After last month’s dismal jobs report, I said President Obama needed help from the Labor Department. This morning, he got some, although not enough to have much impact on the election. Payrolls expanded by a decent 163,000 in July, but the unemployment rate, which is calculated on the basis of a different survey, ticked up, going from 8.2 per cent to 8.3 per cent.

A mixed employment report that drew mixed reviews. Democrats focussed on the fact that payrolls expanded at more than twice the rate they had in June, allaying fears that the recent slowdown in G.D.P. growth could herald a double-dip recession. Noting that the economy has now added jobs for twenty-nine straight months, about 4.5 million of them in total, Alan Krueger, the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, commented on the White House blog, “While there is more work that remains to be done, today’s employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.”

In today’s Wall Street Journal, the Columbia economist Glenn Hubbard, who is one of Mitt Romney’s top economic advisers, has an op-ed piece entitled “The Romney Plan for Economic Recovery.” When I saw the headline, I felt a rush of anticipation: at last, I thought, here is the big new jobs initiative that the G.O.P. campaign is relying on to turn things in its favor.

I was mistaken. The first two thirds of Hubbard’s piece is taken up with an attack on the Obama Administration’s economic record: ineffective stimulus, too much regulation, failure to tackle the housing market—all very familiar stuff. When Hubbard eventually gets to laying out Romney’s alternative, there is nothing new either, just a reiteration of the existing policy plaform: a vague promise to cut federal spending and reduce the budget deficit, an even vaguer plan to cut taxes but in a “revenue-neutral fashion,” and a commitment to repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. Judging by this piece, and by recent statements from Romney himself, the G.O.P. campaign still doesn’t have a recovery program worth the name. Indeed, if we are to believe the evidence of our eyes and ears, he remains committed to immediate spending cuts that could well bring on another recession.

With Mitt Romney back from his, let us say, eventful week abroad, the focus for the next few days will be back where his campaign should have kept it all along: on the economy. While Romney was in London, the Commerce Department reported that the gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of just 1.6 per cent between April and June—a very measly figure for what is supposed to be an economic recovery. On Tuesday, the government reported that consumer spending, which accounts for about two thirds of overall spending in the economy, actually fell slightly in June, suggesting that the recent economic slowdown might be getting worse.

Yesterday and today, the Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee has been meeting. On Friday, the Labor Department will release its July employment report. Neither happening is likely to alter the picture of an economy stuck in the doldrums. After the Fed get-together ended on Wednesday afternoon, Ben Bernanke and his colleagues acknowledged that the economy has stumbled. But they gave no indication of when they may start a new round of quantitative easing—that is, pumping money into the financial markets via the purchase of bonds. And Wall Street expects another disappointing figure for the growth in payrolls: about a hundred thousand.

I know, I know—it’s time to move on from Mitt Romney’s gaffe-plagued overseas trip and write about something more substantive, such as the upcoming July job figures or the kind words bestowed upon the G.O.P. candidate by one of America’s great cultural icons, Ron Jeremy. (In an interview with the Boston Herald, Jeremy—a.k.a. The Hedgehog—who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for making the most appearances in adult movies, said that although he will be voting for Obama in November, he regards Romney as “a good man” and “an amazing father.”)

But indulge me. The touchdown of Romney’s campaign plane on American soil on Tuesday afternoon brings to a merciful end one of the most star-crossed foreign ventures since June, 1777, when General Burgoyne and his army of redcoats marched out of Quebec and headed for the Hudson Valley. Like Burgoyne’s ill-fated journey, which ended in surrender to the American colonists at the Battle of Saratoga, Romney’s trip was ill-conceived, poorly executed, scarred by miscommunication, and, ultimately, it had the effect of encouraging the enemy.

Earlier today, on his third and last day in Israel—he’s now in Poland—the Mittster broke new ground in two ways. He came out as an economic historian, and he finally used the word “Palestinian.” But don’t worry yourselves, Dov Hikind and Howard Kohr: Romney didn’t have anything very nice to say.

Speaking at a breakfast fundraiser attended by the likes of the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the hedge-fund tycoon Paul Singer, and New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, the G.O.P. candidate appeared to blame the failure of the occupied Palestinian territories to match Israel’s economic performance not on a lack of capital, the economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, or the presence in the West Bank of Israeli settlers and military forces but on the differing cultures of the two peoples.

Day three of his world tour, day one of the Olympics, and things aren’t getting much better for our boy Willard. Having been monstered by Fleet Street for his criticisms of the preparations for the Games, contradicted by the Prime Minister, and ridiculed by the mayor of London, the Mittster is now facing criticism from one of his own nation’s greatest athletes, the sprinter Carl Lewis.

“Every Olympics is ready,” Lewis, who won nine gold medals at four different Olympics, told the Independent. “I don’t care whatever [Romney] said. I swear, sometimes I think some Americans shouldn’t leave the country. Are you kidding me, stay home if you don’t know what to say.”

