Barack Obama's nine-day overseas tour has taken on the trappings of a triumphal progress by a president-in-waiting.
The media have been barely able to contain their excitement; those influential arbiters of US politics, the news anchors of the big networks, hitched a lift aboard Obama One for the seven-nation swing from the frontline in Afghanistan to Thursday evening's remarkable scenes in the Tiergarten in Berlin to today's rather more prosaic meetings in London.
3 invasion of Iraq stood him in good stead in his primary campaign.

by Shushannah Walshe Speaking in front of a crowd of Hispanic-American veterans, John McCain used some of his harshest rhetoric yet to go after Barack Obama

GOP Sen. John McCain's temper has long been the subject of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, but until today the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, does not appear to have referred to it in any way.
On June 11, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev, flatly told MSNBC's Norah O’Donnell that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee “doesn’t have the temperament to be the president of the United States. Everyone who’s ever worked with John McCain knows of his temper. It’s explosive to say the least.”
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By Jim Malone Republican presidential contender John McCain questioned Democratic candidate Barack Obama's fitness to be commander in chief Friday.

By Jeff Mason DENVER, July 25 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain slammed Democratic rival Barack Obama on Friday for poor judgment on the Iraq war, laying out in sharp terms his argument the Illinois senator should not be commander in chief.
McCain, a Vietnam War veteran, said if Obama had succeeded in his effort to prevent last year's boost in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, American forces would have had to retreat under fire, the Iraqi army would have collapsed and al Qaeda would have found a safe haven.
bringing security to the country.

This is no time to get photographed in a golf cart—not with gas prices keeping many Americans from vacationing and Barack Obama traveling the world with a media entourage normally reserved for popes and presidents. The video footage of Obama shooting hoops with Marines and sinking a 30-footer provided a sharp contrast to the stooped figure of John McCain riding in a golf cart with the senior President Bush and sharing the indignities of being sidelined. The former president admitted to being "a little jealous" while McCain can't hide his disbelief that Obama, belatedly visiting Iraq and touching down in Afghanistan for the first time, gets heralded like a conquering hero.
The

John McCain's representatives and supporters have been complaining about how comparatively skimpy media coverage has been of the campaign of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
And while that's statistically true, it's also been kind of a blessing for them recently as McCain has prattled errantly on about the situation in Czechoslovakia (which hasn't existed for 15 years), the Iraq-Pakistan border and how the troop surge in Iraq has positive effects more than a year before it actually began. (See McCain gaffes pile up; critics pile on)
ig --"“This attack is straight out of the Bush-Rove playbook..."

This memo put out today by the McCain campaign is full of blatant lies. Check this out:
To: Interested Parties
cy Of Unconditional, Presidential-Level Meetings With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

With both US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain calling for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan, there have been a slew of articles

By Andrew Gray WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - The prospect of sizable troop cuts in Iraq may allow both U.S. presidential candidates to claim vindication, defusing what was once expected to be an explosive election issue.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois still have significant differences in how they view Iraq and those could come into sharper focus if current security improvements are not sustained.
ops to pull out roughly in line with Obama's timetable, some analysts say.

The largest group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, with 100000 members, VoteVets.org is today unveiling a national cable ad calling on Senator John McCain

By Robert Barnes Sen. John McCain today refused to apologize for recent comments -- now becoming a standard part of his campaign speeches -- that Sen.

THIS week Americans have been bombarded with images of Barack Obama posing as the commander-in-chief. Mr Obama standing shoulder-to-shoulder with world leaders. Mr Obama flying in a helicopter over Iraq with General David Petraeus. Mr Obama shooting hoops with the troops. Mr Obama boarding a jumbo jet with his name emblazoned on the side. And John McCain? He was photographed on a golf cart with the 84-year-old George Bush senior.
Mr Obama’s carefully choreographed trip was clearly designed to address his biggest weakness—his wafer-thin CV on foreign and military affairs. He had not visited Iraq since January 2006. Before this week he had never visited Afghanistan, the country

By Andrea Hopkins CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Ohio military veteran Robert Rigsby believes U.S. presidents need military experience. So does retired autoworker Mike Artz. But even as America wages two wars, neither man can decide whom to support in November's presidential election.
As Democratic candidate Barack Obama travels around Afghanistan and Iraq this week, Republican rival and Vietnam veteran John McCain is telling U.S. voters that Obama has no experience to qualify him to lead a nation at war.
has been watched for any hint he's not ready to lead a nation at war.

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

LOCK up your daughters, batten down the hatches, suspend your disbelief – the phenomenon known as Barack Obama rolls into Britain tonight.

IS IT ANY wonder that John McCain was feeling a tad neglected? There was Barack Obama on a nine-day trip through eight countries with three network anchors, and all John got was a lousy T-shirt. Or to be more exact, all he got was a ride in George H.W. Bush's golf cart and a rejection slip from a New York Times op-ed editor.
Even McCain's inner circle began to get snarky. They keep referring to Obama as "The One" and complain that the maverick boytoy McCain has been replaced in the media's heart by a new trophy wife named Barack. The straight talker's website even posted a video of "The Media is in Love," a montage of fawning sound bites against a soundtrack of Frankie Valli

A MAJORITY Americans believe Democratic candidate Barack Obama will win the presidential election against Republican hopeful John McCain in November, according to a Fox News poll.
While 51 per cent say Senator Obama, who is vying to become the first African-American president, will win the election, only 27 per cent are betting on Senator McCain, today's poll says.
would win the election compared to 32 per cent for Senator McCain, a 71-year-old Arizona senator.