Is Obama "Gonna Fly Now"?

The more I see the media propping up Barak Obama’s campaign by puffing up his overseas photo op, I mean tour, the more I keep seeing images of the first two Rocky movies. Remember them? Poor Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a third-rate boxer hand-picked to fight the world champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). So Rocky has to get in shape--and his manager Mickey (Burgess Meredith) comes up with some pretty desperate training methods, such as punching raw meat. In the second movie, to prepare for a rematch with Creed, Mickey has Rocky trying to catch a chicken. “You’ve got the SPEED!” ole Mickey crows when Rocky catches the feathery prize.

This is kind of what we're seeing with Obama being accompanied by the "Big Three" network anchors for his overseas tour (which has no apparent purpose but to close the image gap among likely voters that he is far less able to handle foreign policy that John McCain). The major networks (with the exception of Fox) seem to be almost training Obama, pulling for him to make “memorable” remarks as he sits down to waste the time, er, to confer with world leaders. And on his return to America, you will be hearing the Big Three network anchors crowing, “He’s got the FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE!”

(Never mind the questions of where the Big Three anchors were on McCain's trips).

Of course, this posturing seems to be lost on the voters. Recent Rasmussen polls have Obama and McCain in a dead heat, despite the media puffery (and coverup of the Obamas' goofy remarks, including one where Michelle Obama laments most people wouldn’t benefit from the economic stimulus tax rebates, since $600 can only buy a pair of earrings. Imagine the uproar if Cindy McCain said the same thing!) and a largely ineffective McCain campaign (where’s Karl Rove when you need him?).

Political analyst Dick Morris speculates that Obama’s major flip-flops (or as the media likes to sugar coat it, “move to the center”) is exposing his true “politics as usual” nature. Obama truly is the Candidate of Change—he changes his position every 10 minutes!