Sauerkraut, anyone? Today, more than 200,000 Germans----nearly triple the size of his largest U.S. crowd to date--gathered between Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and Siegessäule to hear Barack Obama speak. Meanwhile, John McCain was 4,339 miles away at Schmidt's Sausage Haus in Columbus, Ohio, where he greeted a handful of diners and downed some bratwurst with his pal Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

So who had the better afternoon?

The answer's not as obvious as the images--or the gushing cable coverage--might imply. To see why, it's helpful to divide Obama's actual audience--not the Teutons in attendance, but his countrymen back home--into three psychographic groups. The first two have already decided whom they're voting for. On the right, there are those who see Obama's unprecedented overseas adventure as unforgivably presumptuous--part of a pattern extending from last month's faux-presidential seal to the report today that he's directed his aides to begin planning for his White House transition. For them, the centerpiece of Obama's Berlin speech--"tonight, I speak to you... as a fellow citizen of the world"--will sound "a little too post-nationalist," or, put another way, not sufficiently "American." On the left, meanwhile, there are the folks who consider Obama's Kenya-to-Kansas persona the perfect antidote to President Bush's patented brand of "cowboy diplomacy." For these globally conscious voters, watching the Democratic nominee's Berlin rally--with its sea of adoring foreigners holding hundreds of American flags--was like glimpsing planet earth's utopian future. The first group--which has shrunk since John Kerry was declared "too French" in 2004--is voting for McCain; the second--which has grown--is voting for Obama. Berlin merely reinforced these preferences.

The real political target of the senator's speech--which was appropriately eloquent and appropriately safe--was somewhere in between. Today, 75 percent of U.S. citizens believe that Bush's foreign policy is to blame for anti-American sentiment overseas, and 70 percent disapprove of his performance as president; only 46 percent, on average, support Obama. In other words, 25 to 30 percent of the electorate is disgusted with Bush--especially on international affairs--yet still not sold on the Democratic nominee. That's group number three. In the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 55 percent of voters said Obama would be the riskier choice for president, and a mere 25 percent said he'd make a better commander in chief. These people agree that Obama would help restore America's reputation abroad. But they're still not sure he's ready for office. The point of Obama's globetrotting performance this week, then, was to lower his risk factor and raise his commander-in-chief cred by giving these swing voters a chance to picture him as POTUS. I'm ready to meet with the Merkels and Malikis and restore our international reputation, he's saying. You know how you can tell? I'm already doing it. Figure out how many anti-Bush Obama skeptics were swayed by the senator's seven days of exhaustively choreographed photo-ops--at the Western Wall, with Maliki, in Gen. Petraeus's chopper--and you'll know how successful his tour really was. Given their skepticism, I can't imagine the number is earth-shattering. That's not to say the trip wasn't a worthwhile experience for Obama and an inspiring vision for many Americans. It undoubtedly was. It's just that the domestic political benefits probably aren't as large as Chris Matthews and Co. are making them out to be.

In fact, there's reason to believe that it's McCain, not Obama, who's made up the most ground in recent days--especially in key swing states. According to the latest American Research Group polls, Obama now trails by two points in Florida after having led by five, and his New Hampshire lead has plunged from 12 points to two. Rasmussen, meanwhile, shows the Illinois senator down by 10 in Ohio--a nine point drop from mid-June--and Quinnipiac finds McCain gaining 15 in Minnesota, two in Michigan and seven in Colorado. All of which underscores the central reality of the race: Obama is ahead--but just barely. Pollster.com's national polling average gives him a two-point lead; RealClear Politics pegs it at four.

So the fact remains. McCain may be "pretty obviously doomed this year," as Kevin Drum recently opined, and you may not, in the words of my NEWSWEEK colleague Howard Fineman, be able to "make up how bad things are going" for him. Furthermore, "Democrats [may] enjoy an average lead of 11.6 percent in generic Congress polls; "the Republican administration [may be] wildly unpopular"; and "the economy [may be] in a tailspin." But McCain is still within striking distance. According to the New Republic's John Judis, that's because Obama "remains the 'mysterious stranger' rather than the 'American Adam' to too many voters"-- that is, voters "who are put off rather than attracted by his race and exotic background," or are simply uncomfortable with his relatively short resume. What's more, Obama's recent efforts to prove his foreign-policy chops, while understandable, may also be somewhat counterproductive. As Stephen Medvic writes, "by doing so, he is priming voters to think about the very issues on which they prefer John McCain. Indeed, his trip overseas was intended to portray him in a positive light on the world stage. It has certainly done that... [But] foreign policy isn't likely to drive many voting decisions in the fall (barring a major international event). As a result, Obama's best bet is to return home as soon as possible and start priming voters on the issue area he can dominate--the economy." In the end, that's why Obama's trip to Berlin, Germany may not matter as much as his stops in places like Berlin, N.H., Berlin, Penn. and Berlin, Wisc.--despite what you're seeing on the tube.

