Tahmooressi suddenly freed . . . just days before the election

Your first temptation, of course, is to say that the sudden release of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi has a November Surprise sort of feel to it. Oh. Sure. Three days before the election he's coming home.

But you don't have to think about it much to recognize the problems with that. First, Obama critics have complained all along that the White House didn't even seem interested in Tahmooressi's case, let alone concerned about the timing of its resolution. Were they completely disengaged and inept, or engaged in a sinister manipulation of the timing? It can't be both. But perhaps more to the point, there's every reason to think it was mainly the effort of Republicans - with the big and unsurprising exception of former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson - that got Tahmooressi sprung:

A Mexican judge on Friday ordered Tahmooressi's immediate release, after he spent seven months behind bars for crossing the border with loaded guns. The judge said Tahmooressi should be freed because of his mental state. But he did not make a determination on the illegal-arms charges against the Afghanistan veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name.

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California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told The Washington Times that Obama was "AWOL" throughout the process. Rohrabacher said he, fellow California GOP Rep. Ed Royce, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Arizona GOP Matt Salmon fought for Tahmooressi's release after President Obama did not. "The president, who is also the commander in chief, didn't do his job,” Rohrabacher told the newspaper. "There is a lack of concern for this man, for this American hero who served our country. As commander in chief he showed a total disdain and non-interest in an American hero who served us in Afghanistan and a total disregard for the fact that he was suffering." Tahmooressi has said he took a wrong turn on a California freeway that funneled him into a Tijuana port of entry with no way to turn back.

I find it kind of weird, to be honest, that that White House didn't get engaged in this. I certainly understand that Obama doesn't give a rip about servicemen, but for an administration perpetually obsessed with politics and optics, why not go ahead and get the guy sprung for the value of the photo op if nothing else? I'm not saying that's what would motivate me. I'm saying it's consistent with the sort of stuff that typically motivates them. As for Richardson's assurance that the "State Department was fully engaged" or whatever, that sounds like a diplomatic way of trying to quell controversy and put the focus back on the good news that Tahmooressi is indeed free. After all, an experienced guy like Richardson certainly knows that you need to keep the State Department informed of whatever it is you're doing in a situation like this, and that I guess provides the justification for calling them "fully engaged" even if all they're doing is telling you to keep them in the loop, which I suspect was the case here. By the way, I wonder if our readers can leave partisanship aside long enough to recognize that Richardson - whatever you may think of his politics - is clearly a guy who knows how to work with people and get tricky matters resolved. It seems like every time we see one of these situations, it's Richardson whose in the middle of solving it. (And it happened a time or two during the Bush Administration as well.) You might not remember that Richardson was one of the Democratic candidates for president in 2008. He clearly wasn't my choice, since I didn't want any of the Democrats, but I wondered aloud at the time why Democrats would see a guy with his track record as a fringe candidate while basking in the celebrity glow of people like Obama and Hillary. I still wonder.