Candidates' positions on Iraq differ less than you'd think

[Jolie Rouge]

Candidates' positions on Iraq differ less than you'd think
Tue Jul 22, 12:22 AM ET

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office a few days ago when the call came from the U.S. Embassy, demanding that he "clarify" his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's plan to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months.

Not only did that boost the credibility of the Democrat's plan, it contradicted President Bush's position that there should be no timetable for a U.S. pullout. A few hours later, U.S. officials transmitted al-Maliki's statement that his remarks to the German magazine Der Spiegel had been "misunderstood (and) mistranslated."

Problem fixed? Apparently not. On Monday, as Obama visited Baghdad, al-Maliki's spokesman defiantly repeated the timetable idea, in English this time, saying the Iraqis would prefer to have U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2010.

This tense back-and-forth was a vivid reminder that as conditions improve in Iraq, the U.S. is losing its ability to dictate terms to the sovereign government it has worked so hard to put in place. Less noticed is that the rapidly shifting events are beginning to make the presidential candidates' debate over Iraq seem oddly out of sync with reality.

Obama and Republican John McCain are maximizing their differences when they talk to voters, but in practical terms there's less and less daylight between them.

Rhetorically, Obama backs a fixed timetable for withdrawing American troops while McCain wants to stay as long as "victory" takes and beyond. But if the Iraqis want the U.S. out and they prove capable of taking over, both ideas lead to the same end on about the same schedule.

It's difficult, for example, to imagine a President McCain insisting on keeping U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely if Iraq's government demands that they leave. Al-Maliki is acknowledging the reality that most Iraqis and most Iraqi politicians want U.S. forces out, at least as soon as they are confident that their own government can protect them.

At the same time, it's equally difficult to imagine a President Obama insisting on an inflexible withdrawal timetable if that means squandering security gains won with great American sacrifice. Though Obama has repeatedly insisted on a timetable, he has pointedly not said that every U.S. troop will be gone when the timetable ends. In fact, he has promised to leave a "residual force" of undefined size in Iraq, and carefully left himself an escape hatch in case the situation worsens. "You've got to make sure the country doesn't collapse," he says.

Thanks largely to the troop surge that Obama opposed, violence has lessened to the point that a timetable seems less and less unthinkable to its fiercest opponents, provided that it's linked to success on the ground. President Bush has signed on to a "time horizon" for withdrawing U.S. troops, and McCain said Monday that U.S. troops "could be largely withdrawn" within two years because the war is being won. That's remarkably close to what Obama wants.

So while the candidates demonize and distort each other's positions, reality is drawing them closer and closer. Both also support sending additional troops to Afghanistan.

The wild card is whether U.S. forces can hand off the fighting to their Iraqi counterparts, and here the news is promising. Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who until recently was in charge of the Army's effort to build Iraqi forces, told Congress earlier this month that Iraqi units would be able to take over front-line fighting as soon as April, allowing U.S. ground troops to shift to a support role.

The presidential debate over Iraq needs a reality check. Voters would do well to understand that the familiar differences echoing from the campaign trail are less significant than the new reality emerging in Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080722/cm_usatoday/candidatespositionsoniraqdifferlessthanyoudthink;_ ylt=AuYgYB3vie7msIdmyMpGqWn8B2YD


Anybody get word from Nader or Barr about what they think ? Appearently, the Editorial Department at USA Today could not reach them for comment ...

[Jolie Rouge]

Candidates’ differences on display in Iraq.
By Pete Hegseth

Five months ago, I returned to Iraq as an embedded journalist, some 18 months after I had completed a combat tour there. It was a worthwhile trip. I returned to Iraq to cover the progress the U.S. military had been making on the ground since the surge had begun. Mainstream-media coverage of the war had largely ignored the counterinsurgency’s success, rehearsing outdated notions of the conditions there. You could say I made the long trip to the front to cover an exposed domestic flank of American public opinion.

My fact-finding at the highest levels of strategic command and the lowest level of tactical implementation brought back into view the intricacies of the Iraq experience. What seems like a black-and-white situation on op-ed pages and in TV talking points in the United States is revealed as complex grayscale in Iraq.