By the way, we hear the brat at Schmidt's is wunderbar. 

Related Photo Gallery: Obama, With the World Watching

Matt Sayles / AP

When it comes to "volcanic" tempers--and we mean that literally--John McCain is apparently no match for Steve Schmidt, his new campaign guru. McCain yells. McCain curses. McCain occasionally gets in scuffles. But McCain, unlike Schmidt, does not (ahem) lose bodily fluids. According to a lengthy profile published in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, when Schmidt--nicknamed "Bullet" for his burly build and bald pate--gets really angry, his nose begins to bleed. (Schmidt denies the diagnosis.) "The nostrils would flare, he would get very red-faced... and you would just want to quit," a colleague from President Bush's 2004 war room told the paper. "You basically wanted to crash a chair over his head." Those who have worked with Schmidt before say that Team McCain "should steel itself," the Journal reports. Investing in Kleenex might be wise as well.

On the presidential campaign trail, temper tantrums are nothing new. The toxic cocktail of long hours, grueling travel, massive egos and constant public scrutiny is enough to send even the calmest operative over the edge on occasion. But McCain's recent decision to substitute the snappish Schmidt for campaign manager Rick Davis--the formal, even-keeled moneyman who engineered his miraculous primary-season comeback--raises an interesting question. What's the relationship between rage and electoral results--if any? Over the past three decades, an army of presidential Svengali's have made anger a defining feature of their professional personae, wielding it, like Schmidt, as a tool of management. Others, of course, haven't. A quick look at the history books reveals that the latter group may have been more successful in steering their bosses to victory.

Take John Weaver, for example. A lanky, brooding, volatile Texan, Weaver convinced the McCain to challenge George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000--and, as top strategist, lovingly oversaw every aspect of that year's "maverick" campaign. Weaver wasn't exactly placid. In fact, his outbursts were so frequent that staffers gave them a name: "W.O.W. moments," for Wrath of Weaver. He signature move? Throwing things. Pagers. A coffee table. A television. By New Hampshire, Weaver had sent at least two baseballs through office walls and smashed three Nokia cell phones. "I was actually hit by some of the shrapnel," Jim Merrill, McCain's South Carolina director, said at the time. As Dana Milbank wrote in the Washington Post, "Weaver uses his volatile temper to motivate his staff. If anybody is late for the morning meeting, he orders the next day's held half an hour earlier... Before a telephone tirade, he'll tell people around him to 'watch this.'" McCain, of course, lost the nomination.

Then there's Jimmy Carter. In 1976, Carter entrusted his electoral fortunes to a disheveled Southern operative named Hamilton Jordan, who devised the smart strategy of using the Iowa caucuses to lift the Georgia governor out of obscurity. He was known for "his extraordinary reticence." When truly angry, Jordan didn't lose his temper, but withdrew, physically or mentally. "No one who has covered a Southern courthouse could mistake the look on Jordan's face when he doesn't want to answer: chin uplifted slightly, eyes hooded," wrote the Washington Post. "It's not quite defensive, but it expresses an old Southern notion that power is best exercised quietly, and that only a fool talks about what he's going to do before he's done it." Four years later, however, pollster Pat Caddell--an Irish-American with a legendary temper--had a stronger hold on the reins. "Stories are told, over and over, by veterans of past campaigns: of screaming fights ending with a standard refrain of 'I'll ruin you!' or 'You're finished!,'" wrote the Post. "Of intimidating calls, doors slamming shut, phones slamming down. 'He scars you,' says one recipient of the Caddell Treatment." Carter went on to lose the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, and Caddell went on to guide Gary Hart, Walter Mondale and Joe Biden to defeat.

I don't mean to blame these losses on Caddell's shouting or Weaver's throwing--or Bill Clinton's red-faced meddlingin this year's primary contest, for that matter. Not at all. Elections are decided by the voters, not the gurus--and there have been too many exceptions (like, say, James "The Ragin' Cajun" Carville in 1992) to justify some sort of rule. That said, the tone at the top can affect (and/or infect) the larger operation--perhaps by breeding resentment, which breeds defiance, which breeds inefficiency--and in recent elections, it seems, a "cooler" management style has prevailed off more often than not. Lee Atwater and Karl Rove--who ran George H.W. Bush's and George W. Bush's successful presidential campaigns--were known as nasty partisan pugilists well-practiced in dirty trickery. But they rarely blew up behind the scenes. The consultant who piloted the DOA John Kerry to the 2004 Democratic nomination, Mary Beth Cahill, was described at the time as "no small talk, no face time, no sucking up to the candidate, none of those operative-style temper tantrums, no passive aggression, no waste"--even if the "Shrum Curse" ultimately prevailed. And Ronald Reagan's people weren't known for their pique.

