4 days ago, the NYT's Michael Falcone had a fairly positive story on Obama's vacation. Not today...

[highplainsdem]

:(


This was Falcone's blog post on the 10th:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/obama-at-home-in-the-islands/#more-5856



Tonight there's a very different story, in the Politics section:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/us/politics/15obama.html

McCain Displays Credentials as Obama Relaxes

By MICHAEL FALCONE
Published: August 14, 2008

HONOLULU — For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Only once, at the beginning of the week, did Mr. Obama discuss the fighting in public, when he emerged from his beachfront rental home to condemn Russia’s escalation, in a way that seemed timed for the evening television news. He took no questions whose answers might demonstrate command of the issue.

Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, “We are all Georgians.”

It is as if the candidates’ images have been reversed within a matter of a few weeks. When Mr. Obama was overseas last month, Mr. McCain’s foreign policy bona fides seemed diminished, if only because he could not attract the news media attention received by Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Now, Mr. Obama’s voice seems muted at a time when much of the world has been worriedly watching the conflict.

-snip-

Obama needed this vacation. He'd looked exhausted.

But I wish he could have made time for some news conferences to take media attention away from McCain.

[David Dunham]

1. McCain does know Georgia

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. He knows the Georgia his bought and paid for policy advisor tells him

Which is a bit like Bush "knowing" the energy business because he hung out with Ken Lay.

Are you such an in-the-can propagandist for Saakashvili that you now go around praising John McCain on these boards?

[MarjorieG]

2. We need to have truth about McC Georgian involvement. Publicize Obama's restraint superior approach.

[DJ13]

4. Sounds like his bosses gave him his marching orders

"Support McCain......or else"

[Triana]

5. McCain and Georgia - from TheNation...

"Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the US presidential election?

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser.

Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the US Iraq invasion."

more.....

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/scheer2

[FrenchieCat]

6. No need to comment on the "Wag the Dog" War.......

There is only one President at a time, and McCain is an arrogant ass.

[Butch350]

7. McCains talk has had no affect - so what's the point...

[Overseas]

8. JSM III's dumbass bombastic comments do NOT show expertise!!

So sorry to see the NYT reporter acting as though the presumptuous, bombastic comments of John Sidney McCain III (aka Senator BombBomb) show more expertise than Obama's. They actually show him to be very stupid, letting his campaign staffer's client push him around. Furthermore, JSM III is having a Cold War Flashback-- not understanding 21st Century realities.

Obama's statement was measured and showed better understanding of the complexities of the situation in Georgia and its breakaway provinces.