Obama has planned to embark on foreign travel but then gets pummeled by McCain's camp, with them accusing him of orchestrating political rallies on foreign soil. Not only do the GOP accuse Obama of trying to gain political points by traveling abroad--but they complain that the network anchors are now going to accompany Obama only to fawn all over him. 
 
Additionally, McCain's camp is in a tiff that the media didn't embed anchors with him went he traveled abroad to places like Colombia. 
 
A trip that McCain and his ilk kept pressing on Obama to take is now the trip that the media has decided deserves the brightest spotlight. The unsolicited advice from the McCain camp will now be used actually to make their candidate invisible and to render him almost irrelevant over the next couple of weeks. 
 
Funny how that worked out, huh? 
 
Obama's trips abroad could backfire beautifully on the GOP. However, it's not entirely true that somehow the media is in the tank for Obama.  And I don't believe they want to only regale us with tales of smooth Obama meetings with foreign leaders or the stories of his fevered interactions with foreign citizens. Don't get me wrong: Obama will more than likely have a hero's welcome overseas, as suggested by fellow eyesonobama.com writer KiKiBird in her post here. 
 
But I don't trust the assessment that the media only wants to fall over themselves to cover Obama's overseas coronation. 
 
If anything, by the end of his trip, Obama may realize that McCain was let off the hook by not being harangued by media at every stop during his travels abroad. McCain has not been scrutinized-- Obama has. And on his foreign country tour, Obama is going to simultaneously have to fend off a ravenous media while trying to impress foreign leaders, their citizens, and more importantly, us here at home as well. 
 
The media wants something unscripted to happen. The more off-script, the better. They are lying in wait for Obama to commit that campaign-ending gaffe. This general election is not for McCain to win but for Obama to lose. 
 
And the packs of hyenas are circling. 
 
Included in the packs are folks like CBS news anchor Katie Couric who has a reputation to resuscitate. What better way to do that than to be the anchor who is there to cover Obama when he makes that history-making mistake that drains his coffers and depletes his support here in America? 
 
This demented hope that something news-makingly tragic would happen to Obama is not anything new to this election cycle. Remember when Hillary Clinton conjured up the specter of an Obama assassination? The media had gleefully beaten her to it long before she had made her ill-fated comments. Too many in the media, with a smirk and a tilt of the head, would say things like: "Obama's got this one in the bag-- unless something horrible happens like he gets hit by a bus." Statements similar to this became the stock kind of statement for many in the media leading up to his nomination. 
 
If there isn't a major gaffe, rest assured that the media will manufacture one if only to jazz their ratings and add some excitement to their extended summer vacations consisting of following Obama around. 
 
Hopefully this trip pans out well for Obama, but if those embedded news anchors have anything to do with it, it might not--which should put a lot of Republicans' minds at ease.