Will history repeat itself in 2008? This year, Barack Obama appears to be the candidate poised to prosper from in-house equanimity. The senator himself brags that he has "the right temperament for the presidency"-- not "too high and not "too low"--while David Plouffe, his low-key, geeky campaign manager, and David Axelrod, his soft-spoken strategist, have run his bid like it was a "private corporation." "Mr. Obama’s circle of advisers takes seriously his “no drama” mandate," writes the New York Times. "It is a point of pride in his campaign that there have been virtually no serious leaks to the news media... about internal division or infighting." So far this approach has worked wonders for the nominee, who came from nowhere in the Democratic primaries to defeat the party's most powerful machine and now leads in November's polls. Going forward, Schmidt job is to prove that rage can get results. If he can't, blood won't be the only thing he stands to lose.
 

Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

Here's the latest dispatch from my NEWSWEEK colleague Richard Wolffe, who's reporting from Barack Obama's globetrotting roadshow:

One of the tests for Barack Obama on this week's foreign trip is how well he navigates the crosscurrents of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So on a day when he traveled from the Palestinian president's office in Ramallah to the rocket-shelled Israeli town of Sderot, how did he do?

First, the day was not gaffe-free. Answering an Israeli reporter's question in Sderot, he was confused about which Senate committee he served on. "Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee—which is my committee—a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon," he said. Just one problem: he actually sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
 
It wasn't Obama's only mistake of the press conference, held in front of a pile of spent rocket shells that were launched from Gaza into Sderot. When pressed about his pledge, in an earlier Democratic debate, to talk directly to the leaders of rogue states without preconditions, Obama recalled a different response. "I think that what I said in response was that I would at my time and choosing be willing to meet with any leader if I thought it would promote the national-security interests of the United States of America," he explained. "And that continues to be my position." While Obama did indeed explain his pledge in those terms, that nuanced response came much later than the initial debate, held a year ago.

Knowing he'd be under a microscope, Obama had clearly prepared carefully for the trip—so why did he trip up? He gave a clue to the Likud Party's Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of the day's meetings with Israeli leaders. After an intense five days of travel to Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq and Jordan, Obama—like the rest of his staff and press corps—is exhausted. When Netanyahu asked how he was feeling, Obama said, "I could fall asleep standing up."

Still, those were the only blemishes on an otherwise robust day of repeated commitments to Israel's security and the close alliance between the United States and Israel. In Sderot, he turned an expression of support for the terrorized town into something more personal. "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep every night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that," he said. "I would expect Israel to do the same thing."

READ THE REST HERE. 
 

As John McCain and his Republican allies have ratcheted up their attacks on Barack Obama's foreign-policy record in recent days, they've repeated one criticism in particular: that Obama once voted "against our troops." The swipe first appeared last Friday in a McCain spot called, appropriately enough, "Troop Funding"; it resurfaced today in the RNC's new "Obama Chooses Washington Over Our Military" ad (above), which, as we reported earlier, is set to air tomorrow in Berlin, N.H., Berlin, Penn. and Berlin, Wisc. "There are few votes as important as funding our men and women in uniform," says the announcer. "But when our military needed necessary resources, Barack Obama failed to stand up."

The attack itself--which has been a staple of the Republican playbook since the Iraq war began in 2003--isn't particularly noteworthy. What's intriguing, however, is how much Obama's response to it has changed over the past five days. As we wrote last week, portraying Obama's 2007 vote against a war-funding bill is misleading--especially because McCain himself voted against H.R. 1591, an emergency spending bill designed to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and provide more than $1 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The truth is, McCain was opposing a bill that included a timetable for withdrawal and Obama was opposing one that didn't. Neither candidate was actually voting "against the troops." 

