Required Reading, Part I

Let the cries of “Swiftboating” begin! It’s worth pondering how we have come to this point. The generic ballot still shows the Democrats boasting an impressive ten point lead, and Obama is supposed to be a magnificently attractive candidate. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign has yet to inspire although it did do some very fine things last week. So if Obama is such a great candidate and this is such a great year for Democrats, why is He now losing? It all traces back to Obama’s global trek, the “miraculous fortnight” itself. Bill Kristol noted yesterday on Fox News Sunday that the origin of Obama’s woes could be found in his Berlin “weltburger” speech. As Allah wrote, when Obama spoke in Berlin, He “had a global audience; he could have said anything, used it to advance any cause or deliver any important message dear to his heart. And what he chose to do with his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was … rewrite ‘We Are the World’ in prosaic prose decorated with ‘wall’ metaphors so pedestrian they would have embarrassed a fourth-grader.” It’s a delicious irony. Words matter after all. Conservatives have been insisting for months that Obama not only has a slight résumé but an undefined political philosophy as well. It’s the latter aspect of the Obama phenomenon that is actually more disturbing. If Obama knew what he was talking about and had a solid sense of how he wanted to govern, an Obama administration wouldn’t seem like such a leap of faith. By delivering a speech in Germany that was so devoid of substance, Obama shined a beacon on his principal weakness not just as a politician but more importantly as a potential leader. Really now – is there anything Republicans could have done to better call attention to the meringue-like nature of the Obama campaign than have him deliver such an embarrassingly inconsequential speech while the nation and the world watched? Of course, the Berlin speech was worse than just substance-less and cliché ridden. Obama’s claim to global citizenship struck many Americans as just plain daffy if not offensive. Some Obama defenders insist that the speech was a dexterous display of the possibilities of soft power. But the use of power, be it soft or hard, involves moving other parties. Obama didn’t even try to move other parties, in this case 200,000 German parties. He was instead content basking in their adulation. So where do we go from here? Right now, the campaign’s focus is on Obama’s weak suits. On his remarkable (for all the wrong reasons) appearance on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Tom Daschle at one point said that what Obama meant by his “currency” comment was that He has a “different résumé” than past presidents. That’s for sure. Most presidential candidates have had greater and more recent accomplishments than a terrific GPA in law school. And then there’s the increasing scrutiny going to Obama’s sense of self-satisfaction. This will remain a dreadful year for Republicans, and the McCain campaign will have the unhappy task of running into a stiff headwind all season. But this campaign at its heart remains Obama vs. Not Obama. And Not Obama is developing momentum.