Know Your Greek Gods and Goddesses?

Ich Bin Ein Jet-Setter

writePost();
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/opinion/20dowd.html

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: July 20, 2008
WASHINGTON
I have a girlfriend in New York who puts her boyfriends through Feats of Strength.
Whenever she gets serious about somebody, she brings them home to Wisconsin, ostensibly for a relaxing vacation with her family. Then she leads them through their outdoorsy paces — biking, hiking, golfing, shooting hoops, swimming — to see if they can pass muster with her athletic clan.
It starts to dawn on these young men in the middle of their romantic triathlon that they are on a perilous quest and that if they falter, another lad might touch down in Kenosha several months hence.
Now Barack Obama is about to embark on his own Feats of Strength.
Maybe that’s why, back home in Chicago, he worked out three times on Wednesday. An Associated Press report jokingly compared his fitness regime to that of Mr. Universe and marveled at “a distinct lack of visible sweat on the Illinois senator.”
But even the perennially cool Obama may sweat this summer. In the next six weeks, he will have to successfully complete a number of tasks, some that he set up himself after being taunted by John McCain, some spawned from slaying the Clinton machine, and some that are a natural part of the path he’s on.
Because Obama started from scratch a year and a half ago in his amazing presidential odyssey, he has to swiftly and convincingly perform the political equivalent of the Labors of Hercules.
Cleaning the Augean stables in a single day seems like a cinch compared with navigating the complexities of Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine and Jordan in a few short days.
He has a week to prove his commander-in-chiefiness, even though he doesn’t have the authority to do anything commander-in-chiefy.
“It’s important to note that it is not our intent to make policy or to negotiate; we won’t do so,” said Susan Rice, an Obama foreign policy adviser. “There’s one president of the United States at any given time, and we will certainly honor and respect that.”
Instead of slaying the nine-headed Hydra, he must bedazzle three European countries without causing Middle America to begrudge his popularity with a bunch of foreigners.
Since he’s already fighting the perception that he’s an exotic outsider, he can’t be seen as too insidery with the Euro-crats. He doesn’t want a picture of him nibbling on a baguette to overtake the effete image of the Europhile John Kerry windsurfing.
Then again, maybe it will be a refreshing change to see a leader abroad reflecting the America the world wants to believe in, after the ignominy of Iraq, Afghanistan, Dick Cheney and Abu Ghraib.
Even if Obama is treated as a superstar by W.-weary Europeans, some Obama-wary Americans may wonder what he’s doing there, when they can’t pay for gas, when the dollar is the Euro’s chew toy, when Bud is going Belgian and when the Chrysler Building has Arab landlords.
“I don’t know that people in Missouri are going to like seeing tens of thousands of Europeans screaming for The One,” a McCain aide snarked to The Politico.
Once Obama gets done with his European feats, which will have to include a knockout speech in Berlin, once he figures out where the dour Angela Merkel will let him soar, he has more labors at home.
Instead of obtaining the girdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hippolyte, Obama has to overcome the hurdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hillary. He has to figure out how to let her down easy on the vice presidential deal, while wooing the frantic Clinton sisterhood and Hillraisers who would rather see a McCain Supreme Court than support the glib, cocky young guy who presumptuously sped past their gal.
Obama must capture his own equivalent of the Erymanthian Boar, deciding how much to grovel to get Bill Clinton in his corner, and he has to calculate whether the Big Dog will be help or hindrance, or both, as he was with his wife, and how to use him, if at all.
Bill said Thursday at a press conference about his foundation’s work on malaria drug prices that he had had “a good talk” with Obama.
“He said he wanted me to campaign with him, and I said I was eager to do so,” he recalled, though his intimates confide that the sulky former president “is not there yet,” as one put it.
Obama’s last summer labor should be the simplest for him, nailing his Denver convention speech. Not half as hard as getting past that 100-headed dragon to steal the Apples of the Hesperides.