The Trip: Stature Gap

Given the increasingly apparent stature gap — with Obama’s appearance in Amman taking on the vitality and the look-and-feel of a full-fledged Presidential news conference — the difference between the first shot above and the “country club-like,” dynastic, retired, “that vision-thing” quality of Mac and Poppy, and the recorders, is not the function of media bias, as McCain’s understandable frustrated advisers insist.  It’s the embodiment — after an eight year leadership and engagement vacuum — of actual difference.

(image 1: Jae C. Hong/AP.  Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, July 22, 2008. image 2 & 3: Brian Snyder / Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport, Maine July 21, 2008)