A chastened Romney evidently agrees with Lewis about London being prepared. Retreating from his earlier remarks faster than a burglar who has stepped on a sleeping Pit Bull, he said to Brian Williams on NBC’s “Today” show: “After being here a couple days, it looks like London is ready…. I’m absolutely convinced that the people here are ready for the Games. In just a few minutes, all the things politicians say will get swept away because athletes will take the stage.”

I guess I was wrong yesterday when I counselled Mitt Romney to confine his overseas trip to London and come home before getting into trouble: a better piece of advice would have been for him to skip the U.K. leg as well.

After less than thirty-six hours on the ground, the Mittster is engaged in damage control after three separate slipups: an interview with NBC News in which he appeared to criticize how the Brits have prepared for the Games, adding, “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out”; a suggestion from one of his advisers that our African-American President couldn’t understand the so-called “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain; and renewed publicity about his wife’s involvement in the aristocratic equine sport of dressage.

After a meeting today with David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, Romney rowed back from his comment to Brian Williams that he had found some aspects of London’s prep work, such as the transport and security arrangements, “disconcerting,” and said he was sure the games would be “highly successful.” The damage had already been done, though. Even Cameron appeared miffed by Romney’s earlier remarks; he issued what sounded suspiciously like a jibe about the American’s leadership role in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” Cameron said. “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”

Mitt Romney might never be President—the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows him trailing Barack Obama by six points—but for the next week or so he gets to play one on television, traipsing around foreign lands like a visiting dignitary. First up is London, where he’ll attend Friday’s opening ceremony of the summer Olympics. After meeting with the British Prime Minister David Cameron and other officials, it’s on to Jerusalem, where he will deliver a speech and meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he worked with briefly at Boston Consulting Group back in the nineteen-seventies. And on the way home, he’ll stop off in Poland for more speechifying and meetings, including one with Lech Walesa.

It’s all designed to make the Mittster look like he belongs in the Oval Office. Inevitably, it will draw comparisons with the eight-country trip that Obama took four years ago to the week, but expecting Romney to match that odyssey is unfair. In 2008, a grateful world, or large parts of it, regarded Obama as the anti-Bush. His overseas journey was more akin to a sold-out tour by the latest rock sensation than a normal political trip. It climaxed in a famous open-air speech near the Brandenburg Gate, where he declared to hundreds of thousands of cheering Germans: “People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time.”

Romney won’t be expecting a reception on that scale, which is just as well. It’s doubtful he could fill a Berlin Bierkeller, let alone one of its grand strasses. Still, the trip will keep him in the news on this side of the Atlantic at a time when most potential voters will be focussing their attention on competitions of a more engaging kind: Michael Phelps versus Ryan Lochte. Jordyn Wieber versus Gabby Douglas, Usain Bolt versus the clock. In London, Romney will get to wave the flag with the U.S. Olympic team, with which he is fortunate enough to have a personal association. A horse co-owned by his wife, Ann, is representing the United States in the equine competitions.

Go Ann!

“Every country has, along with its core civilities and traditions, some kind of inner madness, a belief so irrational that even death and destruction cannot alter it.”

That was my colleague Adam Gopnik commenting the other day on America’s attitude toward gun laws. Having read some of the comments on my own post about President Obama’s failure to pursue more restrictions on the sale of firearms, I can only agree with Adam. When Bill Moyers, Keith Olbermann, Mayor Bloomberg, and Rupert Murdoch are all in favor of something—in this case, tougher gun laws—and there’s still no chance of it being enacted, you can rest assured that forces other than reason and partisan politics are involved.

My only quibble with Adam is his use of the singular form: “a belief.” Are firearms the only subject on which Americans are, let us say, a little batty? I’m not so sure. Having lived here for almost thirty years, and having been a U.S. citizen for the past five, I am greatly attached to this country and admire many aspects of it enormously. But the dogged persistence of certain American shibboleths has always struck me as somewhat curious.

Among the snippets of depressing news from Aurora, Colorado: President Obama, during his visit on Sunday, reportedly agreed to a request from some of the victims’ families not to mention the name of the alleged shooter, James Holmes, who appeared in court earlier today, his shaggy hair dyed orange.

On a personal level, the attempt to deny Holmes more publicity was perfectly understandable. Who can imagine what suffering and anguish the victims’ families are going through, or the hatred and anger they must feel toward Holmes? Having mercilessly snuffed out twelve lives, as he is alleged to have done, why shouldn’t he be declared a non-person? Actually, I can think of at least two good reasons.

First, wishing Holmes away won’t do any good. It might well do harm. Arguably, the problem with deranged mass killers isn’t that they get too much publicity; it’s that they get too little. Generally, after a few weeks or months, many people forget their names; after a few years, almost everybody has forgotten them. Both they and their victims fade into obscurity and the gun violence continues.