Before his eight-day trip overseas, Sen. Barack Obama had trouble defending his 16-month timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, should he become president in January. His political rival, John McCain, suggested that after Obama visited commanding officers in Iraq, his views would change and he would be less inclined to withdraw troops according to a hard and fast time limit.

But as Obama ended his world tour last night, he told Fox News that the trip actually helped reinforce his foreign-policy views. “There was a lot of confirmation of my strategies—that we need to get more troops into Afghanistan, and that the Iraqis are willing to take more responsibility,” Obama said.

It now appears that John McCain, ironically, might be the one who is changing his views. On Friday, the Republican presidential hopeful told cnn that Obama’s 16-month troop withdrawal plan was “a pretty good timetable,” though he qualified the comment by saying the plan should be based on the facts on the ground.

Earlier this year, McCain’s campaign was hammered by Obama’s people for saying he would keep U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 years, if necessary. Since then, McCain has said he favors withdrawing most of the troops by 2013. A week ago, while in Kennebunkport, Maine, with George Bush Sr., McCain mentioned the end of 2010 as a possible point of return for American forces.

Now, 16 months is looking pretty good.

Even President Bush is talking about a “general time horizon” for withdrawing troops, which is an additional sign that Obama’s strategy of defeat may be gaining the upper hand in the political debate. “There’s no doubt, particularly as Bush has adopted policies in the direction of Obama, that that gives Obama bragging rights,” former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton told the New York Times. Yesterday, Obama told the Associated Press that his campaign is “pleased to see that there has been some convergence around proposals that we’ve been making for a year-and-a-half.”

At the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick says any residual differences there were between the policies of Obama and the Bush administration have disappeared over the last month:

While Bush and his surrogates have been quick to make a distinction between his “time horizon” and Obama’s “timeline” for withdrawal, it is undeniable that by introducing a “time horizon” for withdrawal he has made it more difficult to argue against Obama’s planned withdrawal “timeline.”

Whenever the evacuation happens—and it increasingly looks like it will take place sooner rather than later—it will be seen throughout the region as a triumph for Islamic extremism and its number-one state sponsor, Iran.

Obsessing Over Obama

Last week, John McCain’s campaign released an online video titled “Obama Love” that referred to the media’s “bizarre fascination with Obama” as a “love affair.” The video quoted commentators such as msnbc’s Chris Matthews who once said he felt “a thrill running up my leg” after listening to a speech by the senator. The video also quoted cnn’s Lou Dobbs, who said, “I have never in my career seen networks, magazines, newspapers, just throw aside any pretense of objectivity” such as they have in covering Obama’s candidacy.

McCain’s supporters are not the only ones to notice the disparity in coverage. Since the primary season ended in early June, according to the Tyndall Report, the big three nightly newscasts have devoted 166 total minutes of coverage to the Obama campaign, compared to only 67 for John McCain. Based on the past five presidential contests, the report says, John McCain is actually getting plenty of coverage. It’s just that Obama coverage has broken the mold. “Who else has stories filed about them on how he shakes hands with his wife?” Tyndall asks.

The celebrity-obsessed media continued to promote their “fresh-faced savior,” as the Rolling Stone put it, during Obama’s recent trip to Europe. All three news anchors from the major networks followed him overseas. The Washington Times reported that “a record 1,300 press credential requests flooded Obama’s headquarters in Chicago for his speech in Berlin on Thursday. The International Herald Tribune said, “The extraordinary coverage of Obama’s trip reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media.” (In case you forgot, John McCain visited Jordan, Israel, France and England in March and none of the big three news anchors joined him.)

Time magazine hailed Obama’s Berlin speech as a “soaring address that invoked echoes of the famous speeches in this city in which John F. Kennedy made common cause with Berliners against communist oppression in 1963 and Ronald Reagan called nearly 20 years ago to tear down the Berlin Wall.” Der Spiegel, which featured Obama on its cover this month along with the title, “The Messiah Factor,” said Obama’s speech “was a masterpiece in the art of political magic.”

