"Democrat Kanjorski: Lawmakers have made 'tremendous progress'".

"Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who has led negotiations with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on the package, said that given the progress of the talks, the White House meeting was a distraction.

“We’re going to have to interrupt a negotiating session tomorrow between the Democrats and Republicans on a bill where I think we are getting pretty close, and troop down to the White House for their photo op,” said Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman. “I wish they’d checked with us.”

"All of sudden, now that we are on the verge of making a deal, John McCain here drops himself in to help us make a deal, Frank said.

"He expressed fear that McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona who has spent much of the year away from the Capitol campaigning, could end up slowing down work on the bill.

"The Massachusetts Democrat noted that a meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday will be interrupted for a "photo op" at the White House with congressional Democrats and Republicans as well as Bush.

"We're trying to rescue the economy, not the McCain campaign," Frank said."

"The issue of government controls on compensation for executives of corporations that participate in the bailout had ignited a firestorm, with Americans complaining to their representatives in Congress that these corporate chiefs shouldn't be rewarded for failure.

"On the executive compensation thing, it went to the core of their (the Bush administration's) being," said Frank. "It was like asking the chief rabbi of Jerusalem to eat bacon on Yom Kippur. It was the most unthinkable thing they could think of."