This weekend, Senator Barack Obama, presumptive Democratic nominee, will bring his whirlwind world tour to a close. There is no other way to say it other than it has been a rousing success and a demonstration of political acumen and dexterity which has never been seen before. Not by sitting Presidents -- including the charismatic Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, not by Jack Kennedy (who was famously upstaged not by another politician, but by his wife, Jacqueline who charmed the notoriously gruff Charles DeGaulle.)
McCain now and Hillary Clinton back then, have tried to invent the famous "Commander-in-Chief" test or threshold. A test that comes with phony standards, moving goalposts, convoluted and hypothetical questions, and a grading scale based on some bizarre Franz Kafka novel melded with Joseph Heller's Catch-22:
Welcome to the all important Commander-in-Chief pre-test. You must pass this test in order to take the actual commander-in-chief test. This is only the pre-test. If you reading this, you are automatically disqualified from taking the actual commander-in-chief test. This test must be administered by a qualified person. A passing grade can only be awarded to the test-taker by a qualified test administrator. Persons administering the test can pass the test. In general, only the person administering the test can pass the test because they have the requisite experience to pass the test and have passed the test at least once before. If you are not the person administering the test, you cannot pass the test. If you need to take the test again. you cannot administer the test to yourself because only a person who has passed the current version test can administer the test. Only persons who have been predetermined to be worthy of taking the test are allowed to pass the test, but only if someone who has previously passed the test determines they are worthy to take the test. The passing grade is what ever we say it is, but only at the immediate time we say it. The passing grade is subject to change at any time, as will the content of the test. You can only take the test at the time we tell you. We will not tell you in advance. If we do not tell you in advance, we are insuring you will not be over-prepared to take the test. However, be advised that preparing for the test is not allowed. But if you do not prepare for the test, you will surely fail the test...
The instructions for the test go on and on, but my time with you is limited. Back to the main point. For weeks, John McCain and the Republican and even Fox News taunted Sen. Obama to go to the "new heartland": Iraq and Afghanistan.
So he did. And to Europe and the United Kingdom. Where he was greeted more like the incoming President-elect and not the "other guy."
In Afghanistan, Hamid Kharzai and Obama agreed on the need for more troops to quell the Talibani uprising. In Iraq, Nuri Al-Maliki endorsed Obama's timetable for withdrawal wholeheartedly, despite both McCain's and the Bush administration's fervent denials, retranslations, re-retranslations, transcript revisions and Dallas-style "it was only a dream" script rewrites. General Petraeus engaged Obama in cordial and frank discussions including a helicopter tour of the region. In Jordan, Israel, Palestinian territories, Obama was greeted warmly and positively. In Germany, a paltry 200,000 people turned out to hear Obama at the Sieges Saule, after Obama's charming visit with Angela Merkel who declared him a physical, intellectual and political specimen non pareil. The rapport between Nicolai Sarkozy and Obama at their joint press conference was unmistakable, with Sarkozy going so far to declare about his "dear Barack" that "the next American President will be Barack Obama or... somebody else" not even bothering to mention McCain by name (even after Obama did McCain a good turn by mentioning his name just moments earlier.) His tarmac greeting in London concluded just a short while ago, so we won't know quite yet how things will go with Gordon Brown, however if early signals are to be believed, expect something high on the Merkel meter, though not perhaps as sensational as the Sarkozy scale.
Which brings us back to that "somebody else" guy. Who seems to be stuck like the Victrola's needle on an old scratchy 78 record.
First McCain complains about media coverage of the trip he practically demanded Obama take. Second, the vociferous denial that Al-Maliki really means it when he says he'd like to see US troops get out of Iraq. Third, the insistence that "the surge" is the only measure of success in Iraq, even when that measure only measure the reduction of violence back to pre-surge levels -- not pre-war levels. Fourth, in spite of the continuing failure of the Iraqi government to truly meet the "benchmarks" that the surge was to provide cover for (including Kurdish representatives walking out of Parliament just a couple of days ago), McCain insists that all phases of the surge worked. They didn't. Fifth, McCain demands credit for the "success" of the surge without accepting blame for the initial, unnecessary war in Iraq. Sixth, when all else fails, he pretends his opponent's successful judgment was his own. Seventh, he insists that "conditions on the ground" and the advice of the "generals on the ground" is more important than the request of the head of a sovereign government (suggests that Al-Maliki doesn't really know what he is talking about) or that the President of the United States is subservient to the generals who serve him. Ninth, he complains about the unfair media treatment. Tenth, he calls his opponent a craven, crass, egotistical, arrogant, audacious traitor, if not in so many words.
So from CNN, we get this insightful exchange between Herr Wolfenheimer Blitzerenkrieger and McCain. Note that McCain dismisses Al-Maliki's call for troop withdrawal out of hand while simultaneously embracing what is now the Obama plan -- timetable, timeline, time horizon -- for coming home.
BLITZER: What if Maliki persists? You're president and he says he wants US troops out and he wants them out, let's say in a year or two years or 16 months or whatever. What do you do? Do you listen to the prime minister?
MCCAIN: He won't. He won't. He won't. Because it has to be condition-based.
BLITZER: How do you know?
MCCAIN: Because I know him. And I know him very well. And I know the other leaders. And I know -- I've been there eight times, as you know. I know them very, very well.
BLITZER: So why do you think he said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?
MCCAIN: He said it's a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it's a pretty good timetable, as we should -- or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.
And as McCain has assured us before he knows all about war and how to win one.
And one more nugget of truth from Josh Marshall:
In the post immediately below I referred to Obama's audition for the role of 'head of state/commander-in-chief'. And as a potential wartime president and in the rhetorical universe we're now living in, this CINC test is inevitable and important for Obama to pass. But we should not forget how novel and in many ways pernicious the elevation of this term is.
At some points during the Republican primary campaign especially, CINC was being used almost as a synonym for president -- much as we might substitute 'chief executive' for president... [snip] We need to re-familiarize ourselves with the fact that the point of the constitution's explicitly giving the president the title of commander-in-chief was not to make him into a quasi-military figure. It was precisely the opposite -- to create no doubt that the armed forces answered not to a chief of staff or senior general or even a Secretary of Defense (originally, Secretaries of War and Navy) but to a civilian elected officeholder who operates with the constrained and limited power of that world rather than the unbound authority of military command.
We've gotten the relationship seriously out of whack.
So Barack Obama has passed the Heller-Kafka test with flying colors: appearing duly "Presidential" while avoiding critiquing the sitting President. Presenting a world view as a "citizen of the world" and not a Presidential candidate. By demonstrating a commanding knowledge of the regions: Europe, Asia, the Middle East and doing so without minions like Lindsay Graham or Joe Lieberman having to whisper corrections in his ear. Obama exits the week virtually gaffe or goof-up free. The same cannot be said for John McCain.
While the pundits wonder whether Obama was showing "hubris" or "humility," he simply demonstrated his ability to lead with grace and style. And demonstrated that he already can move among the capitals of world with assurance and confidence and without the need for artificial swagger and cowboy politics or phony diplomacy.
As for John McCain, clear evidence this week, he failed that all-important Commander-in-Chief test. And when you get right down to it, he failed the "good citizen test" also. Calling your political opponent a traitor, is an automatic "F."
