President Bush schedules international economic summit, with...Barack Obama? John McCain?

And soon, the power-sharing begins.

When President Bush sits down next month with the leaders of the major developed and developing nations to figure out what went wrong with the global economy and hash out a coordinated response, save a seat for: President-elect Barack Obama? President-elect John McCain?

The president-in-waiting has been invited to the Nov. 15 summit of the Group of 20, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said this morning. Presumably, no RSVPs have been returned.

(She didn't note that Obama had called on Sept. 19 for such a meeting. She didn't have to. He pointed it out himself after a meeting with economic advisors in Richmond, Va.)

Certainly, there will be all the talk between election day and the inauguration on Jan. 20 of "just one president at a time," but Perino said: "We will look for his input after the election."

But how much authority will the president bring to the table? That's a trickier question for the White House.

Here's Perino's answer:

I think all of the leaders have agreed that we wanted to have this summit.  They wanted the president to be able to host it, and he's excited to be able to do so.  We will seek the input of the president-elect.  But we didn't want the financial crisis to happen at all and -- but now that it's happened, we can't control the timing of it.  And we think it's important not to wait to have this meeting.

In other words, the crisis is now, the president is the president, and he'll soldier ahead until he's no longer the president.

One thing the participants can expect to hear from the president (after all, he's been saying it for years): This is not the time to retreat on international trade; rather, the global economy and individual countries will benefit from liberalized trade rules.

One thing you are not likely to hear coming out of the meeting: specific details of a new course to solve the problem.

That, Perino said, would be more likely from another summit -- and, yes, George W. Bush is thinking of attending. As president. It would be that soon.

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press