Or, rather, Batman is President Bush. 

From Andrew Klavan in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal (I am not making this up):

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

Please, read the whole thing. 

--Isaac Chotiner

As Marc Ambinder reported this morning, the Obama campaign is putting together a post-campaign "transition team" to ease Obama from candidate to executive. Several Obama staffers confirmed to Ambinder that the campaign has begun transitional planning, though a formal announcement will not be made until the fall.

University of Chicago public policy professor William Howell, who specializes in presidential history, is shocked by how early Obama has assembled the team. "I can't think of another instance where this has happened," Howell said, and he thinks the difference has to do with our sped-up electoral process:

"For so much of American history, the conventions were real events. It was unfathomable that, when the action was all in the conventions, any candidate would form a transition team before the convention.

But he's smart to prepare. There are general challenges just in terms of learning--who are you going to appoint? What are the first days going to look like? So, it makes really good sense that he's forming this. I think those challenges are compounded by the fact that he's going to be assuming a presidency that's undergone radical changes by the Republican regime. The first days of the Clinton presidency, remember, were rough-going. And, like Clinton, we have a young candidate. Since there are going to be claims that he doesn't have the experience, to the extent that he can appear organized and on top of things, he wants to do that."

There's another way to look at this, of course. By planning his assumption of office before officially receiving the nomination, Obama sets himself up for accusations of presumptuousness and egotism. During his Berlin speech today, at which he was welcomed with seeming rapture, he spoke to the "people of the world" as if he were already president of the United States of America and all she represents. The McCain camp was quick to read some irony into this.

But if Obama does manage to conquer the general election, he'll be that much closer to legislative, administrative, and emotional preparation for the relatively demanding-sounding job: "President of the World."    

--Nicole Allan

While Obama basks in the glow of his European lovefest, McCain's also hoping for a wee sprinkling of international stardust. Tomorrow McCain will be meeting with the Dalai Lama in Colorado, where the Tibetan leader has been hobnobbing with the other bigwigs at the Aspen Institute. After lunching today at a--surprise!--German restaurant, McCain told the press that he's jazzed to meet the "transcendent international role model and hero."

Tomorrow's tete-a-tete is unlikely to generate a fraction of the frenzy that Obama has received this week, but it at least it will give McCain's Junior Varsity press corps a moment to recall where either of the candidates stand on China to begin with. On Tibet itself, the candidates hold pretty indistinguishable positions, both denouncing China's crackdown on Tibetan protestors earlier this spring. But though the Olympics creep ever closer, there's been near-silence on any China issues on the campaign trail--which is surprising, given the morass that is now the American economy. There hasn't been so much as a squeak from either candidate about the massive trade deficit with China--or even, more broadly speaking, the need for the U.S. to assert its "economic sovreignity" and regain its global competitiveness. Perhaps neither the McCain nor Obama camp wants to ruffle the feathers of their Asian frenemy too soon before taking office ... or at least before the opening ceremonies.

--Suzy Khimm 

The most tragic aspect of MoveOn.org is that it's a group with noble beginnings -- an online community for people frustrated by the circus that was the Republican attempt to impeach Bill Clinton -- that has since transmogrified into a preserve of the radical, pacifist left. Christopher Hayes's cover story in The Nation this week attempts to argue that the organization's current agenda is a logical outgrowth of its originating mission and that it remains "squarely within the mainstream of the Democratic Party." That may be the case for its views on things like energy and health care -- laudable goals, certainly -- but those issues are not what has animated MoveOn since 9/11, foreign policy and America's role in the world are. And it's these views that, while increasingly popular within the Democratic Party, are hardly representative of most Americans.

After Clinton survived impeachment, MoveOn was largely dormant. Until 9/11. Recalling that dark period, Hayes shows us that the organization's approach to international terrorism and rogue states has always been one of "restraint" and deeply suspicious of American power:

The day after 9/11, [Eli] Pariser, then living in Boston, wanted to do something to help. When the local blood bank told him it was beyond capacity, he channeled his anguish and hope into an online petition he e-mailed to thirty friends. Earnest, plaintive and humane, it made the case for international leaders to use "moderation and restraint" in responding to the attacks, and called for employing "international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than the instruments of war, violence or destruction."  

MoveOn has since denied that it officially opposed the war in Afghanistan, but Eli Pariser, the group's Executive Director, openly opposed the war in Afghanistan, a military conflict supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans, and was hired to lead MoveOn primarily due to this anti-war on the Taliban web organizing. In his 2004 TNR article, "A Figthing Faith," Peter Beinart argued that MoveOn and Michael Moore should be booted out of the Democratic Party by people serious about America's role in the world, just as anti-totalitarian liberals booted communist fellow-travelers out of the party 60 years ago. The analogy pertains, but the Democratic Party, at this point, is far from saving.     

