MSNBC

I‘m watching MSNBC and David Shuster asks if Obama is just playing politics as usual because he’s attacking McCain on energy.

So, is Obama supposed to just do nothing?  He’s not allowed to point out the differences between himself and McCain?  Give me a break.  Obama calling out John McCain for McCain’s bullshit energy solutions (offshore drilling is a good example), is not Obama playing politics as usual.  It’s Obama telling the truth to voters and trying to take our country towards real energy independence.

Looks like Barack Obama is getting the expected bounce from his trip.  Gallup’s Daily Tracking Poll now has the race at Obama 48% - McCain 41% and Rasmussen’s Tracking Poll has the race at Obama 46% - McCain 40% (or 49%-43% with leaners).  Despite the McCain campaign’s best effort to ridicule Obama’s trip, the results are becoming clear: Obama looked like a President, and is reaping the benefits.

Howard Kurtz discussed the media coverage of the trip yesterday in his Washington Post column, and I think he hit the nail on the head.  Though the actual coverage has been fairly mixed (Fox News has done it’s best to counter the trip, Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC has surely taken every opportunity to attack Obama over the past week) the images tell a different story.

In short, though Obamapalooza was not quite the lovefest that some expected, news outlets provided a spotlight so bright that their own people were left in the shadows.

“The pictures bring people into the story,” says Jerry Rafshoon, who was President Jimmy Carter’s media adviser. “In the television age, the more people who can see him in the role of commander in chief, the better it is for him.” By contrast, Rafshoon says, when John McCain was seen riding around Kennebunkport in a golf cart with former president George H. W. Bush, “you’re seeing him with his generation, the older generation. They looked like the past.”

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Posted By: Nick

 
Couple of videos from MSNBC/NBC about Obama’s trip.  The first is a general news piece about the trip, with some video of Obama in meetings and with some of the troops.  The second is Chuck Todd and David Gregory on Meet the Press discussing the trip.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=mXuAN_5Xr7U]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqCtoREx88I]

The trip is turning out to be quite successful for Obama.  It has looked great; so many images of the troops so excited to see him are quite remarkable and can only play to his advantage.  Other events that have transpired have only bolstered Obama’s foreign policy positions.  Those developments combined with this trip are driving the discussion right now, and it’s all pro-Obama.

UPDATE: Barack Obama is good at basketball.  This is a longer clip of the scene from the MSNBC clip above where he sinks a 3-pointer.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/j87k1j4CpOw&hl=en]