So keeping one’s ear to the ground and eye on the facts in Iraq is exceedingly important. It takes real effort to cut through the spin and punditry; and if anyone spends too much time away, tempting platitudes like “we’ve already won” or “withdrawal immediately” creep into the lexicon, complicating one’s ability to tailor their positions to reality, rather than ideology.

Thus, trips to Iraq tend to be enlightening experiences — full of competing emotions, as long-held assumptions, good and bad, clash with self-evident realities on the ground. Any serious student of warfare, particularly of counterinsurgency, will know that every battlefield is fluid, and information that is relevant one day may be deceiving the next.

On Monday, Senator Obama finally had his wingtips on the ground in Iraq, to at last meet with U.S. brass and Iraqi leaders and get his dose of reality. He met with commanders on the ground who told him — as they recently told Fox News Sunday and the New York Times — that the timeline for withdrawal that Obama supports would be disastrous, both for the prospects of success in Iraq, and for strategic stability in the region.

Obama heard from Iraqi leaders, Maliki included, who told him the same thing — and who brandished their newfound reconciliation dramatically on Saturday, when the largest Sunni block rejoined the Iraqi parliament and cabinet.

And Obama heard from Iraqi and U.S. troops and from the citizens of Iraq who have all witnessed al-Qaeda’s attempts — both through their extremist rhetoric and maniacal deeds — to make Iraq the central front in their war against the West.

Despite these facts — however the mainstream media chooses to spin them — the operative question is: Will any of this matter to Obama?

I fear it won’t. He’s already shown that his version of fact-finding is to lay out an Iraq plan before going there. And while he conceded yesterday that there has been “enormous improvement” in security, Obama remains unwilling to concede change-I-can-believe-in on his three main Iraq tenets: timelines, political progress, and Iraq as a central front.

The statement he released after touching down in-country reiterates his misguided support for “a clear date” for withdrawal, his confused assertion that “political reconciliation continues to lag,” and his stubborn insistence that America must “refocus” our efforts in Afghanistan. Obama went so far as to tell an interviewer that he would oppose the surge again, despite the fact that the strategy that has saved countless American and Iraqi lives.

None of this is surprising. An Obama concession on these points would mean political damage-control for weeks. Still, I would like to be believe that Sen. Obama is capable of recognizing — and adapting his views on — the changed conditions in Iraq he is now seeing for the first time. A wartime posture demands this. But I doubt we’ll ever see it.

The sad reality of this trip is that Sen. Obama has now left Iraq more cemented in his ill-advised positions than ever before. He was willing to throw scraps to commanders and troops (“good job, guys”) but sought every opportunity to confirm that his policy views — which are as outdated as cassette tapes — had not changed.

The next question, then, is: Who will fact-check the fact-finder? Sen. Obama managed to praise the surge (which he fervently opposed), all the while calling for timelines, degrading Iraqi leaders, and pretending that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn’t exist.

Contrast this with John McCain. Based on his visits to Iraq before the surge, he had the prescience to call for a new strategy and more troops. And despite running for president, he continued to make fact-finding trips to Iraq after the surge, and reported the success of the surge before anyone else. Sen. McCain went to Iraq to gather information that would inform his policy positions — not to “put lipstick on a pig,” as General Petraeus is apt to say.

In the days ahead, additional information will be made public on what General Petraeus and Senator Obama discussed. We'll see if Obama’s statements in the weeks and months ahead show whether his ideological approach to the Iraq war has been disturbed by any single fact on the ground.

— Captain Pete Hegseth, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division from 2005 to 2006, is chairman of Vets for Freedom.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzU1YjBiMDM4M2M0M2M0NmY3ZDc2NTk4M2M0YWEyNWI=

[Jolie Rouge]

Couric Showcases Obama Over McCain, Admits Media 'Obamathon'
By Brent Baker
July 22, 2008

CBS tried to bring some balance Tuesday night to Barack Obama's Magical Media Tour by having Katie Couric interview both Barack Obama and John McCain, and though she pressed Obama repeatedly on the success of the surge, Obama still came out ahead since CBS devoted more than seven minutes (over two excerpts) to Couric's questions and Obama's answers as the two sat together in a foreign setting compared to barely three minutes allocated to Couric and McCain by satellite.

