Frighteningly Obvious

Here's a taste of how Obama, fresh of the plane from his whirlwind, sleep-deprived week solidifying his position as the world's most popular politician, handling a full hour interview with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press, this portion about a ridiculous write-up of his Berlin speech by one of the NY Times conservative columnists.

The excerpt shows how on-the-ball sharp his is, but it doesn't do justice to the full range of issues he handled smart and honestly throughout the span of the program. The big news is his immediate pivot, now that he's returned to the U.S. of A., back to the economy. As I've written, I expect him to weave together the values of his trip with his plans to put America on a winning track for the 21st Century, and sure enough he's already hitting back hard on those questioning him about the surge saying that no one is asking John McCain if he would vote to for the Iraq War again after knowing what that vote caused.

Once again, he's two corners ahead of the McCain Campaign. Once again he's prepared to steer the discourse to the economy while the McCain campaign is still whining and prevaricating about last week:

McCain's ad asserts that Obama "made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."

The McCain campaign provides no evidence for the assertion that being told he couldn't bring media had anything to do with the trip's cancellation.

Oddly, when discussing Obama's trip to the gym, the ad uses footage of Obama playing basketball with US troops in Kuwait over the weekend.

What's up with John?

McCain going against Veteran's benefits again -- doesn't want the VA treating them unless seriously injured. A winning platform, uh. McCain fundraising off of impugning Obama's patriotism. McCain reaping oil company donations off his flipflop on oil drilling. McCain running on kicking Russia out of the G8 -- that's a WWIII we can believe in? McCain with a secret plan to capture Bin Laden.

I believe the question is rapidly moving away from whether BarackObama is qualified to be President, Chief Executive, Commander-in-Chief to whether John McCain is cracking up. We seem to be tumbling into some sort of Elia Kazan film with McCain, in a few interviews today spent beating back his inconvenient acceptance of withdrawal timetables Saturday, relying just a little too heavily a single catch-phrase:



Hey, John. Here's the conditions on the ground.