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July 23, 2008
Obama RATS Gone Wild Tour 08
Obama takes on airs of inevitability
Barack Obama is only a candidate, but don't tell that to the Germans, some of whom have leapfrogged that whole election thing and already are calling him "President Obama" in advance of his visit.
For that matter, his own campaign could use a reminder. For the second time in as many days, reporters traveling with Mr. Obama on his overseas trip corrected campaign staffers for saying White House practices also govern his campaign in dealing with the press, or in delivering speeches.
Even the King of Jordan gave the senator from Illinois special treatment - personally driving the presumed Democratic nominee to the airport in his Mercedes.
Meantime, Mr. Obama has met with top U.S. military commanders and engaged in negotiations with foreign leaders, prompting strong criticism from a former White House adviser who accused him of crossing the line by talking about his conversations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"We have a long tradition in this country that we only have one president at a time. He's the commander in chief and the negotiator in chief. I cannot remember a campaign in which a rival seeking the presidency has been in a position negotiating a war that's under way with another party outside the country," David Gergen, who has served four presidents in both parties during his career, said on CNN Monday night.
The freshman senator has run into similar self-perception troubles before for a faux presidential seal on his speaking podium and for considering an address at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate, where President Kennedy delivered his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech during the Cold War.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposed Mr. Obama's site selection, calling it "inappropriate" for politics.
Instead, Mr. Obama will speak Thursday at Berlin's Victory Column, a far less lofty site commemorating Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, in an event that is expected to draw thousands and provide footage for the campaign's TV ads.
On CBS' "Face the Nation," Mr. Obama said the objective of his trip was "to have substantive discussions with people like Afghan President Karzai or Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki or French] President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years." That comment, and another in which he said he "never" has doubts, became fodder for another "Audacity Watch."
A Berlin hotel staffer told a reporter Tuesday she was "very excited" that "President Obama" would be speaking just down the street, and mentioned her parents' emotions of love for the United States when Mr. Kennedy spoke there in the 1960s.
At the site of the upcoming speech, a security officer explained that he and others had blocked off traffic ......"because the president from America is coming."
The role of president and presidential candidate was further blurred Tuesday when a senior campaign official on the trip, who spoke to reporters on background, denied that Mr. Obama's address in Berlin had any political overtones.
"It's not going to be a political speech. When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally," the senior adviser said.
"But he is not a president of the United States," a reporter told the adviser.
"He is going to talk about the issues as an individual ... not as a candidate, but as an individual, as a senator," Mr. Obama's aide replied. The adviser insisted that the Berlin speech "is not for campaign purposes."
However, after the briefing, campaign media adviser David Axelrod said in a statement that the aide's description of the Berlin rally was inaccurate.
"The answer is that, of course, any event outside of a congressional delegation trip is a campaign event. But it is not a political rally. He will not engage his American political opponents. It is a speech to our allies and the people of Europe," he said.
The Republican National Committee was having a field day with these stories Tuesday, sending out press releases with the headline, "Senior Obama foreign policy adviser: Obama is president of the United States."
If Mr. Obama's upcoming speech in Berlin "is not political, why shoot footage for campaign ads?" the RNC said.
The Obama campaign's efforts to elevate the candidate, who has served 3 1/2 years in the U.S. Senate, has come under increasing criticism from pundits who say his fame does not live up to his accomplishments.
"Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president," Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote last week.
"Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?" he asked.
Earlier this month, Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Nicholas wrote a story saying, "He's not president yet, but Barack Obama has already given some thought to White House decor."
Asked at a town hall meeting in Fargo, N.D., whether he had any decorating plans for the Lincoln Bedroom, he recalled a visit to the White House soon after he came to the Senate and seeing "this flat-screen TV in there. That didn't seem to be appropriate. So I might take out the TV, I don't know."
Wild Thing's comment........
I think it is smack down time. I think that foreigners calling him "Mr. President" is very offensive.
"We have a long tradition in this country that we only have one president at a time. He's the commander in chief and the negotiator in chief. I cannot remember a campaign in which a rival seeking the presidency has been in a position negotiating a war that's under way with another party outside the country," David Gergen, who has served four presidents in both parties during his career, said on CNN Monday night.
LOL for Gergen to say what he did I almost fell off my chair. He is a total lib.
Posted by Wild Thing at July 23, 2008 01:55 AM
Comments
Where is the Logan Act when you really need it?
God he's so presumptuous and full of himself.
I can't stand people like that. Just can't stomach them. Pretending to speak for us already--I don't think so. He can crawl back under that rock from whence he came.
Why would anyone want to be friends or vote for someone who threw his own maternal line in front of and under the bus?
Posted by: Lynn at July 23, 2008 04:43 AM
B Hussein is a very arrogant and self-serving thing.
As far as the bus, it needs a whole fleet to cover the people it has/is throwing under them. To bad it didn't take it's "first lady" with it on the trip. I'm sure that really would have been a "trip".
Posted by: Bob at July 23, 2008 06:44 AM
Obama is Superfool! He needs to be brought home and needs his butt chewed - ridiculed -and put in his place! If McCain would of done this -Obama would of raised hell!
Bush needs to get out there and denounce this BS and so do many others! I can't believe this gang banger from the hood thinks he is President of the United States and has assumed the position before there has even been a convention - much less an election!-! Obama is a disgusting POS!! People need to wake up and realize what he is saying but I guess his cult supporters are too ignorant to understand!
Posted by: Cheryl Zee at July 23, 2008 07:40 AM
Lynn, me too, people that assume like he is doing is a very bad thing. Like control too which he wants to have over everyone and what is said about him.
Posted by: Wild Thing at July 23, 2008 04:42 PM
Bob, your right he is going to need an entire fleet of buses.
Posted by: Wild Thing at July 23, 2008 04:43 PM
Cheryl, LOL "Superfool" good one.
Your so right, if it was the other way around Obama would be doing a major whine about it and the media would be bashing McCain to high heaven.
Posted by: Wild Thing at July 23, 2008 04:50 PM
Respect!!! Obama??? This black bastard doesn't deserve any. Respect is the condition of being honored, esteemed or well regarded. In the categories of Platyhelminthes, Cnidaria, and Porifera, Obama is just an ass in the crack of humanity and needs Chuck Hagel to cover his shortcomings, it's increasingly harder to tell which one of them is performing that secondary function.
Posted by: Jack at July 23, 2008 06:02 PM
And the only reason he needs Hagel is he threw all his own white people under the bus already.
Posted by: Mark at July 23, 2008 09:22 PM
Jack, he sure doesn't deserve respect.
What gets me too is how when these places and people say the things they have about Obama.... "President" it is really showing disrepect to our country, President Bush and even our voting system and how it works.
Posted by: Wild Thing at July 23, 2008 11:45 PM
Mark, LOL he sure has, even his wife not going with him. She might have liked seeing London and some of the other places on their donaters dime. hahahha
And we could have had more of her ugliness from across the seas way way way across the sea.
Posted by: Wild Thing at July 23, 2008 11:48 PM
RELAX and I agree that the Obamanation is counting it's ... baby zebras ... before they're born! Hillary's base will vote for MCCAIN and this way the Arkansas Hillbillies can run again in 2012. Nader's Raiders will get 4% or more too. If Obamessiah is in, the Clintonistas LOSE.
MCCAIN should announce VP Mitt Romney SOON, or Fred Thompson, or Rudy G!!
Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at July 24, 2008 01:36 AM