Couric touted at the top of the CBS Evening News: “We spoke exclusively and separately with both presidential candidates today and what emerged was a kind of a long distance debate. And their differences on the wars have never been sharper or clearer.”

At the end of the newscast, from Amman Couric wondered: “Will this summer of love last” for Obama? And she conceded the media are part of the infatuation:


It has been an Obamathon ever since the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee touched down in Afghanistan. At today's press conference in Amman, a throng of reporters recorded his every move. In total, 200 journalists requested seats on “Air Obama” -- 40 of them were accepted. The bill for the trip? About $20,000 each.

In contrast, she pointed out, as if CBS News couldn't have done anything about it, that “last night John McCain arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire” and was greeted by just “two journalists waiting on the tarmac.” She also noted that “his campaign has revealed a contest: Two videos featuring what they claim is a media love affair with Obama.” They “claim”? How about they “illustrate.”

Earlier in the newscast, she set up the second segment of the interview with Obama, which she traveled to Jordan to conduct: “Senator Obama hopes this trip will enhance his credibility as a world leader, something I asked him about in our exclusive interview earlier today.”

McCain's three-minute interview, done via satellite from New Hampshire, delivered 18 times more coverage time than he received from the CBS Evening News during his trip to Iraq. When McCain visited Iraq the week of March 16, the MRC's Kyle Drennen documented, the CBS Evening News allocated “only 31 words, a grand total of 10 seconds, to the Republican nominee’s Iraq visit during the entire week.”

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of Couric's remarks from Amman at the end of Tuesday's CBS Evening News:


KATIE COURIC: Finally tonight, it has been an Obamathon ever since the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee touched down in Afghanistan. At today's press conference in Amman, a throng of reporters recorded his every move. In total, 200 journalists requested seats on "Air Obama" -- 40 of them were accepted. The bill for the trip? About $20,000 each. Ironically, no seats were provided to the foreign press.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Senator, how's your trip?

BARACK OBAMA: Great so far, thank you.

COURIC: The non-stop coverage this week has stolen most of the limelight from his opponent. Last night, John McCain arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire. Three fingers flashed an OK symbol to the two journalists waiting on the tarmac. No video available. But McCain is making the best of it.

JOHN MCCAIN: I'm a big boy and I'm enjoying every minute of the campaigning, and I'm certainly not complaining. In fact, I think it's fun to watch.

COURIC: And fun to mock. His campaign has revealed a contest. Two videos featuring what they claim is a media love affair with Obama. You can even vote for your favorite.

TUCKER CARLSON: It's more than love. I mean, it's the kind of love that, anybody who's been a ninth grade boy understands this species of love.

COURIC: But will this summer of love last? And will voters want to go steady with Barack Obama? We'll find out in November. And that is the CBS Evening News for tonight. I'm Katie Couric in Amman, Jordan. Thank you for watching. Good night.

The questions from Couric to Obama, in Amman, as aired on the Tuesday, July 22 CBS Evening News. (Online, CBS News has posted video and a transcript, which I corrected in parts below, of the entire 22-minute interview session.)

Questions posed in the first of two segments aired:


- Having said that, if General Petraeus or the Chairman of the joint chiefs, Admiral Mullen, say to you, "Hey, President Obama,” if that comes to pass, "you cannot take out the final complement of combat troops. We need them in theater," you would say?

- Before the surge, as you know, Senator, there were 80 to 100 U.S. casualties a month, the country was rife with sectarian violence, and you raised a lot of eyebrows on this trip saying even knowing what you know now, you still would not have supported the surge. People may be scratching their heads and saying, "Why?"

- But talking micro-cosmically, did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops help the situation in Iraq?

- Do you think the level of security in Iraq would exist today without the surge?


Questions from Couric in the second interview excerpt, which Couric set up: “Senator Obama hopes this trip will enhance his credibility as a world leader, something I asked him about in our exclusive interview earlier today.”


