I hate BushCo. Still, I can't help but feel Obama's trip to Europe was exactly that -- a ploy.

What we seem to forget about American (I'll spare y'all the "k") political life is that it's really nothing more than one big ploy to begin with. Every move is calculated, calibrated and analyzed ad infinitum. It's a super-sized game somewhere between Risk and Hollywood Squares. They all play. They always have. They always will -- until we do something about it.

I believe this whirlwind tour was a ploy to irritate and frustrate John McCain and the American people. As much as it pains me to say so, I think Barack Obama is acting as though he has already been elected the next President of The United States. I also think that his trip to Iraq and Afghanistan should have been the beginning and the end of this journey. That portion was labeled "Official Government Business" involving his role as a Senator. After that he was on his own but not visiting with wounded soldiers in Germany, when he had every opportunity to do so, is as imprudent and disrespectful as it is debatable! That would have been the sincere gesture I'd be looking for in all this.

Visiting with world leaders in the Middle-East and Europe brings what to the table? Shall we now see Barack Obama as the foreign relations/policy leader we know he isn't? The good Lord knows I'm a Democrat but somehow I just can't help believing that Barack Obama's vision of change is doing what HE wants to do instead of what he should be doing. John McCain has been waiting for his highly thought of Town Hall Meetings with Barack Obama. As an American and a Democrat, I'm wondering why Obama is keeping McCain waiting. The long wait for the primaries to be over so we could get to hear the presumptive candidates debate is long overdue. The primaries ended in early June when Hillary Clinton ended her campaign and I don't think anyone believed Barack Obama would take a sabbatical and head for the hills until "Obama Time" dictated his return.

The ploy to frustrate McCain is frustrating the hell out of me as a person who wishes to have a clear head and heart when I vote in November! I need more information and the way things are going, I'm not at all certain I'll be getting it anytime soon.

His trip was clearly a political ploy to try to convince the American public that although he has very little political experience, Obama has the diplomacy skills necessary to rekindle relationships with foreign nations that largely hate us as a result of the past 8 years of foreign policy.

His carefully planned and executed trip resulted in many images that will leave a lasting impression upon the voting public, including the speech on the mountain in Amman, Jordan and the estimated 200,000 people in Germany that turned out to hear him speak.

At this stage of the game, I would have to say that pretty much everything Obama or McCain do from here until November should be considered a "political ploy".

From: Newsmax.com

Date: Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 10:12 PM

Subject: Obama's Trip: No Bounce, No Flags, No Wounded GIs

Breaking from Newsmax.com

...during Obama's global meet-and-greet tour, ...

As crowds cheered Obama globally, Americans here on the homefront were left wondering if the Illinois senator wants to be their president -- or the president of some other country. [And whether the major U.S. media would at least offer the pretense of objectivity. An MSNBC poll from last week found that 47 percent of the public thought the coverage of Obama's trip was "excessive."]

After Obama's speech to an estimated 200,000 Germans in Berlin, a columnist for Britain's Guardian newspaper began his review this way: "Barack Obama has found his people. But, unfortunately for his election prospects, they're German, not American."

Obama's speech to the Germans left much to be desired, from an American's perspective.

For starters, the crowd's size was beefed up by the fact that the event was billed as a free rock concert for German citizens, with popular musical performers helping to draw the big crowd. Scant U.S. media even noted the warm-up rock draws of reggae artist Patrice and rock band Reamonn.

Then there was the simple stage, with the podium surrounded by three potted plants. Missing was the American flag -- nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Obama's staff might consider the U.S. flag offensive.

...

And there was the spectacle of the presidential wannabe going to a foreign land to apologize about the United States.

Obama told his German audience he was sorry about his country because "I know my country has not perfected itself." [This comment was made in the former seat of Nazi power. A letter to editor published in Obama's hometown Chicago Tribune noted the irony: "While America may not be perfect, there is no reason to apologize to the Germans, architects of the Holocaust."]

As for America's role in saving Germany from the onslaught of Stalinist communism and the subsequent Cold War, there was nothing.

