Obama Goes to Iraq: Dan Rather Eat Your Heart Out!
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Barack Obama, who has spent an extraordinary percentage of his adult life running for office, will soon be padding his dossier by touring Iraq. The NYT’s Jim Rutenberg reports:
Senator John McCain’s trip to Iraq last spring was a low-key affair: With his ordinary retinue of reporters following him abroad, the NBC News anchor Brian Williams reported on his arrival in Baghdad from New York, with just two sentences tacked onto the “in other political news” portion of his newscast.
But when Obama heads for Iraq and other locations overseas this summer, Williams is planning to catch up with him in person, as are the other two evening news anchors, Charles Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, who, like Williams, are far along in discussions to interview Obama on successive nights.
And while the anchors are jockeying for interviews with Obama at stops along his route, the regulars on the Obama campaign plane will have new seat mates: star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines who are flocking to catch Obama’s first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive nominee of his party.
This sounds like a great premise for a black comedy about the media (Paddy Chayevsky, where are you?) with plenty of opportunity for back-stabbing, sexual hijinks and self-promotion, but almost no occasion for learning anything about Iraq. Most of all it’s a massive publicity stunt. Dan Rather must be eating his heart out. All those flak jackets and nowhere to go.
Now I shouldn’t be so cynical. No doubt the candidate wil huddle with David Petraeus and have a few photo ops/cum meaningful “tete a tetes” with our boys in the field, but the whole thing is a charade. What we will witness is the spectacle of an empty shell being pursued and cosseted by the people who created him, a social class desperate to justify the absurd elevation of a man into a demi-god before he had even ever done anything.
Meanwhile, if Obama himself really wanted to learn anything about Iraq he would go alone (or nearly), just as any serious person would. But this trip isn’t about learning anything, is it?
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5 Comments
1. Obama goes to Iraq: What’s this? No Gunblogger Press Passes? at Traction Control:[...] Obama goes to Iraq: Dan Rather eat your heart out! [...]
Jul 17, 2008 - 7:57 am 2. Rachel Peepers:Hi,
The news coming out lately about Iran is scary. To top it off, John McCain keeps joking about what he calls “Senator Obama’s unbelievably naive idea to unilaterally destroy the United States arsenal of nuclear weapons while making terrorists pledge never to use rogue nuclear weapons. And we all remember McCain infamous habit of chiding his North Vietnameze captors by humming “The National Anthem during torture sesssions.
War is not a joke. The truth is that the Bush-McCain policy to maintain a strong military while facing down 9/11 type terrorism just doesn’t work–it just makes things worse. We need what Senator Obama is famous for: tough talk, not the fool’s view that the U.S. can actually win a war, much less the war in Iraq.
I just signed this petition urging Congress to end the surge and begin bringing all our troops home, regardless of what the Generals on the ground say. We all know that most of them see war as a way to get promoted. I, Barack Obama, demand that President Bush get Congressional authorization to protect our country and its freedom as he has pledged to do: Start destroying the United States arsenal of nuclear weapons. And to halt development of the defense shield that would protect the U.S. against nuclear weapons launched by terrorists or hostile countries, making our children safe. http://pol.moveon.org/diplomacyiran/?r_by=-4342585-6k7a5fx&rc=confemail
Thanks!
Rachel Peepers
Jul 17, 2008 - 9:44 am 3. Keith_Indy:You should read the news more often…
The surge has ended and the war is being won.
Jul 17, 2008 - 10:05 am 4. albert:To Rachel Peepers,
Jul 17, 2008 - 11:58 am 5. Rachel Peepers:Wake up, you are dreaming, who asked you to write this: “I, Barack Obama, demand that President Bush get Congressional authorization to protect our country and its freedom as he has pledged to do: Start destroying the United States arsenal of nuclear weapons. And to halt development of the defense shield that would protect the U.S. against nuclear weapons launched by terrorists or hostile countries, making our children safe”. Was it BOH himself?
Where in the world you live? You suffer an accute case of delirium tremens. You should look for professional help ASAP.
If the surge was a success, I, Barack Obama, would be the first to admit it. If drilling for oil would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, I’d be for it.
Jul 26, 2008 - 12:01 amIf experience in dealing with foreign affairs was important for a President of the United States, I’d spend a summer in Indonesia. That’s my story and I, Barack Obama, am sticking to it.