As Michelle Obama prepares for her big night in Denver, our colleague Nancy Gibbs breaks the news that Cindy McCain is headed to a war zone. The timing, McCain says, is coincidental:
McCain says she has been trying to get into Georgia since the conflict started, but it took time to arrange the logistics. Her husband, she says, is “very supportive. As soon as he saw what was happening — he and I, we connect on many levels, I mean he knew immediately [that she would want to go.] I’ve been to Georgia with him, I know the country.”
Her aides say that the timing of the trip, during the Democrats’ convention in Denver, was never a consideration. But that doesn’t mean they’re ignoring the subtext: “She’s on the phone with the World Food Program, he’s on the phone with Sakaashvili,” McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace told me. “It’s like this great picture of what they’ll be like in the White House.”