Last Friday, Chicago chose to respond to "Troop Funding" by fighting fire with fire. "MCCAIN REPEATEDLY VOTED AGAINST AND OBAMA REPEATEDLY VOTED FOR FUNDING FOR MILITARY EQUIPMENT FOR SOLDIERS," wrote spokesman Hari Sevugan in an email to reporters--repeating, in effect, the same misleading, out-of context attack that McCain was leveling against the Illinois senator. Today, however, Sevugan--now reacting to the RNC's ad--was a changed man. "There are honest differences between Senator Obama’s position on Iraq and Senator McCain’s," he said. "But there’s no question that both support our troops. Under the RNC’s definition, John McCain would have also chosen politics over our military when he urged George Bush to veto funding for the troops, and we know that’s not the case. This is the sort of distasteful and misleading attack from the Rove playbook that the American people are tired of." As Ben Smith puts it, Sevugan went for "a high-road tone last seen (on both sides) sometime late last summer." This doesn't mean, necessarily, that Obama is taking the high road; it means that he wants voters to think he's taking the high road. Going after the political process is as much a political tactic as going after your opponent's strengths.

The shift is subtle, but it's also revealing. In the five days since "Troop Funding" first aired, Obama has enjoyed a remarkable run of foreign-policy successes--or strokes of luck--from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki endorsing his withdrawal plan to President Bush dispatching a government official to chat with Iranian leaders. McCain, meanwhile, has been forced to go negative--early and often--to compete for coverage. The result is a definite change in dynamic. While Obama now "seems" confident, competent and unperturbed--swanning around the globe with foreign leaders has that effect--McCain suddenly "seems" angry, annoyed and even desperate. (NB: "Seems" is the operative word here; it's about political perceptions.) On Friday, Team Obama felt they had to aggressively rebut the "anti-soldier" attack; today, they're comfortable dismissing it as "old politics" and floating above the fray. Chicago clearly hopes that Obama's overseas adventure will allow him to maintain that kind of altitude for the rest of the race. But they should be careful what they wish for. If you'll recall, Al Gore and John Kerry followed similar flight patterns in 2000 and 2004--and lost. Obama is undoubtedly a savvier strategist. Still, he shouldn't forget that McCain--and the Bush-Rove alums on his team--know a thing or two about combat.
 

New posters from John McCain and Barack Obama. Which would you rather have on your bedroom wall? (Other than "neither.")

(Via Ambinder) 

Design can be revealing. Both posters seek to portray their subjects as steely, messianic, future-oriented leaders--which is why they're both gazing at some distant, meaningful horizon. But whereas the Obama graphic supports this message visually--the upward sweep of the text conveys optimism while also evoking the internationalist spirit of modern Europe (see: the bold diagonals and sans serif fonts of Bauhaus-style  design)--McCain's seems somewhat conflicted. "Wisdom" equals intelligence but also suggests the past. Marbling connotes solidity but also implies antiquity (both classical and Clinton-era). The warplanes may be returning from combat--or leaving on a mission. And you can't tell if the sun is rising or setting.

Also, it looks like the cover of "The Sum of All Fears" by Tom Clancy.

UPDATE: More on Obama and Bauhaus from Meaningful Distractions: "Many Germans will recognize this little tip-of-the-hat to German graphic design history, and those that recognize it will appreciate it. This type of move wouldn’t even occur to the McCain campaign, despite the fact that McCain was born around the time German Bauhaus was all the rage."
 

When the Democratic nominee announced his massive $52 million June fundraising haul last week, we here at Stumper headquarters were struck by one number in particular: $68. That according to the campaign, was the month's average contribution's size. The amazing thing, we wrote, was that it was about $30 lower than the average contribution in May, April or March. Which implied one thing: "that the senator attracted a massive number of new $5, $10, $20 donors once the primaries ended--presumably from the ranks of devoted Dems who had (until then) supported Hillary Clinton." In other words, the much-hyped rumors of Clintonites refusing to accept Obama as their nominee were greatly exaggerated--or simply, you know, inconsequential.

Now that Chicago has filed its finance reports with the FEC, though, we decided that instead of just (ahem) guessing, we should actually quantify how much Clinton's former supporters gave. Given that the headlines say stuff like "Clinton Supporters Lend Obama a Big Fundraising Hand," we assumed that the stats would confirm our suppositions. They don't. Truth is, according to the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, Obama received only $1.8 million in June from donors who'd given to Clinton since January 2007.*** That sum represented a paltry 3.5 percent of his monthly total and less than a tenth of what Clinton herself raised in April--hardly enough to account for the $30 million leap in Obama's fundraising from May (the last month of the primary season) to June (the first month of the general election). Moreover, about half of the $1.8 million came from 355 Clinton donors contributing more than $2,000 apiece--which kind of makes our whole hypothesis (i.e., Obama attracted a massive number of small-sum donors from Clinton's base) look dubious. Overall, only 2,200 Clinton donors--out of the hundreds of thousands who contributed to her campaign--sent their first checks to Obama last month.***

