Obama played it safe during his overseas trip, made few mistakes, but little gains, despite his star quality and being followed by network personality anchors, held ‘fake press conferences’ and delivered a dry philosophical speech in Berlin.

His tour through the Mid East and Europe was hardly a barn burner, and his speech in Berlin came no where those delivered by Reagan or Kennedy.

Although hundreds of thousands excitedly came to the hyped speech they  dispersed less than enthused.

Obama finally met with Gen. Petraeus and they disagreed on Obama’s 16th month withdrawal.  Petraeus does not want a timetable and Obama steadfastly refused to admit that the surge in Iraq was working.

While traveling through the Mid East Obama held what NBC’s Andrea Mitchell called ‘fake interviews.’

“Let me say something about the message management.  He didn’t have reporters with him, he didn’t have a press pool, he didn’t do a press conference,” either in Afghanistan or Iraq, noted Mitchell on the air.  Instead Obama manufactured “what some would call ‘fake interviews,’ because they are not interviews from a journalist,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell understands the contrived image management, which is all powerful to Obama’s politically advantage.  She calls him shameless when it comes to managing his own image.  She admits it’s, “politically as smart as can be.”  But seemed somewhat bothered that nobody else in the media was exposing it.

She noted that the Obama campaign is something we’ve never seen before — not executed to this level of perfection with a media willing to go along with it because they want it to succeed.

Despite the media bias in fostering the Obama hype, according to Fox a News poll there is no bounce to Obama’s overseas trip and McCain is closing.

While waxing philosophical citing metaphorically how the world has brought down walls working as one and delivering big ideas such as defeating AIDS, delivering valid votes in Zimbabwe and ‘never again in Darfur,’  he again fails to deliver specifics as to how he would achieve these grand ideas. 

It was classic Obamaisms, delivering broad strokes and much like a windsock blowing with the prevailing political winds.