Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Politics

Obama Abroad

by Clay Staggs

So, unless you’ve been under a rock for the past week or so, you probably already know that Obama is traveling in the middle east and Europe. This has created a frenzy of mainstream media attention unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I’ve found a couple of items from his trip that I thought were worth posting.

The first is a flyer advertising his campaign rally - oh, I’m sorry - his speech in Berlin. Now, the Obama campaign is noted for its piles and piles of campaign contributions, but I think that spending money doing ads directed at folks who can’t even vote is a little over the top. Apparently this is being plastered up all over Berlin:

Note the official campaign logo in the top right. In addition to the mind-blowing hubris of doing such a thing as this, I’m surprised at it on a tactical level. Doesn’t this risk the average voter looking at this and reacting against it, preferring that we Americans choose our own president (in English) rather than Europeans?

The second thing is a remarkable clip from an interview that Obama gave regarding Iraq. The interviewer asks Obama whether, knowing what he knows now about the surge’s success, if he had it to do over again, he would support it. And Obama says no!! I didn’t believe it myself until I saw the video, so here it is:

So, given the benefit of hindsight, he wouldn’t change his position. That’s either completely dishonest or so intellectually rigid as to make him unfit to lead. If a Republican had said such a thing, he’d have been scolded by the interviewer for being so callous about the continued loss of life that the surge turns out to have stopped.

Obama is turning out to be an exceptionally bad candidate, masked only by a press that fawns over him and gives him cover. Given what a terrible year this is shaping up to be for Republicans, he ought to be ahead by a mile. He’s not. The polls are dead even. If Obama loses, it will be on account of a perception (which appears to be at least somewhat justified) of egomania that even the media can’t cover. From holding campaign rallies in Europe to refusing to admit his own fallibility, it’s just not an appealing picture he’s painting of what the next 4 years would hold in store if he wins.