charge premiums to holders of those securities to finance the insurance.

They also called for temporary tax cuts and regulatory relief for businesses. In addition, they said, financial institutions participating in their proposed program would have to disclose more about their mortgage asset holdings.

This is such a bad plan I don't know where to begin, it's doubling down on the already hideous problem that we made before...making even trillions more in bad bets on a falling housing market.

But McSame will jump on it. He will say it's Wall Street paying to clean up their own mess, when the TAXPAYER IS ON THE HOOK ANYWAY, because the government is providing insurance policies on worthless toxic debt paper!

This is a horrendous plan. But it's McSame's only shot for getting into the White House. He'll say "I'm making Wall Street pay for its own mess, Obama is making YOU pay for it."

He might win in a landslide if he plays this right. It's smoke and mirrors but he will sell this, the GOP will sell this, and the President will sell this, and the Dems will have no choice.

And McSame the Maverick will have saved America. It's f'cking brilliant. It's the greatest con I've ever seen, but it's f'cking brilliant.