"Donate it to the Smithsonian"

After the New York Times reported that Barack Obama's presidential transition team chief wrote a draft inaugural address this summer for Obama to use, John McCain today said it will become an unused relic.

"An awful lot of voters are still undecided, but he's decided for them, that, well, why wait. it's time to move forward with his first inaugural address," Mr. McCain told several thousand people in Mesilla, N.M.

"I have a request for my opponent: I want him to save that manuscript of his inaugural address and donate it to the Smithsonian, so they can put it right next to the Chicago paper that says 'Dewey Defeats Truman.'"

According to the Times, John Podesta, the transition chief, "has been mapping out the transition so systematically that he has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama, which he published this summer in a book called 'The Power of Progress.'"

The Obama campaign says the mock inaugural address was written before Mr. Obama was officially the nominee and was written for whichever Democrat won the nomination.

— Stephen Dinan, national political correspondent, The Washington Times