Obama on Tour
The media and their message are all focused on Barack Obama’s policy tour of Europe, Israel and Southwest Asia. There has never been anything quite like this build up for a Presidential candidate.
The NYT advances the trip with an article today reviewing Obama’s 300-person foreign policy brain trust. Slate carries a piece noting that the media entourage will include all three network anchors — who will have their own individual nightly newscast interviews, one-on-one with the future Democratic nominee, three nights running.
All the hubub threatens to drown out and trivialize what is a serious effort by Obama to focus attention on policy issues and to introduce himself foreign publics.
The timing could not be better for Obama. The Bush Administration has signaled a shift in Iran policy toward greater diplomatic engagement with Teheran. This is just what Obama has been arguing for.
Likewise, news reports from Afghanistan appear to indicate more difficulties for U.S., NATO and Afghan forces, with U.S. military acknowledging that they cannot increase U.S. forces there due to deployments in Iraq. This has been precisely what Obama has been warning against.
McCain’s team will undoubtedly try to depict the Tour as a kind of media circus but unless Obama commits a gaffe in public, there’s not much to be gained.
Obama is actually doing the sorts of things that McCain has accused him of not doing enough of.