Straight Talk

After goading Barack Obama into taking a trip abroad, John McCain's spent all day mocking Obama for being abroad and in the course of it he's gotten into an awful lot of nonsense:

"I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering any place outside of the country after I am president of the United States," McCain told O'Donnell. "But that's a judgment that Sen. Obama and the American people will make."

However, on June 20, McCain himself gave a speech in Canada -- to the Economic Club of Canada -- in which he applauded NAFTA's successes. An implicit message behind that speech was that Obama had been critical of the trade accord. Also, McCain's trip to Canada was paid for by the campaign.

Meanwhile, the right is now slamming Obama for trying to get Europeans more engaged in the fight against al-Qaeda. In a world where The Washington Post things fighting al-Qaeda is less important than backstopping western oil companies in Iraq I suppose that's not so surprising.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/07/straight-talk/49468/