McCain never bothered showing up for the bailout talks Saturday, but he did have a very swanky dinner with Joe Lieberman

You know how John McCain told his supporters Friday night that he was returning to Washington to join the negotiations on the bailout bill?

The McCain campaign just sent out an email to supporters that highlights his return to DC tonight to "to resume negotiations with the Administration and Congressional leaders from both parties to forge a bipartisan solution to our economic crisis."

Yeah, um, that would be a lie. McCain spent Saturday loafing around at his apartment. So much for returning to DC to focus like a laser on the bailout. ThinkProgress has more:

After declaring he’d return to Washington to help with the bailout negotiations immediately after last night’s debate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) never went to Capitol Hill today. In fact, McCain stayed largely holed up in his Arlington apartment, leaving only to go to his campaign headquarters just around the block, the New York Times reports:

Asked why Mr. McCain did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington to help with negotiations, [McCain adviser] Mr. Salter replied that “he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone.’’

Did you catch that? McCain claimed he suspended his campaign (he didn't) in order to rush back to Washington (he didn't) so that he could attend the bailout talks. Then McCain said he could do it all by phone, which means he didn't have to return to Washington at all.

Okay, stay with me here. Because, while yesterday, McCain was supposed to be working the phones, he apparently wasn't. Because, today, Think Progress reports (with video) that both McCain and his sidekick, Lindsey Graham, said you can't phone into something like this. In the true drama queen language you'd expect from Lindsey, he said, "Thank God John came back." So, if McCain wasn't on the phone, since this was something you can't phone in, and he wasn't actually at the meetings, what was he doing?

It gets better because we now know what McCain was doing last night. While key members of Congress were working at the Capitol on Saturday night, McCain went out for dinner at one of Washington's swankiest hotels with Joe Lieberman. Politico provided the details:

As his colleagues worked on the deal at the Capitol Saturday night, McCain and his wife, Cindy, dined with Sen. Joe Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, at Cafe Mozu inside Washington’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel.