Although we were able to report yesterday that the two sides had almost reached an agreement on the so-called bailout plan, I’m afraid that the talks have imploded in the hours afterwards.

The talks began as a serious attempt to deal with the crisis but devolved into ‘bickering, begging and a roiling battle between parties,’ as CNN put it.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass accused House Republicans of not being willing to negotiate. Senator John McCain, meanwhile, said that these Republicans have “legit concerns. Some of those have already been satisfied, such as accountability and oversight board and CEO executive pay. Members are aware of the crisis situation that we are in.”

However, McCain said, “They do have concerns, which I think when you’re talking about $700 billion to a trillion dollars, that need to be addressed.”

Barack Obama, meanwhile, had nothing useful to say expect for that he hopes that all sides will come together. He also criticized McCain: “One of the concerns I’ve had over the last several days is that when you start injecting presidential politics into delicate negotiations,” he said, “then you can actually create more problems rather than less.”

Although a nice talking point, Obama seems to forget that McCain was probably asked by Paulson to return to Washington in order to convince House Republicans to support the bill. According to CBS’ Bob Schieffer, House Republicans would certainly oppose the plan if McCain wouldn’t give them political cover.

House Republicans are afraid to support it. Most of their constituents oppose the bailout plan. As such, they will need strong arguments to support it.

Democrats, meanwhile, have said they are not ready to support the bill if a majority of Republicans do not support it. This because Democrats want to portray it as “George Bush’s bill,” and not theirs.

In other words, there are – to a very large degree – politics involved. On both sides.