At first, this may look like a minus for Obama--you know, another opportunity for pundits to proclaim that he's yet to unify the party. But raising more than $50 million without overwhelming contributions from former Clinton donors is actually more impressive--and more encouraging for the future of Obama's money machine--than relying on them to reach that lofty mark. Here's why. For one thing, it means that many of those $5, $10 and $20 checks--the checks that lowered June's average contribution to $68--came from folks who may have sat out the Democratic primary but are now eager defeat McCain. Going forward, the sustained growth of this small-sum base is by far Obama's biggest advantage over his Republican rival, who's relying mostly on major moneymen to max out and move along. More importantly, Obama's sans Hillary June success indicates that there are still a ton of Clinton contributors--that is, proven Democratic donors--who have yet to give to the party's presumptive nominee. For Obama, this is a win-win situation. He's already shown that he can raise plenty for his purposes with minimal Clinton input. The worst that can happen is that some of her donors continue to hold out--and he continues to rake in $52 million a month. On the other hand, if old tensions thaw as November approaches and more Clintonites open their checkbooks--a likely scenario--the nominee's already astronomical totals will climb even higher.

***UPDATE, 2:13 p.m.: Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor calls to remind me that donations under $200 aren't listed on the FEC returns--insert palm slapping forehead here--so we can only really assess how well Obama did with Clintonites in the $200 to $2,300 category. (Unfortunately, I based my analysis on the L.A. Times and Washington Post reports, which were written, misleadingly, to sound as if Obama attracted only 2,200 Clinton donors overall.) This means that there are still potentially--and, in fact, probably--a sizable number of former Hillary supporters (certainly more than 2,200) who sent Obama their first small checks in June, as I wrote last week. Either way, the end result is same for the senator: he's likely to go up from here.
 

My NEWSWEEK colleague Richard Wolffe reports from Obama's overseas entourage (watch for additional dispatches throughout the week): 

Standing opposite the Roman ruins of a Temple to Hercules, Barack Obama did a public high-wire act on Tuesday: undertaking to answer a week's worth of complex foreign policy questions without making any campaign-threatening stumbles.

The press conference atop the ancient Citadel in Amman, Jordan, was Obama's first session with the press since he flew to Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq last week. In the last four days, he has enjoyed at least two measures of good fortune that have helped him stay on course.

First, the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, effectively endorsed Obama's 16-month timeframe for withdrawing from Iraq, suggesting the end of 2010 as an end-date for U.S. troops to leave. Maliki's office half-heartedly tried to backtrack on that support for a similar timeline, under pressure from the White House, but then wound up talking anew about a date certain. His interjection makes it much harder for McCain to argue that Obama's withdrawal plan is reckless.

Second, Obama got some priceless photo ops-alongside Gen. David Petraeus on a helicopter tour of Iraq, and eating alongside the troops in the Middle East. Those images give Obama ammunition to use in combating one of John McCain's major criticisms of the Democratic contender-that he lacks the foreign policy experience necessary for success in the White House.

But those advantages didn't prevent Obama from looking wobbly once in awhile. He was pressed repeatedly by Jordanian reporters about his position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ahead of his travel to Jerusalem and Ramallah on Wednesday. When asked about U.S. support for Israel, Obama intended to send a strong message that the United States would remain supportive of its ally. Instead his response came out this way. "Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's," he declared. "It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy isn't going to change."

Obama's most challenging question, asked in several different formulations, was about his approach to the commanders on the ground in Iraq. If the commanders, especially Gen. Petraeus, told him this wasn't the right time to leave Iraq, would he ignore them?

"In his role as commander on the ground, not surprisingly, he wants to retain as much flexibility as possible in terms of accomplishing that goal," Obama began. "What I emphasized to him was, you know, if I were in his shoes, I'd probably feel the same way. But my job as a candidate for president and a potential commander in chief extends beyond Iraq."

Obama repeatedly dodged the question. Instead of a choice between listening to Petraeus and taking his own advice, Obama spoke about the competing demands on a commander-in-chief: whether it would be more pressing to send more troops to Afghanistan or spend more money at home.

Seated beside him in the searing heat and dust were his two travel buddies, Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.). The two will not be traveling on to Israel and Europe; going forward, Obama exits the military aircraft (used as part of a congressional fact-finding tour) and takes a seat aboard his newly-repainted campaign plane.

But the bipartisan duo's presence in the battle zone helped to underscore Obama's call for the U.S. to move beyond political conflict-especially where national security is concerned. "Regardless of who becomes the next president, Democrat or Republican, I think we're all going to have to strip away the ideology, we're going to have to strip away the politics," Obama said. "The issues are too serious, and reality is reasserting itself."

