Obama brings campaign to Western Wall

Is that really an Obama campaign banner in front of the Western Wall? (And it’s in Hebrew?)

Before Obama arrived at the Western Wall today in Jerusalem

Consider that just earlier today, in a column at The Huffington Post, Obama supporter and Florida Democrat Robert Wexler called McCain’s criticism of Obama’s comments at Yad Vashem “shameful” and “unconscionable”. I’d like to agree with Wexler that it’s inappropriate to use “Senator Obama’s somber visit to Israel’s Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem as a backdrop to score cheap political points”, but it’s difficult to do so when Obama uses a separate visit to Judaism’s holiest site the Western Wall as a campaign photo op.

Politics is supposed to stop at the water’s edge. It certainly doesn’t belong at Yad Vashem or the Western Wall. Apparently the Obama and McCain campaigns just don’t care.

UPDATE 7/24:

It’s been reported that the Obama banners were distributed by the campaign itself. And Jerusalem Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld says this is not typical practice for political visits to the Western Wall.

If Barack Obama were President…

We’d get along with everyone, or so has been the storyline of his recent tour of the Middle East and Western Europe. At the halfway point of his trip, Obama’s met with literally everyone: Hamid Karzai, Nouri al-Maliki, Jalal Talabani, King Abdullah, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Mahmoud Abbas, Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, plus several governors, mayors, and other dignitaries. His reception has been overwhelming friendly, complete with smiling photos ops, glowing praise, and fawning media coverage.

Obama with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani earlier this week.

And that doesn’t even include the Western European portion of the trip, where Obama is expected to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The New York Times reports the Germans are expecting the crowd at Obama’s public Berlin address to be as high as ONE MILLION (!). What, one million protesters (like when Bush visits)? No — more likely one million adoring fans, German no less.

Obama’s media team has been careful to remind reporters that there’s only one president, that this trip is not a policy-making trip, but come on, what kind of US senator gets one million Germans to turn out for a glorified campaign speech? Maybe one who’s getting a little ahead of himself? Does Obama mean to suggest that as President he’d enjoy this kind of international support?

Or maybe we’re all to blame — perhaps we’ve bought in so easily to Obama’s charm that it’s blinded us to the fact that he’s a politician who does stupid things domestically (supporting the farm bill, destroying campaign finance) and is likely to do them abroad given the chance. The New York Times even reports that comedians are struggling to find funny Obama material. Apparently he’s too pure. Huh?

It’s easy for leaders like al-Maliki and Karzai to cozy up to Obama when he’s a media-managed starlet, but once he’s been in office for a time and had to make hard decisions, he probably won’t draw a million Germans to hear him speak. Or if he does, they’ll be there to protest his decision to stay in Iraq for another year or his unrelenting support for American farm subsidies that impoverish the third world. As David Aaronovitch, columnist for the Times of London, tellingly observes, eventually we will all hate Obama.