Hayes purports to show that MoveOn.org is the modern equivalent of Richard Nixon's silent majority. To believe this, you have to believe that most Americans agree with the sort of pacifist nonsense above, and all the other assorted, conspiratorial, angry nonsense (like its demagogic "Not Alex" commercial) that appears on MoveOn.org on a daily basis. The group's claimed membership of over 3 million people, dutifully reported by Hayes, is surely inflated by the presence of people who signed up for their email alerts a decade ago, even the liberal blogger Hilary Bok admits that "membership in MoveOn means very little." To illustrate the group's galvanizing effect, Hayes finds a woman who was so absorbed by her hatred for the impending Iraq War that she "couldn't concentrate on her job" and became an active MoveOn participant. I don't for a minute doubt this woman's sincerity. But she's hardly representative of the average American. Reihan Salam gently concludes, "When people become so consumed by politics, there is usually a reason that is independent of politics," i.e. something psychological.  

Case in point:

"The idea that MoveOn is like some foaming-at-the-mouth, swinging-from-the-trees liberal interest group is kind of a joke," says influential blogger Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake.com.

This is a peculiar sentiment coming from Ms. Hamsher, she of the Joe Lieberman-in-blackface infamy.

To be sure, MoveOn has a significant, albeit baleful, influence on the Democratic Party. Their position on abandoning Iraq when al-Qaeda was in control of Anbar and Shi'ite militias ruled in the roost in the south was strategic malpractice and moral idiocy. What bloodshed would there have been had we followed the advice of Eli Pariser two years ago? (Remember when MoveOn, impervious to reality, vilified liberal Democratic congressman Brian Baird for the crime of reporting positively on the surge last year?) Their attempts to claim that their position was somehow in solidarity with the Iraqi people was ridiculous.

While Hayes is right to claim that MoveOn has taken hold of much of the Democratic Party, he has no ground on which to stand when it comes to trumpeting the organization's influence over the course of American foreign policy:

Or consider this: to manage its lobbying efforts and programs for its more than 4 million members, the NRA has a staff exceeding 500 and a $15 million, 390,000-square-foot office building in Virginia. MoveOn has a staff of... twenty-three. And no headquarters.

This would be a compelling point were not the conceit of the article -- that MoveOn has made any discernable headway on its key agenda item -- false. The NRA is an incredibly successful organization, the measure being that it has actually accomplished tangible goals on its legislative agenda. It's so successful, indeed, that the very talk of gun control in this country has largely become obsolete. It may be true that MoveOn, as Hayes claims, has "pioneered an entire approach to conducting politics through the Internet that has been replicated and spun off across the country and around the globe." But it has most certainly not "permanently transformed the landscape of American politics." The animating principle of MoveOn for the past 5 years, the issue that has dominated its energies to the exclusion of pretty much all else, has been Iraq. On this vital issue, what can MoveOn define as "victory" other than earning a bipartisan, overwhelmingly-passed congressional resolution condemning it "in the strongest  possible terms" for calling the greatest American military officer of his generation a traitor?

--James Kirchick

"Five years ago, the outdoor footwear company, Crocs, was started by a couple of entrepreneurs with a great idea, ingenuity and drive. This former small business now employs 600 people in Colorado alone, and sells over 50 percent of its products in 90 countries around the world."

--John McCain, July 7, 2008

"Shares of Crocs Inc <CROX.O> lost about half of their value on Thursday after the shoemaker slashed second-quarter and 2008 profit and revenue forecasts on an unexpected slowdown in business and weak reorders."

--Reuters, July 24, 2008

--Jonathan Chait

While Noam and Mike have been debating the significance of Obama's Berlin speech today over at The Stump, Gerhard Spörl of Der Spiegel gives us this view from Europe:

It was a ton to absorb -- and what a stupendous ride through world history: the story of his own family, the Berlin Airlift, terrorists, poorly secured nuclear material, the polar caps, World War II, America's errors, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, freedom. It's amazing one could even pack such a potpourri of issues into sentences and then succeed in squeezing them all into the space of a speech that lasted less than 30 minutes.

So what still sticks? That Barack Obama is a passionate politician who is fixated on and takes very seriously his desire for a bit of uptopia and a better world. That he is an impressive speaker who knows how to casually draw his audience into his image of the world -- one who doesn't have any need to resort to the kind of cheap effects that tend to prompt the uproarious applause of an audience. That he is a typical American -- an idealist in the true spirit of the American success story who is now very casually making his claim to become something akin to the president of the world.

--James Martin

Berlin-based journalist A.J. Goldmann, who has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, sent us this dispatch from Obama's speech today. Clck here to download a podcast of his dispatch.

