The Note: Luck and Load

July 22, 2008 -- Was Sen. John McCain right about the surge yet not getting credit for it?

Was Sen. Barack Obama wrong about it and getting credit for it anyway?

Does anyone in the history of presidential politics have Obama-like luck?

Does McCain have to make his own luck -- or can he count on The New York Times or Obama himself to make it for him?

OK -- let's back up. Here's an easier question to answer: Who had the better day -- the guy in the golf cart, or or the guy in the chopper?

As for who will have the better week -- that may have been determined before Obama, D-Ill., touched down in Iraq.

Now that Obama is on to Jordan, Israel, and the rest of his trip (Tuesday brings his first press availability since leaving US soil) it's just possible that perceptions are set: Obama went to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the world followed him -- not McCain's.

(That includes Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and maybe even President Bush.)

The trip so far: "Better than they could have imagined," ABC's George Stephanopoulos reported on "Good Morning America" Monday. "Events are really conspiring to help Sen. Obama here."

But might this be the opening McCain needs to get back in the conversation -- to make the central question one of judgment on the surge, not the war?

"Attacks across the country are down more than 80 percent. Still, when asked if knowing what he knows now, he would support the surge, the senator said no," per ABC's Terry Moran, Melinda Arons, and Katie Escherich.

"These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult," Obama told Moran in Baghdad, in an exclusive interview Monday. "Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that what I am absolutely convinced of is, at that time, we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with, and one that I continue to disagree with -- is to look narrowly at Iraq and not focus on these broader issues."

And this raised GOP interest, on his disagreements with military commanders: "My job is to think about the national security interests as a whole and to weigh and balance risks in Afghanistan and Iraq," Obama said. "Their job is just to get the job done here, and I completely understand that." (Just?)

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds: "Barack Obama admitted tonight that he would rather see failure in Iraq than concede that he was wrong about the surge."

Yet the trip's shorthand may already be written.

"By Monday, the White House and rival Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign were at pains to explain why the Iraqi prime minister had seemingly all but endorsed Obama's relatively rapid timeline for getting out," Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post. "The curious turn of events made for an unexpected opening act for the Democrat's week-long tour of seven countries, demonstrating anew the combination of agility and good fortune that has marked his campaign."

"After a day spent meeting Iraqi leaders and American military commanders, Mr. Obama seemed to have navigated one of the riskiest parts of a weeklong international trip without a noticeable hitch and to have gained a new opportunity to blunt attacks on his national security credentials," Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jeff Zeleny write in The New York Times. "The central tenet of Mr. Obama's foreign policy is suddenly aligned with what the Iraqis themselves now increasingly seem to want."

Speaking of luck: "The tragic Catch-22 for the Arizona senator is that the more the surge succeeds, the more politically advantageous it is for Obama," Jonah Goldberg writes in his Los Angeles Times column. "Voters don't care about the surge; they care about the war. Americans want it to be over -- and in a way they can be proud of."

"That the Iraqi government is now specifying a preferred withdrawal date could create problems on the campaign trail for McCain, who has slammed any talk of a timetable as tantamount to an admission of defeat," Liz Sly writes for the Chicago Tribune.

Obama is "getting to look like a leader this week, comparing withdrawal plans with Maliki, welcoming the Bush administration to the it's-OK-to-negotiate-with-Iran club, making McCain look like an isolated warmonger," writes Time's Michael Grunwald. "It was one thing when McCain was framing the election as a monumental decision of victory versus surrender; time horizon versus timetable is going to be a tougher sell."

"The continuing discussions appeared to reflect the influence of Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate," per The Wall Street Journal.

"Obama's positions have come to look safe and reasonable, undercutting McCain's core argument about Obama's inexperience," columnist E.J. Dionne writes. "And if the Bush administration is seen as moving his way, Republicans can hardly dismiss Obama's ideas as dangerous or impractical."

Is the State Department following Obama's lead, too? "In its waning months in office, the Bush administration is perceived to be emptying the diplomatic toolbox in a final effort to make progress on key objectives, like eliminating the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs as well as handing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the next president," ABC's Kirit Radia reports.

"The new efforts have both critics and supporters of the focus on diplomatic solutions wondering if the Bush administration is taking its foreign policy cues from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, who has advocated broader engagement with America's enemies."

The Obama campaign has chosen a historic and photogenic site for his first interactions with the traveling press, per ABC's Jake Tapper.

"The Temple of Hercules is just one of the stops Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, will make today when he comes to Jala al-Qalaa in Amman, Jordan, with his merry men, Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Jack Reed, D-RI, fresh out of their V-22 Osprey from Iraq."

"The scenic vista atop the mountain will offer pretty pictures for Obama's first official campaign-organized event of the trip, a press conference about his time in Iraq and Afghanistan," Tapper writes.

"Everywhere you look you see politics," Tapper reported Monday on "Good Morning America," from Amman, Jordan.

Obama's trip gets trickier soon: "When he arrives in Israel today, Barack Obama will set off on the same type of dignitary circuit he has planned elsewhere on his foreign trip. But nowhere are he and his brand of charismatic internationalism likely to receive such a skeptical welcome," Sasha Issenberg writes in The Boston Globe.

"Barack Obama sets out Tuesday on the most politically perilous part of his foreign trip - to Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, where his every word will be scrutinized by Jewish and Arab voters back home," Michael Saul reports in the New York Daily News.

Is this where hope sinks? "This week, Sen. Obama, the Holy Land awaits you," Boudreaux writes for the Los Angeles Times. "Israelis and Palestinians. Skeptical eyes and ears, tuned to every gesture and word. A verbal minefield for even the most adept campaigner."

McCain, in New Hampshire on Tuesday, is pushing back where he can (and news organizations may be extra willing to report his comments): "He said it would fail and he refuses to this day to acknowledge it's succeeded," McCain said in Maine Monday, per ABC's Jennifer Duck. "And my friends, that's what judgment is about.  That's why I'm qualified to lead and I don't need any on the job training."