- You reportedly chafe when your foreign policy expertise is questioned. If foreign policy is not your weakest area of expertise, what is?

- But what area do you feel least comfortable with?

- You're heading to Israel after Jordan. And according to a recent poll out of Jerusalem, Israeli Jews favor John McCain for President 43 to 20 percent, with one-third undecided. Why do you think that's the case?

- How likely do you think a preemptive military strike by Israel against Iran may be?

- This is not a speculative question then. Was it appropriate, in your view, for Israel to take out that suspected Syrian nuclear site last year?

- Finally, you'll be going to Germany and to France and Great Britain. And according to German press reports, as many as a million people may be gathering to hear your speech in Berlin. Do you worry at all, Senator Obama, that this kind of crowd in Berlin may be slightly off-putting to the guy in Columbus, Ohio, who's just lost his job?

Couric's inquiries to McCain, who appeared via satellite from New Hampshire, in the one interview excerpt aired on the CBS Evening News. (CBSNews.com transcript and video of the entire 14-minute interview):


- Senator McCain, Senator Obama says while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias and says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?

- A commentary on what? [McCain: That Senator Obama does not understand the challenges we face.]

- Senator Obama describes Afghanistan as the central front on the war on terror. That is where, after all, Senator, 9/11 was plotted. Why do you believe Iraq is the central front in the war on terror?

- Senator McCain, you sound very frustrated with Senator Obama's perspective.

Next up on the Obamathon interview parade: Obama with ABC's Charlie Gibson on Wednesday's World News.

Brian Williams gets him in Germany on Thursday before Tom Brokaw has him from London on Sunday's Meet the Press. TVNewser is maintaining a TV interview list, and updated it Tuesday: “FNC's Bill Hemmer gets the Saturday slot. He'll interview Obama in London on Saturday.”

That still leaves Friday open.


http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/07/22/couric-showcases-obama-over-mccain-admits-media-obamathon

[Jolie Rouge]

Andrea on Obama Trip:
'What Some Would Call Fake Interviews'
By Mark Finkelstein
July 21, 2008

Andrea Mitchell might be a doyenne of the liberal media, but she has her reporter's pride and principles, which have been trampled by the way the Obama campaign has managed the media during the candidate's current trip to Afghanistan and Iraq. Mitchell let loose on this evening's Hardball, speaking of "fake interviews," and decrying that she was unable to report on pertinent aspects of the trip because the media has been excluded and that the video released is unreliable because it's impossible to know what has been edited out.

Before Mitchell made her displeasure known, Roger Simon of Politico, Chris Matthews's other guest during the segment, depicted the images coming out of the war zone as all Obama could have dreamed of.


ROGER SIMON: The optics are all very good on this trip. I mean, the beginning of this trip is so good, Senator Obama might just want to call off the end and just keep running the videotape.

He goes into a gym, everybody, all the service people there cheer. He shoots a basket, you know, it goes through the hoop. He's obviously standing there with troops, they seem to be liking him, smiling. They don't seem to feel that Barack Obama wants to desert them, to leave them in Iraq. This is exactly what the Obama campaign hoped for, and this was supposed to be the tough part of the trip. The meatiest part of the trip in Jordan and Israel may be tough in terms of foreign policy, but the back end of the trip to cheering European crowds will certainly be as good if not better than this. So I think he's feeling very good right now.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Andrea, I want to get ethnic a little bit here --

ANDREA MITCHELL: This is message --

MATTHEWS: Yeah, go ahead, please.

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.

When Matthews inquired about the atmospherics of the trip, Mitchell made clear her frustration as a reporter.


MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about access to the troops, Andrea. A lot of African-American faces over there, very happy, delighted faces. Is that a representation of the percentage of servicepeople who are African-American, or did they all choose to join someone they like, apparently? What's the story?

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.

Good on Andrea. Now, will the rest of the MSM press the Obama campaign to release the outtakes from the war zone?

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/07/21/andrea-obama-trip-what-some-would-call-fake-interviews

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama skips visit to wounded US troops in Germany
Thu Jul 24, 6:20 PM ET

BERLIN - Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his campaign said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.

