Sorry For Not Fucking Up
So, Obama went on his whirlwind world tour and made it all the way back home, as noted CNN concern troll Candy Crowley suggested, without making any major mistakes. I heard her say it in a snippet on television, and later heard it replayed on either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report (hey, it was 1 AM, I can’t remember which). And both times, I had the same reaction. Is that what eight years of George Bush as our national figurehead has done? Is the bar so low that going to another country and not making an ass out of yourself our official standard for success?
I mean, sure, he didn’t try to give an unrequested back rub to any German Chancellors. So I guess Obama deserves points for that. I just think it’s stunningly sad that our expectations for our President (or in this case, our President-To-Be) are that amazingly low. Managing to go to another country and not embarrass us as a nation is not an accomplishment. It’s not even the minimum requirement. It’s far less than what should be expected.
The concensus was that Obama, who is at least perceived as not being stong on foreign policy, would stammer and fall flat on his face. But since Obama not only failed to produce facepalmingly bad sound bites, but actually seemed to handle himself very well (and with no prompting from aides or advisors), what’s going to be the new spin? Well, obviously, Barack Obama did too well. Yeah. For reals. That’s what they’re saying.
I mean, after all – why was he so cozy with those Old Europeans anyway? Why does he like them more than he likes Americans? He isn’t running for President of European Union, damn it. Where was his flag lapel pin? And remember kiddies, when Barack Obama calls himself a citizen of the world, it’s unpatriotic! But when Ronald Reagan did it, it was Great Communication.
Now, my regular readers know that Obama wasn’t my first choice. In fact, he wasn’t even my second. And while he is counter-punching a bit better than I thought he would, he’s still not taking command of this framing aggressively enough. When an elected official of this government visits a foreign nation, and he is greeted by cheers and waving American flags of the not-on-fire variety, that’s a good thing. He wasn’t being celebrated abroad for hating America. He was being welcomed because he represented what other countries like about America. Not to invoke ol’ Saint Ronnie again, but there was a time not so long ago that American was the Shining City Upon A Hill. Why is that suddenly a bad thing?
Because in a larger sense, we are all citizens of the world. And I don’t just mean that in some Model U.N., naive, hand holding, listening to too much Bono sort of way. I mean that we as a nation have a lot of problems that we just can’t solve ourselves, no matter how much Crawford Cowboy we throw into our stride. We’re not going to get out from under O.P.E.C. on our own. We’re not going to finally catch Osama bin Fucking Laden without working with the international community. And while I do believe that America should look out for its own interests first, I believe there is an amazing gradient of potential worldly outcomes. I think it just might be possible to take care of our own without being complete douchenozzles to everyone else. Call me crazy. Call me a dreamer!
Call me too successful.
I was really happy with the way he handled things on his trip.
What I find funny is that the McCain camp was in an uproar that he hadn’t done this.
Then he does it, is successful, and they say he shouldn’t have.
It’s upsetting to see that Obama’s campaign is getting about twice the coverage on normal news networks. Poor NPR is digging through the bottom of the McCain Campaign Stories in order to at least make it appear that they’re covering both candidates equally.
Aren’t both men Senators, or something? Don’t they have a dayjob they should be participating in? I wish I could take a year off to “campaign.”
My family has always said voting for a president in a 2-party system is about voting for the lesser evil. I had written more, but it was stupid.
If McCain wants coverage, he should probably give the media something to cover. It’s not like he doesn’t have access to them. Hell, he’s known most of those people for twenty years or more. But the media is what it is – lazy. At least in terms of finding a story. So if they have to choose between the Presidential contender that is giving a speech in Berlin to a mob of people so large the cameras can’t capture them all at once, or Grampa at the grocery store. . . well. One of those bits of coverage also gets them a free vacation in Germany. You figure it out.
I’m listening to a conference call between McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis and members of the press regarding the new “Celebrity” ad attacking Obama. Here’s some interesting excerpts:
Tommy Christopher AOL: What would be the most and least amount of effect that the new drilling would have on gas prices over the next year?
Rick Davis: On the drilling question, it depends on which economist you talk to…There are a number of different studies that show that if we are able to begin renewed exploratory activity and drilling on the offshore, it will reduce the price of gasoline at the pump.
Tommy Christopher: Well by how much, and when?
Rick Davis: I’m not prepared to peg that..I can steer you toward different (independent) economic analyses of that…Look, we haven’t promised a specific drop in oil prices, but we think it’s actually something that would be part of an overall plan to do that… In as early as a couple of months, people could be putting those drills down, to much longer term…
Rick Davis: I’d love to think that John McCain was a big international celebrity as Barack Obama, but he’s not. When he went to Europe, he met with the same leaders as Barack Obama met with… He’s been doing that every year of his entire career… He has direct relationships with other leaders around the world and has been trying to solve problems that are present in every region of the world… I’d contrast that with Barack Obama’s own trip… I think it’s fair game…
Dana Bash CNN: I’d like to get your reaction when [Barack Obama] went with Sarcozy, Sarcozy basically said we look forward to you becoming the president. As you mentioned, John McCain met with Sarcozy as well…
Rick Davis: I think there’s an expectation by John McCain that the American people, not the French president will decide who the next president’s going to be. I don’t know that your particular example was what I was referring to… I don’t think [John McCain] would expect, nor would he want other world leaders commenting about a domestic political election…
Just thought I’d share. We’re about 90 days to the election. Things are going to get dirtier and dirtier.