With this sort of obsessive coverage in July, it makes you wonder what the major media might have up its sleeve to help Obama win in November, if the race remains tight.

Obsessing Over Obama II

Commenting on Obama’s visit to Germany on Thursday, the chief editor of Der Spiegel’s foreign desk said, “Europe is witnessing the 44th president of the United States during this trip.”

Obama shares this same optimism.

Before leaving on his trip, Obama told viewers of cbs’s “Face the Nation” that he hoped to have discussions with the various prominent leaders he would “expect to be dealing with over the next eight to ten years.” A former White House advisor, David Gergen, later accused him of crossing the line during his negotiations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He said, “We have a long tradition in this country that we only have one president at a time. He’s the commander in chief and the negotiator in chief. I cannot remember a campaign in which a rival seeking the presidency has been in a position negotiating a war that’s under way with another party outside the country.”

Commenting on Obama’s recent attempt to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Charles Krauthammer wrote, “There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. … Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?”

A few months ago, we ran a piece in the Trumpet on the pomposity of politicians today. If you missed it, read it here.

The Great Depression—True or False?

Headlines are full of talk about how depressed Americans are about the state of the economy and affairs in general. Many of them, including this Economist piece, point out how, by historical measures, there is little cause for such gloominess considering how comparatively well off we are:

Phil Gramm, a former senator from Texas and adviser to Mr. McCain’s campaign, told the Washington Times that: “We have … become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline ….”He had a point. American headlines are crammed with words like “failure,” “hurting” and “Fannie Mae.” Foreign pundits sound even more bearish, and one sometimes detects a hint of gloating at the hyperpower’s distress. “The Great Depression,” thundered the front page of the Independent, a British newspaper, in April. The story underneath was about an increase in the demand for food stamps, after an effort to publicize their availability.Amity Shlaes, the author of a history of the Great Depression, thinks the comparison absurd. During the 1930s, she notes, “people lost their homes even though they had borrowed only 10 percent of the purchase price.” People losing their homes today often borrowed more than 90 percent. And today’s unemployment rate, though rising, is 5.5 percent. In the Great Depression, it peaked at 25 percent.Most Americans think their country is in a recession. But, buoyed by exports, output has yet to shrink for a single quarter. Mr. Gramm suggested that his compatriots are suffering a “mental recession” rather than a real one.

These facts lead to a couple of conclusions. One is that, truly, America still has a lot further to fall. At this point our grocery stores are still stocked with food; our utilities are still functioning. While the trends clearly show that America is in trouble economically and geopolitically, our infrastructure is holding steady enough at this point to still service the vast majority. At some point—and one could envision it occurring quite soon—that will no longer be the case.

The second, related, conclusion is that Americans have truly grown accustomed—even addicted—to an unprecedented level of luxury. What would be considered great wealth in the majority of the world, many Americans see as simply unacceptable. The fact that people are already grousing does not bode well for how well people will bear up under the burden of truly Great Depression-type conditions, when they do arrive.

As the old saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Africa’s New Colonialists

This weekend the Weekly Standard discusses the remarkable depth of China’s penetration into the African continent. The trend resonates with prophetic significance, and is one we have taken up on several occasions. Note these facts:

Just in the past three years, Beijing has signed energy deals with Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, and Sudan. Its investment in Sudan’s pipeline and refinery infrastructure, valued at between $3 billion and $5 billion, is mind-boggling in such a poor country, but it is not unusual for the energy industry. China bought a stake in a Nigerian offshore field two years ago for $2.5 billion and promised to invest the same amount in further exploration and development.China has huge investments in Algeria, with whose government it is also cooperating on the development of nuclear energy, and Angola, which this spring overtook Nigeria as the continent’s largest producer of oil. …Chinese consumer goods are becoming ubiquitous in Africa, as elsewhere. “Made in China” clothes, personal and commercial vehicles, and electronics are widely available, and Chinese fast-food is even catching on. …The Chinese contribute hospitals, schools, and roads—they are building the trans-Maghreb highway across Algeria, for example, on which travelers ride in Chinese-assembled buses. Although as recently as a few years back Peugeot was the dominant car in West Africa by far, Japan’s Toyota and Korea’s Hyundai, both assembled in China, and China’s own Chery Automobile will soon overtake it.Prestige follows power. “Confucian Centers” are promoting Chinese language study in 16 countries, while “Confucian Institutes” in partnership with local universities have been established for advanced study of language and management in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa. …China’s military role on the continent has grown in importance. Equipment and advisers have been sent to Congo (Kinshasa) and Angola, and there were reports in 2003 that firms fronting for the People’s Liberation Army were smuggling weapons to Sierra Leone and Liberia during those small West African countries’ catastrophic diamond wars, into which Ivory Coast, beset by its own north-south sectional and tribal problems, was drawn.

