Washington  - The financial emergency gripping the country made for odd bedfellows on Thursday as US President George W Bush brought together the two men who hope to replace him in January - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.

The two senators joined congressional leaders as Republicans and Democrats appeared to be on the verge of hashing out the last details for an urgent and unprecedented 700-billion-dollar bailout of Wall Street.

McCain and Obama interrupted their campaigns for the meeting after McCain suggested the idea to Bush on Wednesday - a move that has been applauded by Republicans but dismissed as political grandstanding by Democrats.

"We're in a serious economic crisis if we don't pass this legislation," Bush said as the meeting began. "All of us around this table take this issue very seriously."

Bush said the meeting was called "to move the process forward" and that he hoped "we can reach agreement very shortly" on a bipartisan basis.

McCain and Obama sat on the same side of the Cabinet table as Bush, but on the far and opposite ends, with congressional leaders separating them from the president.

The meeting appeared to be a historic first for the middle of a presidential campaign.

Earlier Thursday, legislators from both parties from the special finance committees that have spent hours this week being briefed on the plan said bipartisan agreement had been reached on the principles of the plan.

But later, the office of House Minority Leader John Boehner said the Republican leadership had not signed off on anything. An official in his office said announcement of any agreement would likely "wait until after the meeting with the president," the official said.

On Wednesday, McCain said he would interrupt his campaign to come to Washington because he did not believe the Bush administration's 700-billion-dollar proposal had a consensus of support. McCain has been trying to distance himself from the ever-more-unpopular Bush during his bid for the presidency.

Before the White House meeting, spokeswoman Dana Perino said that credit markets had tightened up again overnight, and that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was "extremely concerned" about the situation.

"It underscores the importance of moving quickly," she said.

She said that members of Congress had been working well together to reach a consensus, and had come to a place where "we're going to try and drive that to a conclusion today."

She said that if McCain thought the deal was "almost dead," perhaps he had information that she did not have.

Perino dismissed the suggestion that Bush had made an overtly political overture by accepting McCain's suggestion that Bush call Thursday's meeting, so that if a deal comes out of the meeting, it would appear to be a victory for McCain.

"We don't think that this is a political event, we're not trying to make it a political event," Perino said. "We want this to be a bipartisan initiative."

The idea was to "get the politics out of it and bring everybody together at the same time, at the same table" to help us "get this resolved today," she said. (dpa)