If two teams in a competition follow different rules, I’m not sure that anyone can win. Even if there can somehow be a victor, it is bound to be a messy, maddening affair.

This is what is happening with twenty-odd days to go before the presidential election. The McCain campaign seems to have created one set of rules for John McCain, and another for Barack Obama. Here’s how.

McCain Rule #1: You are responsible and may be implicated for every action ever taken by anyone you have ever served on a board or committee with

The McCain campaign announced their new rules with one name: Ayers.

As messenger, Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin has delivered dozens of speeches in which she uses Bill Ayers to raise questions not only about Barack Obama’s motives, but about who the democratic nominee for president even is.

The argument from McCain and Palin goes as follows: Barack Obama and Bill Ayers served on the same board for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Also, Ayers, thirty years after ceasing his despicable ways, and many years into his post as a professor at a respected university, hosted a fundraising meeting for Obama toward the beginning of Obama’s political career. Thus, according to the McCain-Palin logic, Obama is “palling around with domestic terrorists” and can’t be trusted.

The major logical flaw here is this: The Annenberg Challenge was a non-profit organization whose goal was to promote public school reform in Chicago. Its parent organization was founded by a woman named Leonore Annenberg. Leonore Annenberg is a vocal supporter of Senator John McCain.

So, just to make the irony and the connection clear: a prominent endorser of Senator McCain created the education foundation that had Barack Obama and Bill Ayers (as well as a number of Republicans) on one of its boards. Were the number of Republicans on that board, and is Leonore Annenberg herself, “palling around” with Bill Ayers, too? Or is Barack Obama the only one who is guilty by association?

There’s also the very troubling issue of a few of John McCain’s past associations. There’s McCain’s “old friend” Gordon Libby, a felon who spend years in federal prison for his part in Watergate. There’s McCain’s associate Ralph Reed, a key figure in the Abrahmoff scandal. There’s McCain’s associate Carl Lindner, Jr., a man who gave approximately $1.7 million dollars to a paramilitary group that is now designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. By McCain’s Rule #1, we should question and doubt John McCain for each of these shady associations. Because he knows and has worked with these people, he should be held responsible for their actions.

Doesn’t John McCain see that, if a candidate is not only judged by but inextricably linked to anyone who has ever hosted a campaign event or provided major political support for him, then that leaves McCain himself linked to a convicted felon, a figure in one of the highest-profile political scandals of the decade, and a supporter of terrorism?

McCain Rule #2, as recently adopted by his staunch supporters: If anyone you have ever associated with has unsavory, despicable characteristics, then you yourself share these unsavory despicable characteristics

McCain’s Rule #2 has been applied most liberally to Obama’s associations with Ayers and his former pastor Jeremiah Wright. To be clear, Ayers’ stupid, unpatriotic actions should be denounced; this is obvious, and Obama has said so on a number of occasions. Similarly, Jeremiah Wright should be called a fool for his anti-American rants and offensive, hyperbolic rhetoric. Again, Obama has fully separated himself from Wright, and from every anti-American comment this man ever made (even those he made when Obama wasn’t even in the congregation).

Yet this rule requires us to further abandon reason, and believe not only that Obama is guilty by association, but that he actually shares the same characteristics and opinions as any unsavory person he has ever been associated with. McCain’s Rule #2, in spite of being illogical and unfair, has clearly been embraced by some of his supporters, as evidenced by the shouts of “treason!” and “terrorist!” after Barack Obama’s name is mentioned at McCain and Palin rallies.

Did Sarah Palin need to renounce the pastor who made absurd accusations about an Alaskan woman and warned congregants about the dangers of witchcraft, while Palin herself was not only in attendance at the church, but called up on stage as a participant? Would John McCain assert that, because Sarah Palin sat in church and listened to this man, she herself must share his opinions?

We can also go back to McCain’s friend (McCain has called him that) Gordon Liddy. Liddy is most well-known for spending four years in prison for his involvement in the Watergate scandal, but his less-reported behavior is arguably the most troubling.

McCain’s friend Gordon Liddy has asserted that listening to recordings of Hitler’s speeches made him feel “a strength inside [he] had never known before.” Liddy proposed kidnapping anti-war activists during the 1972 Republican National Convention. His documented advice to Branch Dividian cult members about how to fight the law enforcement officers trying to stop them in Waco was: “Give them a firefight. Just remember, they’re wearing flak jackets and you’re better off shooting for the head.” Shooting for the head of members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms who were trying to protect innocent Americans. That certainly constitutes promoting violence against the government.

Has McCain renounced this Gordon Liddy for encouraging violence against the government, for his participation in Watergate, for his idolization of Adolf Hitler, or for his proposal to kidnap Americans exercising their right to free speech? He has not. In fact, McCain has called Liddy “an old friend,” and said to Liddy on his radio show recently, “I’m proud of you.” McCain has accepted $1000 in campaign donations from Gordon Liddy this year alone.

