Self-inflicted wounds?

The McCain campaign has released a web ad (below) that argues that the MSM is in love with Obama. The ad picks up a theme that they have been developing in recent days, pointing to the intensive coverage of Obama's trip to Afghanistan and Iraq. This goes along with the campaign's release of emails related to the New York Times rejection of a McCain op-ed response to Obama (calling for revisions that provide new information about McCain's own take on Iraq). Others have noted that this plays to the GOP base's hostility towards the Liberal Media. Meanwhile, it has gotten lots of coverage on the cable news networks (e.g., CNN through most of last night). That coverage may have the effect of making some viewers dubious about those same networks' simultaneous presentation of al-Maliki's embrace of a withdrawal by 2010.

What has gone unremarked, however, is that it was the McCain campaign itself that created the media frenzy over the Obama trip. How? Recall that this started with McCain and his surrogates repeatedly criticizing Obama for not having gone to Iraq since January 2006 and pressing him to do so. They seem to have thought it would hurt his credibility, and box him in: if he refused to go, they could keep hammering him, and if he went, they could suggest that he'd caved to their pressure and only was going because of appearances. Instead, by raising the stakes of such a trip, they assured intense media coverage of it. Then events in Afghanistan and Iraq conspired to make Obama's trip even more newsworthy. It's hard to see that any mileage they get from this ad and the meme it carries will outweigh the benefit to Obama from this trip.