...

As Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote, "Obama seemed to go out of his way not to say plainly that what saved Berlin in that dark time was America's military might.

"Save for a solitary reference to 'the first American plane,' he never described one of the greatest American operations of the postwar period as an American operation at all. He spoke only of 'the airlift,' 'the planes,' 'those pilots.' Perhaps their American identity wasn't something he cared to stress amid all his 'people of the world' salutations and talk of 'global citizenship.'"

The Hollywood-staged Obama event for a man who has yet to ascend to the presidency didn't sit well with all the Germans. Germany's Stern magazine carried the headline "Barack Kant Saves the World."

One of their columnists, Florian Güssgen, wrote: "The man is perfect, impeccable, slick. Almost too slick … Obama's speech was often vague, sometimes banal and more reminiscent of John Lennon's feel good song 'Imagine' than of a foreign policy agenda."

Slickness without substance seemed to be the enduring theme of his trip. Among the little hiccups covered up by the major media, there were several gaffes on the global coronation trip.

Perhaps the most notable -- and reprehensible -- was Obama's decision to cancel a visit to wounded American soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southern Germany.

Apparently, the Pentagon informed Obama that since his visit was a political one, the hospital visit would be only open to him and his official Senate staff. This excluded the press and campaign officials.

The Pentagon did offer to allow Obama's campaign plane to land at the nearby U.S. air base at Ramstein. The media also was to be accommodated there.

Without the photo opportunity and his press entourage, Obama declined to meet the wounded soldiers. At first, Obama's campaign claimed to the press he decided to cancel the trip to visit the troops because it was "a trip funded by the campaign," and therefore somehow inappropriate. [What is inappropriate about a presidential candidate visiting wounded troops?]

But the Obama story belies the fact it was only after the Pentagon closed the event to his traveling press, that Obama's campaign nixed the event.

"... he made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops..."

McCain added that Obama "certainly found time to do other things."

One of those other things Obama did was visit Paris and hold a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, typical of an American president visiting the French capital.

Interestingly, The New York Times quoted Elysee officials that "Obama aides insisted that an American flag not be displayed alongside the French flag because Mr. Obama is only a visiting senator and not the president."

There is no protocol preventing an American official from having the flag displayed when abroad.

America snubbed once again by a lame excuse.

Ploy. No such thing as a sincere gestures when we're talking about politicians.

An old cliche is true here as well - perception becomes reality and politics is unfortunately all about perception. Senator Obama went to Iraq and to the other places he visited to answer Senator McCain's criticism and to strengthen his perceived weakness in foreign policy. Therefore, the argument can be made that it was a ploy.

Like any political ploy, you always run the risk of going too far and angering the people you are trying to reach. I believe this was true with Obama's trip because he made a couple of critical mistakes that the McCain campaign was hoping he would make - he played directly into their hands.

First, he made a grave mistake by canceling his trip to see the wounded troops where he couldn't bring cameras. In other words, he left the perception that he would only go to places where he could get media attention. It was okay for him to have cameras while shooting three pointers, a very Kennedyesque attempt at looking athletic and young but it wasn't okay to go to a tough place like an hospital where he would have to confront his own comments that this is a useless war. Victory McCain because the perception from the Iraq portion of the trip ended badly and Obama has had to acknowledge he probably should have gone.

Second, he proved he is very popular with the German people in a grand, and pictueresque way. The perception he was trying to create is that he is Presidential and the world loves him. And guess what, he is right. However, he failed to realize that no German citizen can legally vote in our Presidential elections. He admitted failures of the US government to a nation that has never fully healed the atrocities levied against the world in WWII - granted, they never will be able to heal those wounds fully.

The elitist left side of America gave him rave reviews for healing the wounds caused by President Bush. However, the blue collar workers who are likely going to decide this election felt that he betrayed the American people and those same people are somewhat proud that Bush has taken a tough stance against the world.

So, yes it was a ploy and a ploy that will hurt up until election day. Remeber that he is Senator Obama and not President Obama - not yet anyway.