The Fallout

Well, it's come to our attention here at WW that, in fact, the "press release" dropped the other night is right on one count, wrong on the other. Which means, essentially, that it was incorrect. Far be it from us at WW to define the word "typo," but it does strike us as odd that the term "original" was simply added to the front of the word "cosponsor" by mistake. Forgive us for approaching this type of error, by which we mean an error that would immediately assuage the concerns of thousands of voters who contacted Welchie's office on the issue of the war, as simple in any form. Simply calculated, perhaps.

That being said, we think that Welch is to be commended for signing on to cosponsor every anti-war bill this side of the Potomac, despite the fact that he did so substantially after the fact. We think it does show that his staff has lead him in the direction of, ahem, remembering to do what he said he would do. However, we also think that the corks have started flying out of the anti-war champagne bottles a little bit too quickly over Welchie's sudden subscription to the Woolsey Times. And they're starting to knock out the lights.

Let us explain:

Firstly, there is a temporal issue at play here. Why, pray tell, did not Welch cosponsor the Woolsey bill "originally," as he said (it turns out falsely) he did? We have our suspicions, many of which stem from the lack of support for the Woolsey or McGovern bills from any of the political heavyweights from the D side. No Nancy, no Steny. What gives? Considering Welchie's lock-step voting record thus far, we are not surprised that it took his staff a few weeks to get permission from the leadership to pull the trigger on this big decision...three weeks after the bill came out. Interesting, no?

Second, the fact that this co-sponsorship has gone down seems to be big news for the blog-o-wonks back home, but why has it not been the lead story in any of the local papers? It seems like Welchie's peeps don't have too much of a problem getting the good word out to the bloggers, which makes the lack of play in the mainstream media a little bit odd. Also, on the front page of his Congressional site, Welch is currently touting his "carbon neutral" claims (more on that in the next post)...why not the big anti-war statement? In fact, you don't find anything about the Woolsey bill until three or four pages into his site. Not exactly rolling out the red carpet, is it?

The fact of the matter is that this "co-sponsorship" of a bill that is getting exactly zero traction from the D leadership was, essentially, a fax to the hard-core antiwar camp who had started hounding him for his numerous missteps. This is what it said: "please tell everyone that I'm living up to my anti-war stuff, I have a power lunch in 15 minutes, and I can't be late." Hey, it's hard to get a table at Cafe Milano.

This is why he doesn't have anything about it on his website, and why the D leadership, you know, the D leadership that Welch said the election was about putting in place, won't let him: it makes them look stupid. And they put him on all those committee's, right? What Nancy gives, Nancy can take away. If, that is, he makes it through 08'. And that if is starting to look bigger and bigger.

So, while we here at WW are glad to see that Welch is at least taking a token stab at placating his blog cronies, the ones who pitched him so hard during the campaign, and the ones he has to have with him again in 08 to feed his "press releases" to the internet-left, we are approaching this step with our typical skepticism. His co-sponsorship of these bills, coming as they did, after a tidal wave of sentiment from the home district, hardly warrants the hoopla which has accompanied it from his avowed cheerleaders. Putting it out to the blogs is one thing: putting it on the front page, attending the rallies, holding press availabilities, eg, actually leading, is another.

We'll stay tuned.