<$BlogRSDUrl$>

My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2008-08-01

Obama: Warning Track Power, With A Lot Of "K"s 

Now that the "bump" Obama got from the media . . . er, the overseas trip . . . has totally disappeared, let's evaluate the reality of the trip.

The "professional" media, of course, hyped this as a huge home run for Obama--reminiscent of Josh Hamilton, only without the fly ball outs. But, there seem to be only three major takeaways from the trip:

1. First, there was the absurd statement that he would still oppose the surge if given the opportunity to do so again, even though it has worked splendidly by any measure. Strike One.

2. Then, there's the brilliant formulation at the Berlin Wall that he is a "Citizen of the World." This was supposed to be his crowning achievement, but it has all but disappeared from the news reels. We'll call it a long, loud foul ball. Strike Two.

3. And then there's the genius move to skip visiting the wounded at Landstuhl, a story which the campaign has managed to keep alive by having a series of shifting and not-very-plausible excuses for the decision. We'll call this one watching a belt-high fastball in the heart of the plate go by for strike three.

And I don't even know what to do with the news that Obama planted his "letter" in the western wall of the Temple in Jerusalem into two press outlets. Not only is that inauthentic--"Guard against pride" . . . . PUH-LEEEEZE. A little late for that, dontcha think?--but its so clumsy and so amateurish that you have to wonder what they were thinking. Obviously, Strike Four. But . . .

Is that like the guy who gets to be the first and last outs of an inning in which his team scores seven runs and he's the only guy who doesn't contribute?

At any rate, Obama's moment in the sun is starting to fade. McCain has been running some very effective ads, and the discussion of "Is Obama qualified" is central to the campaign. I think McCain needs to try to goad Obama into as many unscripted moments as he can in the next three months, and things should take care of themselves.
Posted by: Michael / 8/01/2008 03:03:00 AM

Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?