McCain Firing Away

Well, the coverage of the Obama trip has reached the point that the media are now nightly fodder for the "Daily Show," where the intrepid correspondents talk about how, uh, aroused they are covering the conquering hero of Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

"Obama was off to Israel, where he made a quick stop at the manger in Bethlehem where he was born," Jon Stewart reported.

And that's before the new issue of People hits the stands, with the Obama family on the cover, and such revelations as the daughters getting a $1 allowance for making their beds and cleaning the toy closet, and no birthday present because Mom and Dad want to teach them some limits.

As for McCain, he got nine paragraphs in yesterday's New York Times and seven in The Washington Post. Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson did give him something approaching equal time, but there was a problem with the "CBS Evening News" interview, which I'll get to later.

Obama made no apparent mistakes in Israel yesterday, and if the cable coverage was less elaborate than in previous days, it was because they all rushed off from his news conference to cover Hurricane Dolly. Apparently television can only cover one storm at a time, and Hurricane Barack was briefly sidelined.

The Obama trip has turned into a long-distance debate about America's two wars. The upside for McCain is that national security is his turf. The downside for McCain is that after prodding Obama to take this trip, he has been all but eclipsed by the mega-coverage. And the Maliki move toward a U.S. pullout in 2010 was a gift-wrapped package for Obama that undermined McCain's criticism that his rival is a cut-and-runner. How do you cut and run on a country that doesn't want you there?

The other danger for McCain is that his intensified rhetoric against Obama as a man who wouldn't mind losing a war if he can win the White House sounds a bit shrill, and could well backfire.

"With a fanfare typically orchestrated for a visiting head of state," says the New York Times, "Senator Barack Obama dashed through a series of meetings with leaders on both sides of the Middle East conflict on Wednesday, pledging to protect Israel and prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons . . .

"Tailed by camera crews, Mr. Obama created something of a spectacle on local television, in newspapers and even among the government ministers who jockeyed to join in the attention."

Obama is in Germany today, where the forecast calls for a 90 percent chance of adoring crowds.

"Obama laughingly urged reporters to 'tamp down expectations' for the crowd he'll draw in Berlin this evening, joking that he might have to spend the afternoon passing out fliers for the event," USA Today reports.

Denis Boyles describes the visit in National Review: