NOW HOW ARE THEY GOING TO KEEP PALIN FROM HAVING TO DEBATE?

I was out on a limb arguing that McCain would remain a holdout and not debate, but I guess my crystal ball is cloudy:

Senator John McCain's campaign said Friday morning that he will attend tonight's debate with Senator Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi, reversing his earlier call to postpone the debate so he could participate in the Congressional negotiations over the $700 billion bailout plan for financial firms.

I assume this means the House Republicans were dead serious about their alternative plan, and McCain found he couldn't just use it to screw up the earlier compromise, then abandon it to look like a hero today.

Also, ducking the debate was polling very, very poorly.

This also means that the McCain campaign isn't going to be able to shift the debate schedule and postpone the VP debate, as the McCainiacs were hoping.

I assume they now realize that they shouldn't try to weasel their way out of that debate either. But I bet they'd still like to find a way. Palin does have a newborn, and a pregnant daughter, and a son in the military serving in Iraq, and two other kids, and an outdoorsman husband who works in the oil business, and older parents ... lotta opportunities there for sudden emergencies, no? Hell, maybe Team McCain will announce that October 7 is the only time the Troopergate investigators can question her -- not the real Troopergate investigators, but the ones running the separate probe who can all be fired at her discretion.

Seems like a stretch. But I bet it's being discussed in McCainland.