A campaign adviser said the U.S. military saw the visit as a campaign stop.

"We learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event," the adviser, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, said in a statement. "Senator Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perveived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go."

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign immediately criticized the move. "Barack Obama is wrong. It is never inappropriate to visit our men and women in the military," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the Republican contender.

Obama's decision raised a number of questions because the visit, which had been scheduled for Friday, never appeared on the schedule of events distributed to reporters who are accompanying him on his travels.

The first word from the campaign about its existence was a statement from Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. Obama had been planning to go to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany before a flight to Paris. Gibbs said the stop was canceled because Obama decided "it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080724/ap_on_el_pr/obama_troops;_ylt=AtLs0x8b28tUQHO39za3tb6s0NUE


But he supports our Troops .... :rolleyes:

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama promises to 'remake the world'
Mike Allen
Thu Jul 24, 3:36 PM ET

Addressing more than 200,000 elated Europeans massed in Berlin at twilight, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama promised Thursday that he would work to unite Christians, Muslims and Jews in a safer, more united world.

His 27-minute speech at the gold-topped Victory Column was interrupted by applause at least 30 times, with occasional audience chants of “O-ba-MA!” Billed as a speech about Transatlantic relations, it turned out to be a manifesto for the planet, with an appeal to “the burdens of global citizenship.”

Local authorities said the crowd was more than 200,000 — triple Obama's previous record of 70,000 in Portland, Ore.

Reaching out to skeptics back home, he heralded “the dream of freedom” and declared firmly: “I love America.”

“People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time,” he declared, offering himself “not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen, a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.”

Obama’s speech, the centerpiece of his presidential-style sweep of the Middle East and Europe, set a global agenda as expansive and audacious as any contemplated by a candidate for United States president. “In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help us make it right, has become all too common,” he said. “Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe.

“No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together,” Obama continued. “A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more, not less.”

Invoking the fall of the Berlin Wall after the historic call by President Ronald Reagan at the nearby Brandenburg Gate, Obama declared that the greatest danger now “is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.”

“The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand,” he said. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”

In perhaps the most striking passage, Obama asserted: “I know my country has not perfected itself.”

“But I also know how much I love America,” he said. “We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye towards the future, with resolve in our heart, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.”

Obama’s sweeping vision also includes:

— "This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons."

— "This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East."

— "America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”

— “My country must stand with yours and with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions.”

— “The world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close.”

McCain 2008 spokesman Tucker Bounds said in response: "While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a 'citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080724/pl_politico/12028;_ylt=AvP0vX3cEXkHAWZuRL1OEwZh24cA[b]

[Jolie Rouge]

Voters greet Obama trip with praise, skepticism
BY JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jul 24, 7:13 PM ET

Calculated political ploy. Timely foreign outreach. A dash of each? Ask voters across the country about Barack Obama's image-packed week of foreign travel and you'll get a mix of admiration, suspicion, even a couple of bored shrugs.

"I didn't know they could vote in our elections," Phil Wadlind, 62, deadpanned as he worked the children's train at The Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester, N.H.

Interviewed this week in bus stops and coffee shops, bookstores and shopping malls in six battleground states, these voters ranged from wide-eyed enthusiasts to gimlet-eyed skeptics and many viewed the trip through their own ideological lens.

Ronald Loring, a Miami Beach eye doctor, spoke for many when he observed that Obama had no choice, politically, to make a trip to counter Republican rival John McCain's perceived strength on foreign policy and national security.

"I'm impressed with his ability to communicate," he said. "I don't think that (the trip) will particularly make him a better president." Will he vote for Obama? "I'm sort of torn."

As a media event, Obama's trip has been a political coup. He's been photographed with troops in Afghanistan, flying virtual shotgun in the sky over Baghdad with Gen. David Petraeus, bowing his head in prayer at Jerusalem's Western Wall, and addressing a throng in the streets of Berlin.

No doubt, Obama's trip is politically motivated. His main challenge in his campaign for the presidency is to assure U.S. voters that he can be a commander in chief who can manage two armed conflicts and build alliances overseas.

What's more, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have elevated the status of international affairs in American politics.

