In the Reagan speechwriting shop, we had a rule about what today is called the mainstream media: The media does not just get things wrong; they get it EXACTLY wrong.\u00a0 Barack Obama\u2019s recent overseas trip is an example.<\/p>\n
Widely reported as a triumph, the tour in fact marked the worst week in the Democratic candidate\u2019s long campaign.\u00a0 Despite saturation coverage unlike any presidential aspirant has ever received, much of it close to worshipful, by the end of this past week, Obama\u2019s lead in the Real Clear Politics average of polls was the lowest it had been since early June.\u00a0 And for the first time ever, the Gallup tracking poll, which had previously given Obama a consistent edge, showed the candidates tied as of Friday.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n
The first and most obvious reason was a string of gaffes.\u00a0 Despite reports like Hendrik Herzberg\u2019s in The New Yorker<\/em> that Obama came off as a deft navigator of global waters, the excursion was filled with missteps.\u00a0 For example, in saying that he remained against the surge, even after General Petraeus had explained to him its remarkable effectiveness, he showed what many saw as a reckless disregard for national security.\u00a0 In canceling a visit to troops after being told that cameras couldn\u2019t follow him, he reinforced a widely shared suspicion that all he was up to was political posturing.\u00a0 And in describing the fall of the Berlin Wall during his media-celebrated speech before 200,000 Berliners as if there had been no American role in the collapse of the Evil Empire, he seemed willfully ignorant of one of the greatest achievements of American diplomacy and strategy ever \u2013 perhaps because two Republican presidents had been in charge during that period, an unbecoming display of pettiness.<\/p>\n But beyond gaffes, something more fundamental fated Obama\u2019s failure.\u00a0 Presidential campaigns are battles over agenda. Whichever candidate finds his agenda as the focus of discussion will very likely emerge the victor.<\/p>\n Throughout the primary campaign, Senator Obama had implied that the role of commander in chief was close to trivial.\u00a0 What else can be concluded from asserting that within 60 days following inauguration we could walk away from America\u2019s largest combat commitment in 35 years with no consequences worth talking about?\u00a0 And yet, what was the message of his tour?\u00a0 Exactly what Senator McCain has argued, that commander-in-chief duties will be of central importance in the next presidential term.\u00a0 Apart from Obama\u2019s adjustments to his stance on Iraq \u2013 and here much of the mainstream media rationalized every flip and every flop to his benefit \u2013 or the blandness of his Berlin address, the very fact of venturing abroad undercut the premises of the Illinois senator\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s argument has been that the nation\u2019s principal problems will not be solved by the application of policy \u2013 foreign or domestic \u2013 so much as by the repair of souls.\u00a0 The candidate\u2019s sometimes-messianic tone has been a bi-product of a proposition that America is in a state of sin manifested by the divisions among us, that these divisions include those of excessive partisanship, and that Obama\u2019s very election would represent the country\u2019s transcending of its divisions.<\/p>\n This proposition is incompatible with a visit to a war zone and a speech given near where the Berlin Wall once stood.\u00a0 The world is a dangerous place, the journey acknowledged.\u00a0 Every moment invited comparison of a recently elevated state senator of no particular distinction with an opponent who in military service and the United States Senate has devoted his life to the nation\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n In other words, in venturing overseas, Obama abandoned his agenda and embraced Senator McCain\u2019s.\u00a0 He did this without prompting and apparently without realizing how foolish an errand he was on.<\/p>\n Many in the media have held that the 2008 election will be most like the election of 1980.\u00a0 In 1980 the public knew they didn\u2019t like Carter but took until a week before the election to decide they trusted Reagan.\u00a0 Just as Reagan was the issue in 1980, some suggest, Obama is today.\u00a0 If the public trusts him, they will make him president.<\/p>\n But with so much coverage, not just on this trip but for months before, who in America cannot have formed a firm opinion of Senator Obama by now?\u00a0 Senator McCain is the one the public is still assessing.\u00a0 It is he, not Obama, whom the American people must now decide to trust or not.\u00a0 Once again the media has not just been wrong.\u00a0 It has been exactly wrong.<\/p>\n Clark S. Judge is managing director, White House Writers Group.\u00a0 He was a speechwriter for President Reagan.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the Reagan speechwriting shop, we had a rule about what today is called the mainstream media: The media does not just get things wrong; they get it EXACTLY wrong.\u00a0 Barack Obama\u2019s recent overseas trip is an example. 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