Remember a few weeks back when a few bloggers were criticizing Michael Ignatieff for going quiet? Remember how anyone who did so was called “insensitive” and “callous” because he was caring for his sick mother in law?

Last week, however, back in Toronto, Ignatieff told the Star his mother-in-law was, in fact, not ill.

“There is no health crisis,” he said. “There never was. Anybody who said there was, was not authorized to say that. I never purported to say that.”

He apologized for the confusion.

For the record, I don’t think anyone was ever criticizing Ignatieff for spending time with his family. If he wants to visit a relative, sick or not, and take a three week vacation in the middle of a leadership race, that’s his prerogative. The criticism was always on Iggy going completely silent and not releasing a statement on the Middle East crisis. Reading Diebel’s article, it’s clear that there was a major breakdown in communication in the Ignatieff campaign (Paul Wells explains why that’s a bad thing here).