"By him going overseas and talking with the Israeli government and the people who mean the most to the United States ... I think what he's doing is great," said 50-year-old Robert Lindenbusch, pausing as he rode his bicycle down a Miami Beach sidewalk. "What he's showing now is that he has the experience to go out and reach out to these people and to say to them 'Hey, this is Barack Obama. I'm here. Let's work together.' "

"It's important for us to see him interact and to see how people respond," added Meghan Gilliss, 25-year-old bookstore owner in the college town of Columbia, Mo.

Dale Whitesell, a teacher and registered Democrat in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs, was delighted to see Obama spend time with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I like the fact that he was around people in the military," Whitesell, 54, said as she finished running errands at a local strip mall. "I think he made an effort, as much as possible, to see what was really going on."

That Obama needs to fortify his credentials is not lost even on his supporters.

"He didn't serve in the military, so it's still important for him to touch base with the military and let them know his views on it," said James Hough, a 51-year-old nursing home dishwasher, as he waited at a downtown Pittsburgh bus stop on his way to work Thursday.

Yet others worry the exposure could backfire.

"It's showing his inexperience, which is a concern for a lot of people, especially Democrats like myself who liked Hillary Clinton," said George Londono, 42, from Merrimack, N.H., who said he now backs Obama.

If Obama was seeking to reassure doubting voters, among the more skeptical blocs have been American Jews. His Democratic primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, had 66 percent support among Jews and Obama has been trying to rally them to his side since he secured the Democratic nomination last month.

It has not been an easy task. Jews, who vote heavily Democratic, do support Obama and he is well ahead of McCain, according to public opinion polls. But his support is not as strong as that enjoyed in 2004 by John Kerry, then the Democratic presidential nominee.

Ahron Leichtman, a Jewish writer and film producer from suburban Cincinnati, supports Obama, but wondered how well the senator knows the history and sources of strife for Israel and the Middle East.

"Does he really understand the hatred that exists there?" said Leichtman, 65, as he visited the new Jewish community center in Amberley Village on the Cincinnati outskirts. "I don't know if he's naive enough to believe that he can be the catalyst to make peace, but he's a charismatic person."

Obama may have had an answer to Leichtman this week, when he cautioned that it is "unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region."

While some may harbor doubts, others are downright suspicious.

Bobbi Lopez-Albright, a 75-year-old independent attending a political affairs discussion at the Jewish community Center in Philadelphia, said she was disturbed by Obama's friendship with Rashid Khalidi, an advocate of Palestinian rights and the director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

"I think this is just a political move on his part," Lopez-Albright said of Obama's trip. "He has shown nothing in my eyes that says that he cares anything about Israel."

Brian Jaffee, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, pointed out that McCain also visited Israel earlier this year. That shows that pro-Israel American Jews maintain an effective voice in the political process, he said.

"It excites me that both are over there," said Jaffee, 34. "I feel blessed, as an American and a member of the Jewish community, that we have two presidential candidates who are so supportive of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship."

But some voters expressed frustration with the media frenzy that they said has infected Obama's trip and said they didn't plan to vote on the basis of Obama's foreign policy experience anyway.

"What concerns me is what's going on inside the country. That's the first thing that has to be fixed," said Azzy Ram, who owns a Miami Beach toy store. "Foreign policy, he won't be able to change much anyway."

"I can't deal with all the hype," added Laura Caldwell, a 47-year-old registered Republican from Herndon, Va. Still, she's considering voting for Obama and doesn't worry about his lack of experience.

"I'm not sure any president ever has enough experience," she said. "We should expect that they are smart enough to hire good advisers."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080724/ap_on_el_pr/obama_trip_voter_views;_ylt=AvkORvBDsffMMQF2oFPldH nCw5R4

[Jolie Rouge]

Media Love of Obama Doesn't Equal Victory
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
By Susan Estrich

Some years ago, a friend of mine who was then District Attorney of Los Angeles held a press conference on the beach with a couple of high-powered celebrities to trumpet efforts to use the criminal law to crack down on polluters. The press covering the event included representatives of the courthouse/political press corps and the entertainment/celebrity media. The difference was so stark that it made for a great story, which my friend told with relish. The political reporters were their usual selves: yelling questions, demanding answers, cynical, skeptical, giving nothing and showing no respect. Another day at the beach. The entertainment/celebrity reporters groveled, fawning and apologizing, grateful for the opportunity to be in the presence of the stars, eager not to offend, showing more courtesy than my political pal got from his own staff. The celebs themselves were appalled by how crudely and rudely behaved the political reporters were; my friend the politician couldn’t believe that the members of the entertainment press actually considered themselves to be “reporters.”

