The presumed GOP presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, is on a world tour, centered on Iraq, with two of his closest Senate colleagues, Independent Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham. There are a lot of reasons why it was a poor time to take the trip.
In the first place, McCain will get the 33% of Americans who strongly support the war, without ever showing up there. All the trip does is call attention to what we already know--McCain's stout support of the war. Another 20% or so of Americans tolerate the war, or don't make their voting decision based on the war, and it is undoubtedly not helpful to McCain to remind them of his stance. It causes needless controversy with the anti-war crowd, who are quiet at the moment and don't need the reminder of a McCain trip to fire them back up.
McCain's choice of travel companions is not the best either. These two senators are died-in-the-wool McCain supporters and cronies already. The trip would have had a much less ideological a cast and a more objective look if a couple of Democrats or Republican war critics had been included in the traveling party.
McCain is already the acknowledged expert among the remaining presidential candidates on foreign policy. A rookie like Obama might benefit from a world trip, but McCain can only make gaffes and call attention to better-forgotton issues by conducting a world tour at this time. There really is no way to burnish his already impeccable credentials--the risk and potential downside of the trip is much greater than any benefit.
About the best thing you can say is that McCain has been gone while Obama was digging himself into a bigger hole over his relationship with his 20-year pastor, the Black liberation theologist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This has garnered the McCain trip much less publicity than it would normally command, which probably isn't bad.
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