Washington - AP Photo

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama’s plane landed at National Airport just before 4pm, and the Senator was all business — quickly deplaned without so much as a wave.

His motorcade whisked him away to his Senate office in the Hart building. Arriving at his office, the Illinois Senator ignored a question about how he might work to scare up more votes for the economic rescue plan being taken up by the body tonight.

After spending some time in his office, Obama took the congressional subway to the Capitol building, where he spoke on the Senate floor in favor of the bill for about 15 minutes - sticking mostly to the points he’s been making on the stump for the last few days. 17 Democratic Senators took in the remarks in the gallery, while 2 Republicans — Jim DeMint and Jeff Sessions — listened in as well.

Obama then spent some down time at Washington’s Mayflower hotel before arriving back at the Capitol at 8:20pm for the vote on the bill - which passed overwhelmingly, 74-25.

The Illinois Senator greeted several of his Democratic colleagues, as well as McCain supporter Lindsey Graham and the Republican nominee himself. Obama approached McCain, who was talking to two other GOP senators at the time.

Obama reached his hand to McCain, and they had the briefest of handshakes before Obama returned to the left side of the aisle.

When it came time to vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid called for the Senators to vote from their desks; Obama voiced his “aye” vote with barely a glance at the dais.

Obama then left for the airport, flying to Grand Rapids for an event tomorrow morning.

Barack Obama flew back to Washington, DC, this morning to vote on the GI Bill authored by Virginia Senator Jim Webb - a bill which Mr. Obama references often on the campaign trail.

On the Senate floor this morning, Senator Obama praised his potential fall rival as a war hero before attacking Senator McCain’s position on the bill. “I can’t understand why he would line up behind the President in opposition to this GI Bill. I can’t believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing, but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them,” Obama said.

The White House is against the bill, as is John McCain because of its $52 billion price tag and because the Department of Defense believes it will negatively affect retention rates.

Senator McCain, who was not on hand for the morning vote, responded to Obama with a brutal statement. “It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of…Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America’s veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim,” the statement read.

McCain along with Senators Graham and Burr have introduced alternative legislation “that would provide veterans with a substantial increase in educational benefits,” which is less money than proposed in the Webb bill, which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate 75-22.

The Arizona senator acknowledged Webb’s own service to the country and his affection for the troops and then didn’t mince words as he chided Obama. “I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.”

The scolding continued as McCain accused Obama of playing politics with the issue. “Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election.”

The Obama campaign is expected to respond with a statement of their own. Read the full McCain statement below the jump.

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Barack Obama cancelled a town hall meeting outside of Pennsylvania today to return to the U.S. Senate to vote. It is the first time the senator has come back to the nation’s capitol since February 12th, when he voted on cloture on FISA. Today the majority leader requested the presence of both Obama and Senator Clinton to be present for a series of budget votes, including a measure that would ban congressional earmarks for one year - something that Obama and the other two candidates have said they will support, although it’s expected the measure will not have the needed votes to pass.

On the votes, Obama said, “We now have another effort to extend the Bush tax cuts, another effort to eliminate and drastically reduce the estate tax. These are all steps that John McCain rightly said were irresponsible when they first came up. That certainly were unprecedented at a time of war. He made a decision to reverse himself on that. That was how I guess you got your ticket punched to be the Republican nominee. But he was right then and he is wrong now. The notion that we would pile up more mounds of debt, literally borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for tax breaks for people who don’t need them and weren’t even asking for them I think is unfortunate. And I think it’s an example of the kinds of flawed fiscal policies that have gotten us in such a hole under this administration and a Republican Congress.”

The last time he and Senator Hillary Clinton were in the capitol together for the State of the Union, when there was much ado about Obama snubbing Clinton on the floor of the House of Representatives.

What can we expect this time? In a press gaggle on his flight from Chicago to Dulles Airport this morning, Obama laughed. “You know, I’m sure we will both be effusive and make sure that we shake hands.” When asked if there was anything they might discuss, Obama didn’t exactly answer, but offered, “I’m sure that both she and I are probably glad that we can step back from the one primary a week pace and actually think a little bit, which is something that has been hard to do. It’s been so phrenetic. Now’s a good time to be able to step back and you know, think about where we’ve been and I would say make mid-course adjustments, but it’s not mid-course,” he said with another laugh.

 The Clinton campaign usually picks a moment out of each debate to harp on for a day or two after; today, they’ve chosen her attack on his service in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — where he has yet to call a single oversight hearing on the Subcommittee for European Affairs that he chairs. That committee oversees NATO, which means Obama has some power over the war in Afghanistan that employs mainly NATO troops.

In a memo, the Clinton campaign says “Given the opportunity to take the reins of leadership and shape two critical areas of U.S. foreign policy — Afghanistan and our alliances in Europe — Senator Obama has done next to nothing.”

“But by his own admission, he was too busy running for President to conduct a single substantive hearing of the committee he chairs”

Check out the campaign-provided video below — including a line from Obama’s ‘04 Senate Campaign where he argued that if he were to run for higher office he would have have to start immediately upon entering the Senate, and that he wasn’t “one of those people,” — and read the full Clinton memo after the jump.

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