Democrat Obama's apparent advantage over Republican John McCain in national polling has "stretched" to seven percentage points, according to the latest results of the Gallup daily tracking poll - a survey taken at the height of Obama's widely watched march across Europe, days in which he polled strongly against McCain.

It's funny that McCain basically challenged Obama to make a trip to Iraq before this trip happened, and once it did, McCain started calling Obama out on it. In a radio address Saturday, McCain said, "With all the breathless coverage from abroad, and with Senator Obama now addressing his speeches to the people of the world, I'm starting to feel a little left out. Maybe you are too." Obama responded with, "The reason that I thought this trip was important is that I am convinced that many issues that we face at home are not going to be solved as effectively unless we have strong partners abroad."

Then, after all the hubub from the McCain campaign, the Senator tells Wolf Blitzer that a 16 month timetable in Iraq is "a pretty good timetable." Huh? From Daily Kos:

But why don't we just add this to his ever growing list of flip-flops since McCain will dismiss any questions on this about-face and the media will go along with whatever he says because he is the foreign policy expert (despite his confusion or outright lies about his past statements on the war, Sunnis, Shiites, Iran and the Anbar Awakening). But since McCain has spent the past week whining about the press, perhaps the media could oblige him with some primetime coverage and ask him to clarify a couple of other comments he made during yesterday's interview. None that would call into question his foreign policy expertise, of course. After all, he was a P.O.W. nearly 40 years ago.

Honestly? It seems like this trip has really put the McCain camp into a flurry. They even went so far as to make an ad based on a complete lie - stating that Obama cancelled a trip to visit the troops because he wasn't allowed to bring cameras. From TPM:

McCain's ad makes a stark assertion about the reason the trip was canceled: "Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."

But there is no evidence whatsoever supporting this assertion. It's false. That isn't the reason the trip was canceled. Shouldn't that be explicitly noted in stories about this?

The Pentagon itself is on record saying that it informed the Obama camp that he couldn't bring campaign staff to the event. Obama subsequently canceled the trip.

Even though the McCain camp's ad is false, the stories on the ad focused on supposed inconsistencies in the Obama campaign's push-back. The Obama camp's first statement said that he had canceled the trip after deciding that it was political, with no mention of the Pentagon. The second statement said the Pentagon had told him that it would be perceived as such.

The ad has even been criticized by the Republican party's own Chuck Hagel.

Clearly, this trip was intended to show Obama as presidential -- able to hold his own in the international stage, and interested in learning from what he sees on the ground in war areas. Do you think he accomplished this? Do you think he "neglected" the problems of the American people on this trip? Do you think it was valuable for him to meet with these international leaders? Share your thoughts...

Posted by Emily Logan on 7/28/08