That should be bad enough, but McCain Rule #2 leads even further. McCain has applied this rule to Obama on a regular basis, so let’s see what happens if we apply it to McCain.

By McCain’s own rule, McCain not only “pals around with” convicted felons who in their past have plotted and incited violence against the U.S. government, McCain himself has plotted and incited violence against the U.S. government. By McCain’s own rule, because one of his associates wanted to shoot government officials in the head, so too does John McCain want to shoot government officials in the head. By McCain’s own rule, because he knows Liddy, McCain must sympathize with every past or present bad deed done by Liddy, and thus McCain must also draw strength from Adolf Hitler and advocate the kidnapping of dissenters. Treason! Terrorist!

Does the absurdity and unfairness of this argument make your skin crawl? It should.

McCain Rule #3: This rule does not apply to John McCain or Sarah Palin

Well, shoot. Never mind, then. Silly me, thinking that John McCain’s own rules should apply not only to his opponent, but to him as well.

I am the last person who will say that we shouldn’t ask questions of each other and of our leaders. We have every right to seek information and to hold our candidates accountable, and to keep pressing at those gnawing questions until we are satisfied. That is one of our responsibilities as voters.

Yet an equally important responsibility is to be fair enough to ask those questions of both sides, and to accept that some questions may not lead to the exact answer we were hoping for or that will help us make our case. I don’t maintain that every question Americans have asked about Barack Obama has led to answers that cast him in an ideal light. But for the sake of fairness and honesty, we should acknowledge that the same is true of many of the questions Americans have asked about John McCain.

In a divided and frustrated country during what is by all accounts a difficult era, I bet most of us can all still agree on a few things. Like when we set rules, the rules should count for all players in the game. When we set standards, it is only right to apply those standards to everyone equally, and to give honest due to the truth we find, whether is applies to friend or foe.

It may sound quaint, but I think these ideas go all the way back to pre-school for me. It was there that I learned a pledge–one we made every day, to our country, and to each other. That pledge is about the most fundamental elements of America, like one nation, indivisibility, and liberty. It ends with an idea that is as important now as it has ever been: justice.

Justice for all.

The most common refrain I’ve heard lately from those who oppose the economic rescue plan is that “they got themselves into it, they can get themselves out of it” (to loosely quote a dear friend of mine).

It may be true for many people that “they,” others, created the mess. But, like it or not, every single one of us is now in the muck.

If “they” don’t get bailed out, neither do we. If “they” don’t get government help, people like me–who have never taken on a mortgage, do not have a car loan, did not make poor investments, and have “good debt” from student loans they have paid in full, on time, every month for years–will likely be affected just as much as the people who made bad, reckless choices.

Unfortunately, you can’t split the U.S. economy into two sectors: one for those who have been financially responsible and therefore shouldn’t have to pay for others’ mistakes, and one for those who were irresponsible and therefore deserve to suffer their particular consequences. There is one U.S. economy and it is in the middle of an implosion that, if not remedied, will certainly rival the Great Depression. And during the Great Depression, those who contributed to the economy’s crash and those who had never even been to a bank stood side by side in the bread lines. For years.

Because the government officials who developed the rescue plan have done such a poor job properly explaining it to the American people, the media seem to have taken up the cause. Thus we have the wonderfully educational video below, from the Today Show and CNBC’s Erin Burnett, my favorite economic tutor.

The first two-and-a-half minutes provide the simple version of some of the most indisputable, inescapable tenets of marco- and microeconomics. And no matter how loudly and how often you proclaim your innocence in this matter, your justified frustration at this mess, and your right to exemption from it, well…the tenets just won’t care.

This Monday, two hundred and twenty-eight of the men and women we elected to represent our interests and govern in good conscience proved themselves wholly undeserving of our trust. Make no mistake: Monday, the day that the U.S. House of Representatives refused to pass an economic rescue bill, is a day that all of us will live to regret.

It is not a coincidence or a conspiracy that the Secretary of the Treasury, the leader of the Federal Reserve, the President, the Democratic nominee for president, the Republican nominee for president, and every reputable analyst who covers the financial markets has insisted that, however distasteful a bailout may be, it is absolutely necessary.

When ignorance meets politics

What many Americans seem not to understand is that this “bailout” isn’t designed to save stock brokers and CEOs. This bailout is designed to save the entire U.S. economy. Bailout or not, Wall Street is suffering and will continue to suffer for a long time. For every “golden parachute” we hear about, there are hundreds of mid-level financial employees who have lost their jobs, their retirement funds, and their life savings.

Further, “bailout” is a misnomer. The rescue bill was a very sophisticated version of any generic investment plan: buy low, sell high. The American people were going to buy into tanking mortgages and securities and, by many accounts, make a profit as the economy righted itself and the value of our investment began to rise again. We, through the government, would eventually sell our shares back, and all those billions of dollars would be back in government coffers. The American people would stand to gain a great deal from that surplus through tax breaks, infrastructure, and social programs.