I can’t help but think of that story as I watch some of our nation’s finest — or at least our most famous — political reporters fawning all over Barack Obama like entertainment reporters covering a movie star. Is this good for them? Or for him, for that matter?

I certainly understand exactly why it is happening. Right now, Obama is bigger than any rock star. Right now, every reporter wants to be close to him, on his good side, at the front of the bus, or at least the front of the line for an interview. They are reporting what they are getting, which in many cases means what they are given, not exactly reporting by any definition. But who’s to complain? No one wants to offend a guy who just might be President. No one wants to be on the “bad” list, the list of the last to know, of people who don’t get the invites or the leaks or the tidbits that their editors and bosses back home are reading in somebody else’s blog or watching on someone else’s broadcast.

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No one, or almost no one, attacks the press for tossing softballs. Oh, John McCain can complain about the coverage, but complaining makes him look smaller, not bigger; he gets attacked for whining, which may be one reason he has backed off from any such complaints and is now going out of his way to say that he is not making an issue of the press love-in with Obama. Andrea Mitchell made the point that the press is running video and pictures they are being given with no idea of what’s been edited in or out, but that certainly hasn’t stopped her own network from doing so. Katie Couric, in the nicest possible way (the old, “not that I’m criticizing you but people are scratching their heads trying to understand approach”) tried to pin Obama down on whether he now sees the surge as a success, whether he would still be against it if he knew then what he does now (sort of like, Hillary — was your vote for the war a mistake?), and what are people saying all over the Internet? Bad Katie. How dare she do that? How dare she push that way? How dare she do her job? Next thing you know, CBS will be joining FOX News on the “no interview” list.

The problem with all this fawning is threefold. First of all, the fact that the press doesn’t push doesn’t mean that, sooner or later, the Republicans won’t. They will. Every question the press doesn’t ask and Obama doesn’t have to answer will be the subject of a speech at the Republican convention, an ad down the road, a tirade by somebody that will ring truer than it should precisely because it hasn’t been addressed before. Do you really think McCain and his friends won’t push hard for Obama to admit he was “wrong” about the surge? Of course they will; every bit as hard as Obama pressed Hillary on her war vote. Better to deal with it in questions from Katie, get an answer down that puts the question to rest rather than leaving her hypothetical viewer scratching his head than waiting for it to come back in a debate. Attacking Katie is not the answer — Katie isn’t running for President.

Second, being the favorite of the press doesn’t necessarily win you votes. Most people don’t actually like the press. The friend of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Being liked by the boys and girls on the bus doesn’t necessarily earn you the respect of the people back home. Standing up to them, giving as good as you get, all that helps. But if being loved by the press were a sure route to success, Hillary Clinton would never have carried all those big states after March 1. Ronald Reagan would never have gotten elected President. George Bush would have lost, twice.

Third, and perhaps most important, the American press corps is the most fickle lover you could ever have. They make my worst ex-boyfriend look like a paragon of loyalty and devotion, giving new meaning to the old expression, “love ‘em and leave ‘em.” Except the press doesn’t just leave, they destroy. The better the coverage at the outset, the worse it will almost certainly be later on. I can’t begin to count how many times I have warned politicians and candidates to worry as much about the good coverage as the bad, because the more air they put in your balloon, the bigger the target when they start shooting.

Maybe the media will remain as firmly in Obama’s camp as they seem to be right now, fighting for seats on the plane, celebrating his every move. But if so, he will really be a first. And it won't necessarily help him win.

http://www.yahoo.com/story/0,2933,389902,00.html