UPDATE - McCain's Hail Mary Pass was Received, ACORN REMOVED From Bailout Bill

UPDATE:  Politico just confirmed that the ACORN issue is now off the table. 

After several days of rage from conservative activists regarding a provision in the bailout bill that would send some of the profits from the sale of distressed assets the goverment buys into an affordable housing trust fund, congressional negotiators have removed section 105(d) of the bailout proposal, according to aides on both side.

In response to the completely dishonest attempts by Harry Reid and the Obama campaign to credit their candidate for saving the American economy single-handedly while discrediting John McCain's pivotal role in the negotiations, I transcribed this interview which occurred Sunday morning on Fox News Election Headquarters between Eric Shawn (ES) and Chris Wallace (CW) after a preview of  Wallace's interview with Lindsay Graham and John Kerry, explaining their candidates' roles in the "Rescue Plan" (aka bailout) discussions.  Regardless of how you feel about the deal itself, it is crystal clear that no deal would have occurred without McCain intervening to foster negotiations both by returning to work in Washington and continuing to work the phones after the debate.

1.  Contrary to Democratic talking points, no deal was struck prior to McCain's intervention

ES:      Good morning, Chris
CW:     Good Morning, Eric
ES:      From your conversations with the two Senators [Graham and Kerry] and they both represent their respective Presidential candidates, who came out on top with this bailout?
CW:    Certainly McCain played a much bigger role than Obama did, and here's where McCain did play a big role.  For all the talk on Thursday that there was a deal, in fact there was no deal because the House Republicans, who are quite conservative as a caucus, were not going to sign on to the bill as it then stood and McCain was able to bring them in, to get them on board, there were some changes made in these meetings over the weekend and as a result it looks like this will pass with a lot of votes from Republicans and Democrats in both houses.  In the House, particularly, the Democrats were not going to pass the bill even though they have a majority, unless there was a big Republicans sign-in.

2.  Obama's "leadership discussion" consisted of hectoring the Cabinet Room meeting participants

ES:     You know it's interesting, in what we heard from Senator Kerry saying that Senator Obama's been on the phone dealing with this for weeks and then they had this meeting, that he handled these questions for the President when they were sitting in the Cabinet Room.  The New York Times says John McCain didn't ask one question.  So is this all, you know, spin?
CW:    Well, it is a fact that Obama talked a lot more than McCain did in the meeting in the Cabinet Room.  In fact, some people said that Obama kind of "hectored" everybody else. On the other hand though, you know, I think a lot of this stuff doesn't happen in those kinds of meetings.  It happens behind the scenes, and McCain was very involved, as I say, in getting the House Republican caucus on board and we wouldn't have a deal today if it hadn't been for that.
ES:     And bottom line, how do you think this will shape out?  The House goes back in session, the Senate, tomorrow.  What can we expect?
CW:    I think we'll probably get a bill passed.  They're going to work like crazy.  Of course they don't go into all the details when the negotiate the deal, all the top leaders, so now the staffs have to sit together and actually put this into legislative language.  It sounds like there's going to be a vote in the House first, then the Senate, and I suspect they're going to get it before the end of business on Monday. 
ES:     All right, House back in session about two hours, three hours from now [11 am Sunday, 9/28/08] and we'll be on top of it all afternoon.  Chris, good to see you as always, thank you.
CW:    Thank you so much, Eric.

3.  Politico verified McCain's instrumental role in the negotiations

In the article published Saturday night titled Obama, McCain signal support for bailout plan, Politico stated the following:

Republicans complained that the presence of the additional Democrats was making the process more difficult; by setting up shop in Boehner’s office, Paulson was able to get some breathing room after spending hours in close quarters, where at times he was hectored by some of the Senate Democrats.

Earlier in the day Saturday, Boehner had gone before the TV cameras to say that House Republicans would not agree to a bill “that bails out Wall Street at the expense of American taxpayers.”

Sources said Saturday afternoon that as many as 40 Republican senators were prepared to vote for the emerging bailout deal if bankruptcy and social spending provisions are dropped. And while McConnell was not yet ready to abandon House Republicans — or McCain — sources said his views might change if there were still no deal by Sunday evening.

For his part, McCain – fresh off his debate with Obama in Mississippi – spent Saturday calling House Republicans to test support for the rescue plan, according to one lawmaker who was contacted. In addition to President Bush and Paulson, the McCain campaign said the Arizona senator had been in touch with McConnell, Gregg, Sen. Jon Kyl, Boehner, Blunt and nine other House Republicans.

4.  House Republicans represented voter anger over the initial bailout agreement

In an article published on Sunday titled Early Anger for the Agreement, Politico stated:

The House opened Sunday with a string of one-minute tirades about the tentative agreement congressional negotiators brokered hours earlier with administration.

None of the speechmakers - from liberal Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio to conservative New Jersey Republican Scott Garrett - was expected to back the financial markets rescue plan, so their remarks are an inaccurate metric to chart support for - or opposition to - the bill.

"It does not do what the American people are asking to do, and that is protect their tax dollars," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

5.  Democrats are setting up a self-funding mechanism via ACORN by exploiting a severe financial crisis

In The Democratic Acorn Bailout, posted on Saturday, Hot Air reported:

[Senator Lindsay] Graham told Greta van Susteren that Democrats had their own priorities, and it wasn’t bailing out the financial sector:

"And this deal that’s on the table now is not a very good deal. Twenty percent of the money that should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this problem winds up in a housing organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I can’t believe we would take money away from debt retirement to put it in a housing program that doesn’t work."

With mad props to Hot Air, here is the video of Graham's interview with Greta explaining how and why they were working overtime on the bailout well ahead of their Democratic colleagues: