Frank Rich: How Obama Became Acting President

[IDemo]

New York Times
Published: July 27, 2008

IT almost seems like a gag worthy of “Borat”: A smooth-talking rookie senator with an exotic name passes himself off as the incumbent American president to credulous foreigners. But to dismiss Barack Obama’s magical mystery tour through old Europe and two war zones as a media-made fairy tale would be to underestimate the ingenious politics of the moment. History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind.

He never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings. (Even “Access Hollywood” mustered a 20 percent audience jump by hosting the Obama family.) Power begets more power, absolutely.

The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain. It was laughable to watch journalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into saying he was “wrong” about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities later, they’re still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American “bloodletting” and “be paid for by the Iraqis.”

Never mind. This election remains about the present and the future, where Iraq’s $10 billion a month drain on American pocketbooks and military readiness is just one moving part in a matrix of national crises stretching from the gas pump to Pakistan. That’s the high-rolling political casino where Mr. Obama amassed the chips he cashed in last week. The “change” that he can at times wield like a glib marketing gimmick is increasingly becoming a substantive reality — sometimes through Mr. Obama’s instigation, sometimes by luck. Obama-branded change is snowballing, whether it’s change you happen to believe in or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Bravo Zulu]

1. * never was a President?

“We have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama is careful to say. True, but the sitting president, a lame duck despised by voters and shunned by his own party’s candidates, now has all the gravitas of Mr. Cellophane in “Chicago.” The opening for a successor arrived prematurely, and the vacuum had been waiting to be filled. What was most striking about the Obama speech in Berlin was not anything he said so much as the alternative reality it fostered: many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad to wave American flags instead of burn them.

-- How Obama Became Acting President (Frank Rich/NYT - 7/26/08)

[elehhhhna]

4. "many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad to wave American flags."

Mine, for example. The last time was right after 9/11, when they were only 5 & 8.

Thank you for that, Mr. Obama.

[roguevalley]

7. If you understand power dynamics, this is one great picture. :)

[Waiting For Everyman]

2. Wow. And in the NYT too!

Best article I've read all week. Thank you for posting it.

You know... that's what I was feeling too, but I couldn't put my finger on it... Obama DOES seem like an interim President. This election is such a no-brainer!

McNutty is the poster-boy of "risky". I do think that the only reason not to vote for Obama is prejudice - no matter what the excuse given for it might be.

[DainBramaged]

3. "felt the pain of a shopper planted by the local Republican Party"

That about says it all, about the insensitive twit.

[bonito]

5. The world recognizes and are welcoming intelligence +

that has been totally missing these last eight years, everyone knows * has not capable of anything while the neocons have been having their way.

[Danascot]

6. "Mr. McCain comes off

instead like the ineffectual Mr. Wilson, the retired neighbor perpetually busting a gasket at the antics of pesky little Dennis the Menace."

:rofl: