Matt Littman: “McCain Makes the Biggest Political Mistake of Our Lifetimes”

He bullied Obama into traveling abroad, with his schoolyard taunts of “Oh yeah, Obama hasn’t even BEEN to Iraq in a while, he doesn’t know anything!” Matt Littman:

Senator McCain, knowing that he held an edge on Barack Obama on the “Commander in Chief” question, badly overplayed his hand. He taunted Senator Obama on his lack of foreign policy experience and he challenged Obama to go to Iraq. He sneered at Obama for formulating an Iraq policy prior to traveling to the war zone. He even offered to go with him to Iraq, as if Obama needed his hand held by the man with military experience.

McCain wanted the public to believe that Obama was a novice, a whipper-snapper who would jeopardize our nation’s security.

Obama listened to McCain’s attempted bullying and said, “You know what? I’ll go to Iraq. And Afghanistan, Israel, Germany — I’ll make this a big foreign policy trip abroad. I’ll show the voters back home that the world still really does love the United States, they just don’t love President Bush or John McCain.”

And Obama went abroad, with the world’s press following him, clinging to his every word, oohing and aahing at his every jump shot, hoping to catch a glimpse of his every smile.

The trip: the biggest success of the campaign. The Commander in Chief question: negated. Heck of job, McCain.

Meanwhile, John McCain has been back home, fucking up repeatedly and bitching about the press coverage Obama is getting for going on the trip that McCain pressured him into:

McCain, the former press darling who once referred to the media as “my base,” is so upset that press is following Obama, he’s become whining and petulant about it. It’s as if McCain and Obama both had a party, and everyone went to the Obama party, while McCain found out he’s no longer the most popular guy in school.

But perhaps, in one way, the lack of coverage of McCain is a positive. McCain keeps screwing up. His commercials are unbelievably bad. He frequently makes erroneous statements, often about Iraq. To date, he has been wrong about Iraq’s geographical location (it does not border Pakistan), wrong about the alliances of Iran (Shiite Iran does not supply Sunni Al-Qaeda with weapons), wrong about the timeline of the Anbar Awakening (occurred months before the surge). The question has to be asked: Does McCain have a firm grasp of what’s going on in Iraq?

Let’s not forget the part about John McCain trying to have a big lie-fest in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico about how awesome offshore drilling is, and God promptly smiting that idea with a hurricane…

I really like Wonkette’s recap of Obama’s trip, so far:

* The U.S. troops in Afghanistan endorse his plans there.
* … Where he also made a three-pointer from way downtown on his first try.
* The Iraqi government endorses his plan over the Bush/McCain non-plan.
* He struts around without body armor, a foot taller than everybody else — in painful contrast to Ol’ Walnuts looking like a Kevlar burrito wearing an old lady’s sun hat.
* The hawkish Israelis say, “Hey, this fellow will let us nuke Iran, too. We like him fine.”
* The saner Israelis say, “Hey, maybe this guy isn’t such a one-note warmonger and might actually accomplish something over here.”
* The Jordanians say, “Welcome, Mr. Cool. Our king will drive you around and you guys can figure everything out.”
* Germany’s Angela Merkel pronounces him “well-equipped — physically, mentally and politically.”
* The Palestinians make him a bagel!

Basically Barack Obama is already the President in the eyes of most of the world and over half of our own country. Littman finishes his piece this way:

All John McCain has done, with his childish taunting of Obama, is create a situation where Obama has now gone overseas; been seen with General Petraeus smiling, looking Presidential; been photographed with world leaders who seem excited by the prospect of an Obama Presidency, and shown, by images, that he fits in just fine on the world stage; and, of course, Obama has taken all the media attention with him when McCain is desperate for media coverage.

This trip would not have happened without McCain’s taunting — and so, Barack Obama would never have gone on this trip and looked this good if McCain had not made such a stunning mistake in urging him to do so.

So…thanks, Walnuts!!!