Barack Obama's much-publicized Middle East trip is in full swing. As Newsbusters notes, his basketball games and photo-ops are getting a lot of attention from the mainstream media.
What has Obama been up to in Afghanistan? At Contentions, Jennifer Rubin says not much: Obama "hasn't proved himself capable of doing much of anything other than walking and smiling. I wonder if the U.S. media will notice or have the nerve to explain the charade going on."
Obama is also shunning the foreign press, according to Christoph von Marschall, Washington bureau chief for Berlin's Der Tagesspiegel. LGF's Charles Johnson says that Obama's "staff is desperately worried that the candidate will make a gaffe, as soon as he ventures into uncharted territory. Foreign reporters tend to ask questions about...you know...foreign stuff." And Protein Wisdom's Karl adds, "Mr. von Marschall should not be surprised, inasmuch as hubris and control-freakishness are increasingly hallmarks of the Obama campaign."
And on Sunday we learned that it might be to Obama's advantage to avoid the press. Face the Nation aired Lara Logan's interview with the candidate, in which he said that "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 10 years." (Video at Hot Air.)
ABC's Jake Tapper says, "The notion that Obama will be dealing with world leaders for eight-to-ten years, possibly up through July 2018, suggests that either (a) he believes that not only will he be elected and re-elected, but the 22nd amendment will be repealed and he will be elected for a third term, OR (b) he was speaking casually and just meant two terms." At Ace of Spades, Drew M. notes, "Obama is either very bad at math, does not know how long the President's term of office is or he's planning on repealing the 22nd Amendment." And The Corner's Victor Davis Hanson remarks that this is "Why you must not let Sen. Obama talk extemporaneously and off the teleprompter."
As Patterico says of a possible 10-year Obama administration, "Whew. That's a long time to govern 57 states."
