election 2008 from the eyes of an ebony mom

For months John McCain has been asking when will Barack Obama make a trip overseas? He even offered to go with him to Iraq. Obama is now on that magical trip and the press and McCain here at home are criticizing his every move and one of the leaders of the pack is Andrea Mitchell. She had her nose out of joint yesterday because she said that the first part of Obama’s trip was not covered by the press corp. She was asked by Chris Matthews how did she think the troops were reacting to Obama and she said she did not know because everything was coming out through the armed forces. She said that this was the first time a candidate had done this. Today on Hardball she called Obama “cocky” because according to her he was not sufficiently deferential to General Petraus. She and Newsweek Howard Fineman raked Obama over the coals and accused him of acting to presidential. They reminded us that he was not JFK and that when JFK made his trip overseas he was the president. If Obama had gone over there just nodding in agreement like a bobble head to whatever the generals on the ground said they would say he was too timid. He was not showing real leadership. Obama is in a no-win situation. If he is too firm he is cocky, if he is too deferential he is a pushover.  Obama is not cocky he is confident and in the past that was a trait we want in a leader.