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ALL THE WORLD’S A GAME….Well, it appears that John McCain has succeeded in his plan to torpedo the bailout negotiations for a while so that he can swoop in and pretend to be their savior tomorrow. On CNN, Stephen Hayes says he’ll get away with it because most people don’t pay much attention to politics. “All they’ll see is that that McCain suspended his campaign, flew to Washington, banged a few heads, and then we got an agreement. And that’s a win for him.” Sadly, he might be right.

There really seems to be no end to McCain’s preening self-regard and stunt-of-the-week campaigning strategy these days, nor any end to his lack of regard for caring about what’s actually best for the country. If this stuff were a game with no real-world consequences, I’d admire his gamesmanship. Since it’s not, I’m just disgusted.

But if it’s bread and circuses we’re going to get, I might as well get the real thing: USC vs. Oregon State in Corvallis tonight. So that’s where I’ll be for the rest of the evening: watching a game that’s supposed to be a game. I’ll be back in a few hours.

UPDATE: Well, that was a bummer. Sort of like the rest of the week.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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