Opposing views of the week
Depending on who you support, the week has been a huge success for Democrat Barack Obama, who dominated headlines with his foreign tour, reassured voters about his readiness to be commander in chief, and goaded Republican rival John McCain into a series of intemperate comments.
Or McCain convinced voters that Obama is wrong on the Iraq war, pricked the Obamamania balloon by making the Democrat look presumptuous, and is within striking distance in the polls despite the prevailing political winds.
Both views are argued in a series of memos out today putting their spin on the state of the race.
The Democratic National Committee said: "Another week of bad news, bad reviews and campaign chaos for the McCain campaign. The only change: the campaign's increasingly desperate response. In what has become a recurring theme, McCain's week was dominated by foreign policy gaffes, misleading attacks, terrible reviews, and new polls showing him lagging far behind among key groups of voters. Instead of addressing those challenges, the McCain campaign chose to lash out at the media and launch desperate new attacks."
The Republican National Committee responded: "Despite the most challenging environment for Republicans in years and an overwhelming advantage in attention paid by the media, Barack Obama remains unable to open the lead against John McCain that many pundits predicted.”
McCain's campaign also issued a memo hitting back at the perception that events are moving in his direction on key foreign policy issues. The memo, from senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, arguest that it's a myth that there's a consensus for withdrawing from Iraq (though Iraqi leaders generally fell in line with Obama's 16-month timetable), it's a myth that leaders support unconditional talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (though a US envoy joined talks over Iran's nuclear program), and it's a myth that others have adopted Obama's strategy on Afghanistan (though McCain only recently called for sending three combat brigades there).
UPDATE: And this afternoon, the McCain campaign issued a "Barack Obama Official Post-Travel Briefing" book, complete with an image of a cover that included the presidential seal-like logo that Obama's campaign quickly jettisoned.
"While much attention has been focused on the photo-ops of Barack Obama's foreign trip orchestrated by a highly skilled political entourage, beyond the pictures numerous questions were raised about the Democratic presidential nominee's foreign policy positions and missteps," the book argued, before diving into a litany of criticisms.
Presumptuous is the media word of the day, given to them by McCain's hit people.
Of course if Obama was an incompetent speaker like McCain, then McCain's hit boys would be saying, he is not presidential enough to handle foreign leaders.
YOU CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Stop allowing McCain to play both sides of the story. He complained that Obama was not in Iraq and then when he went and didnt wear a flak jacket and have the company of a troop of helicopters like John, he was presumptuous.
Stop the bias against the candidate of color. All the terror bump lies and failure to accept Obama's word that he is born again add up to racism.
The GOP have nothing to run on accept attack and lies. People are sick of your lies and deceptions. McSame is Bush - no changes there.
President Obama will prevail and real change is coming. "Yes We Can."
Both Republican and Democratic memos are correct in my view. But the McCain campaign memo is expectedly bias. Firstly, all these polls don't mean much so early in the race. Nevertheless, it's clear that a majority of people supports Obama over McCain in American and all over the world. It's not clear how the electoral votes will turn out though. I think the reason why the polls don't show a huge break away lead for Obama is that America remains a very prejudice place. If Obama was a white male named Tom Murdock or something, his lead would be much wider in the polls.
It saddens me that John McCain's ever-more apparent total lack of foreign policy expertise doesn't seem to be affecting the polls. This man might be as ignorant of foreign affairs as Bush, and that's absolutely frightening. He's going to continue the same dumbed down bulls**t rhetoric about "good vs evil" with no real understanding of the real political issues in the Middle East and how to actually achieve "victory" (whatever that means).
I would say Barack Obama is far from a perfect candidate for president. But John McCain's number one attribute is his supposed foreign policy credentials. In actuality, those credentials are about as easy to find as the Iraq-Pakistan border. He would be an absolutely atrocious president.
From Messiah Obama’s speech in Berlin, Germany (7/24/08):
“As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.”
What kind of AlGorish global warming mumbo jumbo is that?!! Thank You fellow Bostonians for melting all those ice caps! We're famous now!
Or this:
“I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.”
Great, an apologist politician making these statements to a country with a history of being directly responsible for initiating two (2) world wars and causing the death of millions of their own countrymen and others around the world. That’s nice. That’s real nice. Thanks Osama Obama. You and your Angela Davis pedigree wife really do hate the United States don't you? (ooops, that's right, Angela Michelle Obama Davis is "off limits" as well)
Or this:
“I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city.”
Ah yes, we you wave the race card when it’s to your advantage but otherwise “it’s off limits” to anyone else. Smooth Barack Hussein Obama, real smooth. Oh yes, that's right, we're not allowed to mention your Muslim middle name.
YOU ARE SUCH A PHONY OBAMA!!!
I hearby take my name off of consideration for the Democratic presidential ticket.
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