Sadly, it appears that we will never get to see this payoff. Instead, we’ll see what happens when our elected leaders place the well-being of their political careers above the well-being of every person they represent.

They plan to win, right before we all lose

As noted in the Washington Post: “It’s no coincidence then that of the 205 Members who voted in support of the bill today, there are only two — Reps. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) and Jon Porter (R-Nev.) — who find themselves in difficult reelection races this fall. The list of the 228 “nays” reads like a virtual target list for the two parties.”

Virtually every politician whose seat isn’t hotly contested in an upcoming election voted in favor of the economic rescue bill. Could it be that, free from the shackles of political strategizing and vote-seeking, these representatives deferred to the economic experts and made the right, if unpopular, decision in casting their “yeas”?

Then there are the “nays.” Two hundred and twenty-eight of them, to be exact; the majority of them face tough battles for re-election and need all the votes they can get. Surely they had access to the same information and warnings as those with secure seats who voted for the bill. Yet they took positions that seemed to disregard information and ignore warnings.

The fact that the explanation for this discrepancy is easy to pinpoint makes it no less infuriating. The variable here is constituent opinion.

Though it is self-evident that the average American has, at the very best, a weak grasp of the economic solution devised by financial experts with decades of experience, this didn’t stop them from forming opinions on the matter. Most Americans strongly and vocally opposed the rescue plan, though the fervency of their opinions vastly outweighed the understanding behind them. (Of course, I don’t claim a perfectly clear understanding of the rescue plan either, but that’s why I defer to the consensus of dozens of experts on the matter.)

As these under-informed, angry constituents made their opinions known, many representatives saw the dark clouds of potential political defeat on the horizon. For over two hundred of our so-called leaders, this overshadowed all other considerations. Though the collapse of the national economy looms on that same horizon, far larger than any other issue, these people trained their binoculars on one thing only: political self-interest.

With this, we all lose. As Americans start to see the repercussions of our leaders’ choice of popularity over responsibility, we will most certainly find ourselves far angrier–and far less financially secure–than we were before the bill was put on the House floor.

A very large glass house

Every American who has taken on more than he or she could afford in a home loan, car loan, or personal loan is partly responsible for this. Every politician who supported reckless deregulation, or did not sound the alarm bell for better oversight, is partly responsible for this. Every man and woman on Wall Street who proceeded with abandon in taking on too much risk, and every company who insured those risks, is partly responsible for this.

Yet, Monday, we had one last chance. After years of collective carelessness and greed, both on Wall Street and Main Street, we had a chance to get out before things got really, really bad. The reality is, this was America’s golden parachute. But when it came time for our leaders to do exactly what they have been elected to do–lead us–more than half of them failed.

Shame on us, and shame on them.

See whose side your representatives are on:

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The latest breaking news is that congressional negotiations of the financial bailout have come to a halt. Congressman Barney Frank announced to the press this evening that Republican representatives refused to continue the process of reaching an agreement on the bailout, asserting that they need additional time to devise a more acceptable plan.

Based on today’s timeline, it would seem that this deterioration is closely linked to Senator John McCain’s involvement in the crisis. Prior to the Republican nominee’s arrival in Washington, most indications showed that Congress was likely to come to an agreement by the week’s (if not the day’s) end.

As the day wore on, however, John McCain became increasingly involved in the congressional process. He proposed the idea of introducing a significantly altered or potentially new plan to solve the financial crisis. Accusations of political partisanship flew from one side of the aisle to the other. Republicans claimed that Democrats were going to refuse to support the bailout; Democrats said the same of Republicans.

Toying with a great American virtue

Americans have an impressive history (recent history, at least) of unity during times of extreme crisis. When our future is tangibly on the line, when tall buildings or centuries-old institutions are collapsing, our collective gut reaction is to face a challenge together, as one group of dynamic, resilient, spirited Americans. In times of extreme crisis, politics play second fiddle to old fashioned American problem-solving. This is one of our great strengths.

The snowballing economic problems we face most certainly qualify as an extreme crisis. Hence we found ourselves, this morning, relieved that politics were not going to get in the way. We were met with the heartening news that our leaders were brokering an agreement that would soon pass Congress.

Enter Politics

As the day wore on, though, speculation and analysis triggered by Senator McCain’s actions began to dominate the news cycle. Quickly, reports about the financial crisis were inextricable from news about political maneuverings. In introducing himself into the process, McCain reintroduced politics into a process that, previously, was largely and necessarily de-politicized

Thus we find ourselves tonight, clicking on the “Economy” page of our favorite news site and reading about the campaigns. We click on the “Election ‘08″ page and find that the top story is about the financial crisis. The two are one.

And in a more dire example of the same effect, politics weaseled their way into the greatest financial collapse this country has seen in nearly eighty years. We find ourselves absorbing the latest news with disbelief, dread.

The deal fell apart?

They want more time? Aren’t most experts saying we don’t have any more time?

What now? What next?

Read the full story here