Obama's balancing act won't get any easier as he heads to Israel Tuesday night. McCain has done his best to try to step on Obama's publicity; the Republican, mindful of the fact that a sizable chunk of the campaign press corps is paying special attention to his rival this week, has been pounding Obama for saying that if he had it to do over again, he would still oppose the Bush administration-backed surge. And McCain's camp has even let flower rumors that he may be on the verge of picking a vice-presidential candidate this week-a move that would certainly spin the spotlight back McCain's way.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

Everyone knows Barack Obama is confident. After all, he occasionally refers to himself in the third person. "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there," he once said. He often tells voters that he is "imperfect," which presupposes that they need reminding. And oh, right--he decided to run for leader of the free world after serving less than two years in the U.S. Senate. Most people, I think, expect anyone crazy enough want the presidency to regard himself highly. But as "The One" bedazzles Europe and the Mideast this week, the question that Republicans want reporters and readers to ask is whether he's crossing the line into cockiness.

To that end, the RNC has created a new email alert--complete its own illustrated banner--called "Audacity Watch." The first message went out this morning. Its headline: "Senior Obama foreign policy adviser: Obama is President of the United States." The email then goes on to relay this exchange from Politico's latest dispatch: 

"[Berlin] is not going to be a political speech," said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. "When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally."

 "But he is not president of the United States," a reporter reminded the adviser.

The reporter, of course, has a point: Obama is not president of the United States. But I'm going to bet the candidate is aware of that--even if his advisers sometimes forget (especially when they're bragging about big rallies in front of foreign landmarks). Audacity rating: mild.

That's not say, however, that Obama is audaciousless. The senator's more interesting remark, actually, came during his Sunday morning interview with CBS correspondent Lara Logan in Afghanistan (video above). Asked if "the trip [was] partly aimed at overcoming.... doubts among some Americans that you could lead the country at war as commander in chief from day one," the Illinois senator delivered a curious response. "The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to ten years," he said. The funny thing is not that Obama expects to get elected to two terms instead of one--not unusual, really--but that he seems to suggest that his second term (which, by any traditional measure would end on Jan. 20, 2017) could extend an additional sixteen months until July 2018, which would require changing either the Constitution or the laws of space and time. If that's not audacious, I don't know what is.

Still, Obama did make sure to remind the first reporter he saw after departing Friday from Chicago that "we have one president at a time." So at least we're all clear on that.

UPDATE, 4:49 p.m.: More Obama "presidentiality" from the Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown:

Obama aides were reminded by reporters--for the second time today--that he isn't in the White House yet, and therefore they can't invoke White House rules and traditions.

An unpaid foreign policy adviser (who worked for Clinton) told reporters that he never in his four years in the White House had go on the record for a briefing. Several reporters retorted that they weren't in the White House.

 
Thaier al-Sudani / Getty Images-pool

Here's a dispatch from Larry Kaplow and Lennox Samuels in Baghdad: 

Sen. Barack Obama got a red-carpet greeting in the Green Zone. The Democratic presidential contender, who was in Baghdad Monday, was seated one-on-one with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at the end of his marble-lined salon, while Obama's senate colleagues sat at the side with the aides. But the greatest gesture of Iraqi hospitality came just after Obama and the Americans had zipped off in their convoy of armored SUVs. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told a scrum of the assembled press that the Iraqi government hopes U.S. combat troops can go home by the end of 2010 – perhaps leaving advisers and trainers behind. It puts the Iraqis' schedule – or at least in their publicly-stated preference—close to the mid-2010 date that Obama has proposed. And it is a timeline–something the Bush administration has opposed until just last Friday, when it allowed that a "time horizon" might be plausible.

Maliki aides brushed off questions about whether the date was discussed by the prime minister and the presidential contender during their talks. Also sitting in the meeting were key administration figures on IraqU.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and top adviser for Iraq David Satterfield, as well as Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and Democratic Senator Jack Reed, D-RI. But the 2010 timeline seemed to catch embassy staff off guard later as they called back to verify the comment when NEWSWEEK requested an American response. They could be expected to be a little frustrated. Maliki's office had spent much of the weekend trying to clarify his stand on troop withdrawals after a German magazine reported that he endorsed Obama's timeframe – an apparent break with President George W. Bush, who has been a staunch Maliki supporter.