Today none of the quotidian annoyances of Berlin life seemed to matter. Not the open ended strike by Berlin's public service, nor the maddening traffic changes brought upon by the never ending construction. All attention was focused squarely on Barack Obama's visit today.

Obama has been greeted here as nothing short of a political celebrity. This morning, the senator's picture was splashed across the front page of virtually every Berlin newspaper. Even the large circulation tabloid BILD ran an image of Obama directly above its topless cover girl.

It often feels that few people hold real jobs in Berlin, a city with an enormous number of artists, students, and unemployed. Still, it was surprising to see the crowds that lined up in the early afternoon.

People were admitted to Tiergarten--Berlin's massive central park--starting at 4 p.m. There was airport level security at the park's entrance, including metal detectors and thorough inspections of all bags and electronics. Near the security check was a station where Berlin-based Americans--of which there are roughly 13,000--could register to vote and tables set up by assorted environmental organizations distributing leaflets. 

After security, the masses filled the wide Strasse der 17 Juni--the setting of the legendary and lewd Love Parade--until the imposing Victory Column, a kilometer later. In advance of Senator Obama's appearance, there was a performance by a mediocre reggae artist.

The weather was warm and mild as Obama addressed the crowd from the Victory Column, facing the Brandenburg Gate, with the sun setting behind him. Once the applause for the senator dies down, the thousands of spectators--many munching on bratwurst and drinking beer--remained behaved and respectful during his half-hour long address.

That crowd was a healthy mix of young and old, with a large number of Americans and Africans in attendance. Many wore Obama tee-shirts of various designs, some with his campaign slogan "Change we can believe in." Some were even draped in American flags, a sight none too common in Berlin, where the war in Iraq is largely condemned and anti-Bush sentiment runs high.

The natives greeted the speech with a surprising lack of cynicism. There were, however, two junctures where Obama was met with derision. The emphasis he placed on the war against drugs drew scattered boos, a reaction not too unexpected in a city where marijuana is partially legalized. His line about America having made its "share of mistakes" drew cheers and laughter from an audience that felt Obama had made the understatement of the century.

But all in all, the Berliners around me were swept up by the bravura performance and the inspired rhetoric, which was met with massive cheers. Even without simultaneous translation into German, Obama's repeated call for tearing down walls between peoples and nations resonated powerfully in this of all cities.  

--A.J. Goldmann

(Photo Credit: Paul J. Thomas)

I agree it was perfectly calibrated... it was certainly bold to deliver such an unabashedly pro-American/anti-Communist speech in a city that, let's not forget, was half communist a mere 19 years ago. And having lived in East Germany, I can tell you that communism is not a frequent punching-bag in popular political discourse, even among those glad the wall fell (and a fair number long for the DDR again, though I suppose no American president to the right of Eugene Debs would elicit much enthusiasm from them).

What worries me is that Obama isn't breaking out of his mold. There's been an inkblot quality about his appearances lately--to me, he comes across as compelling and eloquent; to the Cornerites, he's presumptuous, hubristic, and, I kid you not, embarrassing--and the lenses through which Americans view him are quickly ossifying. Not just his rhetoric but his imagery needs to be more persuasive. So I'm curious how the bona fide uncommitted voters will digest the speech.

Pace miceelf, if the networks show the waving American flags during their coverage tonight, then the man is golden.

Obama has so far done a good job on this trip; he has demonstrated that he has a broad strategic vision for America's future. Now he needs to come home and contrast his domestic policies with McCain. No time should be lost on this score.

As Beijing gears up to host this year's Olympic Games, we asked Perry Link, professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, to give us his perspective on how China is responding to the challenge. He will be guest-blogging for us over the next few weeks:

The Chinese government, speaking through the top security official for the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, has named three parks in Beijing where "the police will safeguard the right to demonstrate." Some have hailed this as a breakthrough.

Hmmm. The Chinese Constitution (Article 35) states that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration." In theory this grand pronouncement covers all of China, all 9.6 million square kilometers. Now we have the "breakthrough" of rights being safeguarded in an area about one millionth the size of the whole.

And even there, the safeguarding will apply to foreign protesters only. No sane Chinese will imagine that expression of unapproved opinion on an issue that China's rulers consider "sensitive" (e.g., the June Fourth Massacre, Falungong, corruption among families of the top leaders, or independence for Taiwan, Tibet, or the Uighur nation) can be done without fearsome cost. Plainclothes police will be watching, as will cameras. The New York Times has reported that Honeywell, General Electric, and United Technologies "have all been aggressively pursuing contracts in China to sell advanced surveillance equipment from the United States."

