While I was away, Annette Taddeo endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. (Joe Garcia had endorsed it previously.) It's not a perfect plan, but nothing to do with Iraq is perfect, and this is the basis for as good a solution as we're likely to get.
Also while I was away, Joe Garcia's campaign started a blog they're calling A Cup of Joe. There's an Atom RSS feed. Looks good.
Annette Taddeo joins an elite group of insurgent Democratic candidates endorsed by Blue America: Crooks and Liars: Blue America Welcomes Annette Taddeo.
PS. Live chat with Annette Taddeo today from 2-4pm (East Coast time) at Firedoglake
We made it back.
Delta put us in business class for the transatlantic portion of the journey, which was something. They also gave us a voucher to sit in the Air France Lounge while waiting for the flight, but when we got there the AF lady said it was only good for one person, so that rubbed a bit more salt in the wound and we went back out to the terminal.
We had plenty of time to sit in the terminal as our flight left about an hour and half late.
Fortunately, we had a long connection, so we still landed with plenty of time to make it.
Unfortunately, our second flight left about an hour late too, so it was even longer.
The bags were almost the last ones out, leading to some gallows humor for a while, but they made it.
We got home at about 11pm, after a door-to-door journey of just under 33 44 hours [posting while jetlagged I got the sign wrong on the time zone correction of 5 hours….]. Our neighbor was outside his house, welcomed us back, and said he'd hidden the newspapers (which restarted on the day we had planned to be home) for us, which was very nice of him. I'd been worried about the burglar invitation card. We have nice neighbors.
And he told me what Delta stands for: “Don't Expect to Leave The Airport.”
Although superficially this was a better week than last week's disaster, since McCain's attack ads shaped a good bit of the campaign narrative, I'd argue that in retrospect this week may turn out to be the one that the McCain campaign jumped the shark. The negative ads were so untrue and undignified that even the national press started to notice. Which means that if this continues McCain is going to have trouble with his base.
Our time-line casts some doubt on a key McCain campaign claim: That he's been a broad critic of Bush's war policies for many years now.
It also finds multiple inconsistencies in his public statements on the war.
The claim that McCain has been a critic of Bush's war policies in general is central to his candidacy. In July, he said: “I think you know that I opposed the failed strategy of the Bush administration.”
Our timeline does support some of McCain's argument. It's true that as early as August of 2003, after he'd visited Iraq, he started saying that there weren't enough American troops in Iraq. At the time, this was consensus opinion among Democratic members of Congress and foreign policy hands. When McCain claims credit for having called for more troops early on, he's right.
Nonetheless, from the very beginning, all the way up to the present, McCain has repeatedly voiced strong support for Bush's approach in general, in ways that are at odds with his later claims of prescience.
See also TPM Video, The Big Picture
What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.
Sen. John McCain, American war hero and admired political maverick, as well as presumed Republican nominee for president, had a message for Elisabeth Bumiller, the venerated New York Times reporter, along with the rest of the media assigned to travel with him the week of July 20.
“What do you want, you little jerks?” McCain said to Bumiller and those behind her, as the press surged forward on the “Straight Talk” Boeing 737 on July 21.
Note: this week's summary cuts off a bit earlier than usual due to my being in the wrong time zone…
Jotwell Blenderlaw