Obama the Statesman vs. Bush the Bully: The Week Obama Became Presidential

In a world battered and abused by the hubris of Bush-Cheney cowboy diplomacy, Barack Obama looks, sounds, acts, and speaks like the statesman-diplomatic leader that the international community desperately needs from the United States.

Watching Obama interact on the world stage is rather like drinking a tall, thirst-quenching cup of icy water after wandering without sustenance in a bleak, blazing desert: refreshing, relieving, life-restoring, and long overdue. It feels unquestionably right. It gives a glimmer of hope for a better day.

The visuals of Obama's Middle East visit are spellbinding to our nation held captive to George Bush's fight-club impulses: an American leader sitting with Middle East leaders, listening intently to and talking thoughtfully with them; acting admirably and with respectful courtesy.

And yet, Obama's Middle East visit holds powerful substance, as well. After years of frustration with Bush's punk-attitude policies, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki found commonground agreement with Barack Obama on U.S. troop withdrawal after one face-to-face meeting. (See WaPo's Obama Makes War Gains.)

In Afghanistan with President Hamid Karzai, in Jordan with King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein, and with other Middle East leaders, the results have been exactly the same: peacable discussion, meaningful dialog, and the hope of progress toward eventual peace.

The Huffington Post reports today that "Bloomberg News says 'Middle Eastern and European leaders are lining up to hear what Barack Obama has to say.'"

Here at home, Obama's apparent impact on foreign policy, just since he embarked on his Middle East fact-finding trip, has proven astonishingly powerful:

• Bush suddenly agreed to a "general time horizon" for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
• McCain belatedly called for U.S. troops to be moved from Iraq into Afghanistan.
• Even blank-slate Dana Perino, Bush's sycophant press secretary, was forced to admit about Iraqis demanding specific dates for U.S. troops to exit their country, "... we understand that they're a sovereign country and they'll be able to do that. "

And strikingly, not one word of criticism or objection has been uttered by Republican members of Congress, except rival John McCain, about the stunning results, thus far, of Obama's trip.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who dumbly goaded Obama into making this trip, has been reduced to:

• whining that Obama has no military experience;
• defending the fear-filled, threat-laced bully mindset of George Bush's failed Middle East approach;
• making terrible gaffe after gaffe, painfully revealing his lack of basic knowledge about the Middle East;
• penning a shrill, blog-style political piece for the distinguished New York Times op-ed page, only to have it embarrassingly rejected by the Times.

Tellingly, when his plane landed last night in New Hampshire, "there was just one reporter and one photographer waiting for McCain," per the New Hampshire Union Leader.

This Is the Week Obama Became Presidential
This will be remembered as the week in which Obama took firm, commanding lead of the 2008 presidential race.

This will remembered as the week when Barack Obama began looking, feeling, sounding, BEING truly presidential to American voters and to the world.

This will be remembered as the week when Bush foreign policy, in contrast to Obama statesmanship, began to finally be unquestionably viewed here at home as small, cruel, and wholly unworthy of United States tradition and history.

This will be remembered as the week when John McCain would have been well-advised to keep a low profile, rework his beleaguered campaign strategy, and finally learn how to use a computer and access the internet so he can grasp and function in the digital age.

The 2008 presidential race is now Barack Obama's to win or lose. John McCain is a bystander with benefits.

(Photo taken on July 21, 2008 in Baghdad, of Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki: Thaier al-Sudani-Pool/Getty Images)

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