For foreign protesters, the carving out of a few "free speech zones" will seem to fall into a pattern that cities hosting G8 meetings have used and that Athens adopted in hosting the 2004 Olympic Games. But for Beijing citizens, another pattern will come to mind. In 1978, when Deng Xiaoping wanted to show popular support for his reversal of Maoist policies, he briefly allowed free expression at a "Democracy Wall" on Chang'an Street in the Xidan District. After a few months, when Deng had heard enough, he decided to bottle things up. But he couldn't just close the Wall. That would be too big a loss of face. (He had to continue pretending that the Chinese people have "freedom of speech," after all.) So the Wall was "moved" to Ritan Park, where people had to sign in and give their addresses and work-unit names before posting anything. Anyone whose opinion was "incorrect" then got a visit from authorities.

The same Ritan Park is one of the three "protest zones" this time around.

--Perry Link

Even the AP seems bemused by the contrast between John McCain's latest choice of campaign venue and Barack Obama's global lovefest in Berlin. But is McCain's stagecraft really as pathetic as it seems? According to the latest Quinnipiac University polling, McCain is getting increased support in several key states--especially from men and independents. Perhaps a weiner schnitzel back home with a crusty old warrior who calls you a little jerk is a whole lot less threatening to your average American male than watching the big man on campus earth charm the pants off Old Europe?

Yes, John Kerry has proclaimed that it's safe to go back to France, but Obama might do well to skip petit dejeuner with Nicholas and Carla, and head O-Force One straight back to an International House of Pancakes.

--Katherine Marsh

 This statement just out from the McCain campaign:

While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a 'citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it.

Ah, another classy installment in the John-McCain-is-the-American-president-America-has-been-waiting-for campaign narrative: Come on, people!  We don't need no stinking "citizen of the world" in charge. We need a real American who spends his days talking to Americans about American things. 

--Michelle Cottle 

New Quinnipiac polling in four states contains pretty good news for John McCain.

In Colorado, Quinnipiac has McCain ahead by 2 points, 46-44. This is the only Colorado poll in which McCain has led all year, save for an oddball results from the GOP-affiliated firm TargetPoint Consulting back in early April. Obama had led by 5 points in Quinnipiac's prior poll of Colorado, taken at the height of Obama's post-primary bounce last month.

Obama maintains his lead in the other three states in this box set, but it is smaller than before in each instance. In Michigan, Obama now leads by 4 points after having been 6 points ahead in June. In Wisconsin, his lead is down from 13 points to a still-healthy 11-point margin. But in Minnesota, the tightening is far more substantial, with Obama's lead going from 17 points to just 2.

Rasmussen also has numbers out today from another swing state, New Hampshire, where Obama holds a 4-point lead -- broadly in line with the recent UNH and ARG surveys -- after having led by 11 in June.

I hope that there is no longer any question that this is more than just statistical noise. Yes, there are individual results we can critique. It's hard to imagine Obama running 9 points stronger in Wisconsin than he does in Minnesota, for instance. And Quinnipiac's results from Colorado are a little odd, as Obama leads among independent voters and does as well as McCain does amongst his party, but trails slightly overall (Quinnipiac does not weight its results by party ID). Our model is designed to account for this noise in a variety of different ways, and for the moment, it doesn't take the possibility of a McCain win in Minnesota seriously, and still regards Obama as a very narrow favorite in Colorado.

But our model is also designed to evaluate trends, and there is an increasingly large body of evidence that Obama is now polling somewhere between 3-4 points off his peak numbers. In the grand scheme of things, that doesn't mean all that much -- it means that perhaps 1 in every 60 strangers you encounter on the street has switched from Obama to McCain within the last month. The more relevant question is where the downtrend dates from. If you look at our tracking graph, it seems to have started -- or at least steepened -- coming out of the July 4 holiday, when some of the Obama is a flip-flopper narrative began to take root. I am less convinced that Obama is getting an anti-bounce out of his trip abroad, and would remind you that there is a lagged effect before certain stories take hold, particularly in the dog days of the summer when the public's attention span for campaign coverage is limited.

The alternate hypothesis is that this is simply a reflection of McCain's greater investments in advertising in the early campaign, something we'll explore at greater length soon.

--Nate Silver

From yesterday's Politico: 

At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States.

“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.

--James Kirchick

--Nicole Allan

Echoing Judis and Chait from yesterday, here's more evidence that, despite the media's and even the weather's bias against McCain, voters aren't that down on him. The latest Q-Poll has McCain gaining ground in four battleground states:

Colorado: McCain is up by a nose 46 – 44 percent, compared to a 49 – 44 percent Obama lead June 26;

Michigan: Obama tops McCain 46 – 42 percent, compared to a 48 – 42 percent lead last time;

Minnesota: Obama edges ahead 46 – 44 percent, compared to a 54 – 37 percent Obama lead;

Wisconsin: Obama leads McCain 50 – 39 percent, compared to 52 – 39 percent.