Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Obama Rainbow Tour -- Day 4 -- Jordan And Israel -- Great Speechifying

There you are, I told you so
Makes no difference where she goes
The whole world over just the same
Just listen to them call her name
And who would underestimate the actress now? 

Evita - Rainbow Tour

"Let me be absolutely clear," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said today at a press conference in Amman, Jordan. "Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain...administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change."

How true.
ABC -- Political Punch

If the President Had Said This, It Would Have Been a Bushism
"You know, it's always a bad practice to say 'always' or 'never.'" — Obama, speaking in Amman today.
NRO -- Campaign Spot

At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States.

"It is not going to be a political speech," said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. "When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally."

"But he is not president of the United States," a reporter reminded the adviser.
Ace Of Spades

Obama Fails the “Quayle Test”, Pretty Much Daily

MITCHELL: Let me just say something about the message management.  He didn't have reporters with him, he didn't have a press pool, he didn't do a press conference while he was on the ground in either Afghanistan or Iraq. What you're seeing is not reporters brought in.  You're seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questions by the military, and what some would call fake interviews, because they're not interviews from a journalist.  So, there's a real press issue here.  Politically it's smart as can be.  But we've not seen a presidential candidate do this, in my recollection, ever before. (...)
MITCHELL: I can't really say that.  Being a reporter who was not present in any of those situations, I just cannot report on what was edited out, what was, you know, on the sidelines.  That's my issue. We don't know what we are seeing.
News Busters 
Video Breitbart TV 

Barack Obama’s campaign trip abroad was thought to be an effort to show him operating freely on the world stage. Instead, it has been a carefully managed exercise, designed to expose Obama to no contrary or potentially embarrassing viewpoints, and most of all, to shield him against the possibility that the media might capture a gaffe. . . . For all intents and purposes Obama was play-acting the role of a traveling statesman, eating meals and smiling but doing and saying nothing of consequence with what veteran network correspondent Mitchell described on “Hardball” as an unprecedented level of press restriction and manipulation. 
Instapundit

David Gergen: “I think it was the first — Barack Obama made the first mistake of his trip, in my judgment, in releasing a statement in which he said exactly what Maliki had said in those conversations. We have a long tradition in this country that we only have one president at a time. He’s the commander in chief and the negotiator in chief. I cannot remember a campaign which a rival seeking the presidency has been in a position negotiating a war that’s under way with another party outside the country. I think he leaves himself open to the charge tonight that he’s meddling, that this is not his role, that he can be the critic, but he’s not the negotiator. We have a president who does that. So, I think the underlying facts support him, but I think it would be a real mistake — and I think it was a mistake — to get into these conversations and let it be used politically.”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “That’s interesting. Gloria, do you think this is the first mistake he made on this trip?”

Gloria Borger: “You know, it’s very interesting, I do agree with David. And Candy, in her earlier piece, talked about walking the fine line between being this candidate and being presumptuous. And I think that he may just have crossed that, because, you know, it is a tradition. You don’t talk about these private conversations. And it’s not up to Barack Obama right now to negotiate troop withdrawals. It’s up to Barack Obama to be on a fact-finding mission, which is indeed what he has said he was on.”
Hot Air

Today, the Gallup Obama boomlet is gone (lead down to 3) and Rasmussen is a tie

Then throw in some decent state poll numbers for McCain: plus 10 in Ohio (Rasmussen), plus 11 in Georgia (Rasmussen)  down 2 in Michigan (EPIC), down 3 in New Hamsphire (UNH) , and down 3 in Colorado (Rasmussen), and the race looks close and winnable for McCain (let's not get too excited, however -- we are still 15 weeks out). 
Why did the Obama bump after Hilary Clinton dropped out fade over the past month?  Why is Obama not getting a bump now from the media over exposure on his foreign tour (free advertising, in essence)?

The answer I think is that more and more Americans are realizing that a giant media sell job is underway, and many don't like it. Obama may be a rock star, but would he make a good President?
American Thinker Blog -- The Trip That Didn't Deliver

Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday toured the Jordanian capital of Amman, where the much talked about "Obama-mania" is not that easy to find.

Just 22 percent of Jordanians who are following the U.S. presidential election have confidence in Obama, according to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center.

And in the nearby countries of Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, Obama also gets negative reviews.

Obama still fares better than John McCain in those countries, but in Jordan the two candidates are about equal.

But the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate is revered as a superstar in other parts of the world.
CNN -- Obama-mania foreign in some parts of Middle East

By the way, it seems the Rainbow plane was redesigned for the trip.  The removed the American flag from the tail and put on Obama's campaign logo.

No comments:

 
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License