Obama: Previewing the next two days
Posted: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 9:16 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The AP: “Obama traveled to a former hotbed of the Sunni insurgency on Tuesday for talks with tribal leaders who joined the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq and now seek a deeper role in Iraq's political future. Obama, wrapping up his stop in Iraq, gathered with leaders of the so-called Awakening Council movement in Ramadi, one of the main cities of the western Anbar Province where al-Qaida once had the upper hand against embattled U.S. and Iraqi troops. Tribal sheiks last year began an uprising against insurgents that is credited with uprooting extremist strongholds and helping bring violence around Iraq to its lowest levels in four years.”
VIDEO: Following a visit to Iraq, where he discussed plans for U.S. troop withdrawal, presidential hopeful Barack Obama heads to Jordan for talks with King Abdullah. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports from Amman.
NBC/NJ’s Athena Jones previews Obama’s jam-packed stop in Israel tomorrow. He will meet first with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, then with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. After that, he’ll visit the Holocaust museum and memorial at Yad Veshim, and will meet with President Shimon Peres. He then heads to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; then he heads to Sderot; and finally visits in the evening with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He will also meet with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni at some point tomorrow, and it isn’t yet clear whether Obama will have a chance to visit the Western Wall, an important religious site in Jerusalem.
It is important for Obama to visit Sderot, a border town that has come under repeated rocket attacks from Hamas, advisers said. “The significance is self-evident,” said one. “It’s a place in which Israel’s security is every day at risk and threatened and Sen. Obama will have the opportunity to see that firsthand and to get a very personal feel for the everyday implications of that insecurity for the residents of Sderot.”
In a pen-and-pad briefing this morning outlining the trip, Obama advisers were pressed repeatedly on the size, scope, and character of Obama’s planned speech in Berlin on Thursday, Jones adds. “There’s a great deal of interest in his visit. We want to accommodate that interest,” said chief strategist David Axelrod when asked about the thousands of people expected at the event.
Advisers said the content of the speech would speak for itself and stressed that the simple fact that large numbers of people were expected to attend does not make it a “campaign speech” because it has nothing to do with campaigns. “The speech is not going to be a speech about campaign issues. He is not going to address campaign issues in terms of other candidates. It is not a speech about American politics. It is not a campaign event. We are not trying to recruit support from the crowds that are coming. It is not a campaign event,” Axelrod said, later allowing that: “Anything you do in the midst of a campaign will be viewed by some through that prism.”
Axelrod later said, “Any event outside of a CODEL is a campaign event. But it is not a political rally. He will not engage his American political opponents. It is a speech to our allies and the people of Europe and the world. And as such, we wanted it to be open to the public and not just invited guests."
After speaking with residents of Jordan, the New York Times says there is “one point they may now agree on: If elected president, Senator Barack Obama will not fundamentally recalibrate America’s relationship with Israel, or the Arab world.”
“The reporter who wrote a New Yorker magazine article tied to the controversial cover satirizing Barack and Michelle Obama as flag burners was not granted a seat on the candidate's plane for his Mideast trip this week,” the New York Post reports.
And Republican South Carolina state senator Kevin Bryant "is being criticized for a post on his blog that shows photos of Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden wearing similar clothing, along with a line that says the difference between them is 'a little B.S.'... It appears to be a photo of a T-shirt with images of bin Laden and Obama wearing turbans and the words 'OBAMA' AND 'OSAMA,' with the 'B' and 'S' highlighted in red… ‘It's just one of those pictures that I received by e-mail,' Bryant told The Associated Press on Monday. 'I hope people will understand the sarcasm in it.'" Apparently on vacation under a rock, Bryant said he actually wasn't aware of the flap over The New Yorker cover.
"I see a lot of hypocrisy of all the things that are said about our president, yet Sen. Obama is untouchable," Bryant said. "Nobody seems to have a problem when they bash Bush. It seems like a double-standard to me."
Of course, Bryant wasn't criticizing Obama's experience. He was comparing him to Osama bin laden.