There's growing support within Maliki's Shiite Muslim constituency for a timetable on a U.S. departure as the government seeks to consolidate power without interference from outside. But Maliki surely also realizes that, for now, he relies on American backing—most recently seen in March with the crucial support U.S. troops gave his forces when they faced tough fighting the southern city of Basra. Maliki could also be hedging his bets in case Obama is the next president.

Either way, perhaps it's no surprise that Obama strode out of the hour-long meeting with Maliki calling it "a very constructive discussion." The candidate made no other comment at the time but was expected to do a television interview later tonight—perhaps the only in-depth exchange he will have with media while on the Iraq leg of this week's Middle East and European tour.

READ THE REST HERE.  
 

SPC Jeff Cole, 21, takes a break at a small outpost in eastern Baghdad / Photo: David Botti

Over at Checkpoint Baghdad and Soldier's Home, my fellow NEWSWEEK bloggers Larry Kaplow (our Baghdad bureau chief) and David Botti (a Marine-turned-embedded-reporter) just filed dispatches on what the soldiers and citizens in Iraq think of Barack Obama, who arrived in the country this morning and will spend the day meeting with commanders on the ground. Both reports are fascinating. I've included excerpts below, but I encourage you to click through and check out the blogs in their entirety.

1. WHEN OBAMA COMES MARCHING OVER
(David Botti, Soldier's Home)
For U.S. Army soldiers at a small outpost in the Beladiat section of eastern Baghdad, hardly anyone even knew he was coming.  Until three weeks ago they were without Internet access.  Two months ago, back at their main base, a deadly rocket attack knocked all of the flat screen TVs off the mess hall walls, leaving them with no television.  And even if they do have a moment to check on the status of the presidential campaigns, no one here gives it much of a thought. "When I'm not doing anything for the Army, I'm trying to sleep," said twenty-year-old PFC Cory Kenfield, who pointed out he's been deployed in Iraq for most of the campaign season.  

In fact, by the time these soldiers return home (the newest rumor is January or February), the United States may already have a new president – and a new policy on Iraq. Until then it’s business as usual. Over the past few nights the soldiers have been involved in two raids on suspected militia members.  They’ve installed a new air conditioner for their spartan living quarters.  They’ve found themselves disciplined by their platoon sergeant, and made plans for an upcoming re-supply. The biggest news on this particular day seemed to be that a coffee shop opened back at their main base to replace the one damaged by a deadly rocket attack in April.

After hearing of Obama's intended arrival, some said they simply didn't care about politics.  Others, like 21-year-old Specialist Jeff Cole, didn't see how it would affect their day-to-day lives as a platoon of infantryman partnered with a unit of Iraqi National Police. "It's good for his campaign, but it doesn't really matter for us," he said. Cole, like most of his other comrades, followed up his answer with a question of his own: “where’s Obama going to be in Iraq?”  If Obama's visit were to have any impact on the troops, the soldiers all agreed, it would depend on where in Iraq he goes.   "He'll probably go to the Green Zone and say he hung out with the troops.  When really all he'd be doing is hanging out with mechanics and colonels," PFC Cory Kenfield said of the general absence of infantry troops in the Green Zone. "If he actually comes out here with us, I'll just laugh," chimed in eighteen-year-old PFC Daniel Mullineaux, as he grabbed a water bottle from a refrigerator that barely cools.

Sergeant Eric Chan joked that the only reason he’d go see Obama speak was if the speech were actually given in the comparatively posh and safe Green Zone, far away from the garbage-strewn lots, half-built houses, and perpetually barking packs of stray dogs that comprise the platoon’s area of operations.  Chan, a wiry 25-year-old veteran of Afghanistan on his first tour in Iraq, saw Obama’s visit as being more meaningful for the folks back home.  “To the people in the States I think it's a good thing to see a possible future president come out here,” Chan said.  “It's good for future leaders to see what's going on – to see what they're not used to.  It's like, being a leader you’ve got to step up, and he's stepping up.”

Further up Charlie Company’s chain of command, First Sergeant Brian Disque also saw Obama’s visit as being primarily a opportunity for the candidate to educate himself. “When I hear certain peoples’ interpretations of what’s going on in Iraq, it concerns me,” Disque said. The first sergeant figured once Obama gets to Iraq, and sees the types of progress being made here, the senator may have to take back some of his criticisms of the war – a move Disque thinks could make him look like a flip-flopper.

No matter where Obama ends up in Iraq, or what he actually says, none of the soldiers saw the visit as something to give more than a passing thought.  Sergeant Mario Garcia, who was born and raised in Ecuador, said because of that country’s own political problems he’s developed a mistrust of all politicians. Then the 25-year-old paused for a moment. “I guess it's good for Obama to see how much progress is in Iraq right now,” Garcia said quietly.  “Maybe he'll say: 'alright it's time to get these guys outta here.'”