Mark well this reality: Such aggressive moves to claim Africa’s resource wealth are being noted in Europe. This article seriously plays down efforts by the Continent to go after that same wealth, but they have been substantial, even if eclipsed, to this point, by those of China. However, biblical prophecy reveals that it is Europe that will dramatically seize the upper hand in this intensifying competition. Read our article “The Battleground” to understand.

Holocaust-Denying Abkhazians for Independence Unite!

The Economist features this disturbing piece about a uniquely dangerous downside to the Internet: its facilitation of countless forums for individuals and groups worldwide to spread hatred between nations, races and religions:

The small size of these online communities does not mean they are unimportant. The power of a nationalist message can be amplified with blogs, online maps and text messaging; and as a campaign migrates from medium to medium, fresh layers of falsehood can be created. During the crisis that engulfed Kenya earlier this year, for example, it was often blog posts and mobile-phone messages that gave the signal for fresh attacks. Participants in recent anti-American marches in South Korea were mobilized by online petitions, forums and blogs, some of which promoted a crazy theory about Koreans having a genetic vulnerability to mad-cow disease. …A decade ago, a zealot seeking to prove some absurd proposition—such as the denial of the Nazi Holocaust, or the Ukrainian famine—might spend days of research in the library looking for obscure works of propaganda. Today, digital versions of these books, even those out of press for decades, are accessible in dedicated online libraries. In short, it has never been easier to propagate hatred and lies.

This article aptly illustrates what is happening to our media-saturated culture on a broad scale—the advancements of science and industry that at one time promised to solve this world’s problems have not only failed to do so in any meaningful way; they have generated new and even worse problems.

Didn’t He Step Down?

Speaking at an industry conference this week, former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin uttered just five sentences of criticism against Mechel, a steel company, and it triggered a massive nosedive in the company shareholder equity. “Such is the power of Putin’s words,” the International Herald Tribunenoted, “that shares in Mechel … plunged almost 38 percent after Putin complained that the company was charging more to its domestic customers than to its foreign ones.” The paper concludes, “If there were any doubt over who holds sway over Russia’s oil-fueled economy, the power of Putin’s words could be seen putting that to rest.”

Honor Killings Justified, Say Britain’s Brightest

According to a poll held in 20 universities, nearly a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified. The following are some of the report’s other conclusions:

As the Times wrote: “If the brightest and best think like this, what of the rest? It is frightening to imagine the views of their less well educated contemporaries. All this seems to undermine yet another piece of conventional wisdom: that education is the solution to Muslim alienation in Britain.”

Elsewhere on the Web

Iran says it has doubled its number of nuclear centrifuges to 6,000. The announcement comes just after the United States switched tactics in its negotiations with Iran by sending a top-level diplomat to talk with the number-one state sponsor of terror. In Israel, government officials have expressed doubt about Ahmadinejad’s latest claim.

The federal government stepped in to close two small Western banks on Friday. The seizure follows the IndyMac Bancorp’s July 11 failure. Expect more bank failures as home foreclosures rise and sales continue to slump. The taxpayers’ tab will likely grow as well.

And Finally …

After his bike was stolen outside of a supermarket, British Conservative Party leader David Cameron quipped, “I’m contemplating introducing sharia law for bicycle theft.”