McCain heading to Georgia

Cindy McCain that is.

It's not every aspiring First Lady whose comfort zone is a war zone, but such is the case for Cindy McCain, who left today on a mission to Georgia to assess the civilian casualties of the Russian invasion.

McCain is traveling with the U.N.'s World Food Programme, whose work she monitored in Southeast Asia and Africa this spring and summer. McCain plans to meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and to visit wounded Georgian soldiers. She would also visit representatives of the HALO Trust, which works to remove land mines and on whose board she serves.

Cindy and John McCain visited Georgia together last year; in an interview with TIME at her Sedona, Ariz., ranch before she left, she emphasized that her years of work on overseas missions was an "important part of what I'm about, what makes me tick."

Cindy McCain said she has been trying to get into Georgia since the conflict started, but it took time to arrange the logistics. Her husband, she said, 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 I 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 Democratic National 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 Programme; he's on the phone with Saakashvili," McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace told me. "It was a great picture of what they'll be like in the White House."

Just saying.

I think this will be about as talked about as the fact that she has two sons on Active Duty. Just saying.