Botti served as a Marine in Iraq in 2003. He returned last week as an embedded reporter and is blogging about the changes in the country at NEWSWEEK's Soldier's Home.

AFTER THE JUMP: Larry Kaplow on what Iraqis think of Obama...

Obama's latest foreign-policy ad, "American Leadership" 

He's been called a naive idealist. But in terms of foreign policy, he's the true realist in the race. Or so says my NEWSWEEK colleague Fareed Zakaria. Excerpts:

The rap on Barack Obama, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been that he is a softheaded idealist who thinks that he can charm America's enemies. John McCain and his campaign, conservative columnists and right-wing bloggers all paint a picture of a liberal dreamer who wishes away the world's dangers. Even President Bush stepped into the fray earlier this year to condemn the Illinois senator's willingness to meet with tyrants as naive. Some commentators have acted as if Obama, touring the Middle East and Europe this week on his first trip abroad since effectively wrapping up the nomination, is in for a rude awakening.

These critiques, however, are off the mark. Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president. What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist... 

Obama talks admiringly of men like Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, all of whom were imbued with a sense of the limits of idealism and American power to transform the world. "In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative," wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in her profile of him for The New Yorker. "There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It's not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good."

As important as what Obama says is what he passes up—a series of obvious cheap shots against Bush. He could bash him for coddling China's dictatorship, urge him to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics or criticize his inaction in Darfur. In fact, Obama has been circumspect on all these issues, neither grandstanding nor overpromising. (This is, alas, not true on trade policy, where he has done both.)

Perhaps the most telling area where Obama has stuck to a focused conception of U.S. national interests is Iraq. Despite the progress in Iraq, despite the possibility of establishing a democracy in the heart of the Arab world, Obama's position is steely—Iraq is a distraction, and the sooner America can reduce its exposure there, the better. I actually wish he were somewhat more sympathetic to the notion that a democratic Iraq would play a positive role in the struggle against Islamic extremism. But his view is certainly focused on America's core security interests and is recognizably realist. Walter Lippmann and George Kennan made similar arguments about Vietnam from the mid-1960s onward.

Ironically, the Republicans now seem to be the foreign-policy idealists, labeling countries as either good or evil, refusing to deal with nasty regimes, fixating on spreading democracy throughout the world and refusing to think in more historical and complex ways. "I don't do nuance," George W. Bush told many visitors to the White House in the years after 9/11. John McCain has had his differences with Bush, but not on this broad thrust of policy. Indeed it is McCain, the Republican, who has put forward some fanciful plans, arguing that America should establish a "League of Democracies," expel Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and exclude China from both groups as well.

Obama's response to McCain's proposals on Russia and China could have been drafted by Henry Kissinger or Brent Scowcroft. We need to cooperate with both countries in order to solve significant global problems, he told me last week, citing nuclear-proliferation issues with Russia and economic ones with China. The distinction between Obama and McCain on this point is important. The single largest strategic challenge facing the United States in the decades ahead is to draw in the world's new rising powers and make them stakeholders in the global economic and political order. Russia and China will be the hardest because they are large and have different political systems and ideological approaches to the world. Yet the benefits of having them inside the tent are obvious. Without some degree of great-power cooperation, global peace and stability becomes a far more fragile prospect.

Obama and McCain are obviously mixtures of both realism and idealism. American statesmen have always sought to combine the two in some fashion, and they are right to do so. A foreign policy that is impractical will fail and one that lacks ideals is unworthy of the United States. But the balance that each leader establishes is always different, and my main point is that Obama seems—unusually for a modern-day Democrat—highly respectful of the realist tradition. And McCain, to an extent unusual for a traditional Republican, sees the world in moralistic terms.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

What follows is the pool report--a dispatch circulated among reporters who can't attend an event--from Obama's overnight trip to Afghanistan. It's written by John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. The most newsworthy part is when Obama--clearly aware that Republicans want to portray him as presumptuous--makes sure to remind us that he's "going over there as a U.S. senator" and is "more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking." These reports should be coming in all week, and I'm considering posting as many as possible. I think they'll provide a nice, factual, behind-the-scenes look at the trip. Let me know if you're interested in reading more.

The motorcade left Sen. Obama’s home in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood at 11:11 a.m. There was one Chicago Police Department patrol car, followed by two SUVs, a sedan and a press van. Riding in the press van were agent Jill, Sam, John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune and Glen Johnson of The Associated Press. The motorcade hea