But where did “NAFTA in Colombia” rank? Why would he have gone at all? I recall the controversy over the trip before he even left, in the form of why is he going there when so many domestic issues are front-burner right here at home. By the way, note that when the ads begin to crow, your “fighting FARC terrorists in Colombia” might well be generalized to “fighting terrorists”.
Maybe he felt a personal interest, in light of his own experience as a prisoner.
Of course, what would really be gutsy is a trip to Gitmo to ask some hard questions of the guys running it.
But now he’s in favor of torture, even though he was against it before.
He’s made free trade an issue of his campaign, and support for NAFTA a centerpiece of that. There was a recent vote in Congress to kill the free trade deal with Colombia, and the trip there was part of a three nation swing (Canada, Mexico and Colombia) to tie those together. That’s an awful lot of trouble to go thru for a few lines of print about the hostages-- especially since there was no guarantee the mission would be successful. It’s not like he just popped over to Ohio for a photo op-- Colombia isn’t exactly right next door.
Well, of course he’s going to have “fighting terrorism” ads-- FARC or no FARC.
Maybe we need an “Is McCain FARCed yet?” thread. 
Yeah, except that the trip was ostensibly about NAFTA, and not the hostages.
That would have been extremely impressive.
That made me laugh. I should apologize to you for a prior affront, and I do so now.
Oh. Then his presence is just a coincidence. Glad we cleared THAT up.
No worries. I don’t take any of this stuff personally. I try not to make it personal, either, although that is not always easy…
Just like the Bush/Cheney-McCain-Crist oil drilling announcements, no doubt. Truly a man of golden serendipity.
The guy’s about to run for President, so unless you figure every event in his 71-year life is the result of deliberate meticulous planning by some cabal, there must be room for the occasional lucky coincidence.
Even if his presence is a cold calculated cynical political grab at glory, this incident is of such trivial significance that… well, who cares?
I’m not sure if that was orchestrated or not, but if it was, I don’t see anything wrong with it. They’re both in the same party, so no reason they shouldn’t coordinate policy issues. It’s not like Bush hasn’t been calling for more oil drilling his entire presidency.
McCain is probably acting opportunisticly on this issue, but let’s keep in mind that he’s not calling for mandatory oil drilling, just throwing the decision back to the states.
Like I already said, it isn’t the orchestration of any of it that’s the problem. I brought up the oil drilling only to counter the idea that these coordinations are necessarily blind coincidence. (See BE’s snarky post to me.) My only problem — again — is if the White House is deceiving the electorate for the political gain of its party. You may call questioning whether it has done so crackpottery, but I call it vigilance.
Which raises interesting issues all its own. Suppose, for example, that South Carolina approves oil drilling but North Carolina doesn’t. What safeguards are in effect to stop South Carolina’s oil spill from washing up on the Outer Banks? In fact, given the Atlantic’s prevailing northward current, if a state drills as close to its boundary as possible to its northern neighbor, the brunt of any accident will be borne by the state upstream.
What if CA builds a nuclear plant on the border with Oregon? What if Mexico decides to drill off-shore close to the border of TX or CA? What if there is huge bird flu outbreak on a turkey farm in SC right near the NC border? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but it’s something we have to deal with all the time. I’m sure the lawyers will find a way to sort it all out one or another.
And profits will ensue…