Shocked That Politics Is Going On Here!!!!!!

Posted: Thursday, September 25, 2008 12:44 PM by Mark Murray

From NBC's John Yang
There was a prolonged discussion in White House Press Secretary Dana Perino's daily briefing about the genesis of today's White House meeting -- whether it's politically motivated and whether the deal is as dead as McCain says it is.

Perino acknowledged that the idea of the meeting came from McCain in his phone call to President Bush yesterday. "The President took a little time to think about that," Perino said, and staff called Barack Obama's campaign to see if he'd be available to fly to Washington. Told that Obama would be open to an invitation, Mr. Bush called the senator to ask him to the meeting.

The purpose of the meeting, Perino said, is to get everyone in the same room, on the same page and hash out the legislation. Isn't that what they're doing on the Hill? Well, yes, Perino acknowledged, but this will include the President. And what will he bring to the meeting? She couldn't say.

The greatest semantic pretzel was over Perino's statements that "we have a framework that we can try to close on" and that "we are driving to a conclusion" -- versus McCain's contention that the deal is dead. Perino wouldn't back away from her contention that a deal is close (though not imminent) and finally acknowledged that she didn't know where McCain was getting his information.

Is this all politics -- McCain declaring the deal dead so he can emerge from a White House meeting to declare that his insistence that the leaders and nominees gather in the Cabinet Room saved the day?

Perino was shocked -- SHOCKED! -- at the suggestion of politics. "We don't think this is a political event, we're not trying to make this a political event," she said.

All that was missing was the croupier handing Capt. Renault his winnings.