In the Times of London, Gerard Baker writes:
There’s much in Mr Obama’s record that suggests he has more than dumb luck, but a signal ability to create and exploit it. He may have been the beneficiary of unusual amounts of political sunshine, but he has also been someone who has, as they say, made his weather.
Like his fans say, Obama has the wind at his back. Yet McCain can’t even turn paradisaical weather to his advantage. On its own terms, the continued success of U.S. forces in Iraq is a near miracle. Yet the man who championed the winning way from the start can’t seem to get anyone to notice, let alone care. And Obama’s rogues’ gallery of intimates–the crooks, cranks, and bombers who have been critical in shaping his career–end up looking like exaggerated footnotes once the McCain camp works them over in the press. John McCain repeats and repeats his charges against Obama, most of them valid, but instead of swaying public opinion, it comes off as white noise. He’s recounted his own astounding achievements so many times that his heroism is now taken for granted rather than marveled at.
The danger is in mistaking Barack Obama’s hypnotic talents for vision. People say this is Obama’s time because Obama says this is his time. But when you’re the one setting the clock, it’s always your time. In terms of what’s actually happening in the world, this is decidedly not Obama’s time. We’re in an economic meltdown of unforeseeable length and enormity, and Obama wants to raise taxes on small businesses and pay for everyone’s health coverage. We’re facing nuclear weapons in the hands of America’s most fearsome antagonist of the past thirty years, and Obama wants to talk to them about it. We’re finally winning a hellish five-year war of untold strategic importance, and Obama can’t wait to stop it. We’re attempting to turn around our luck in another critical war, and Obama has been threatening our most important potential ally for a year. The global economy has advanced down the inexorable path of integration, and Obama is wary of free trade. Every one of America’s fair-weather friends is telling us that U.S. dominance is a thing of the past, and Obama embraces the doctrine of American declinism.
This may not be Obama’s time–but that won’t stop him from making November 4 his moment.