A Slip-Up, Then a Spin | Newsweek Periscope

CAMPAIGN 2008
Obama's World
Richard Wolffe 4/12/2008 12:00:00 AM
His travel dossier was unusual already, with his school years in Indonesia and family ties in Kenya, but last week Barack Obama revealed another distinctive page: a stay at a college friend's home in Pakistan in the early 1980s. He spoke later to NEWSWEEK's Richard Wolffe about how his travels have shaped his views on global hot spots. Excerpts:
POLITICS
A Turbulent Pastor
Holly Bailey
John McCain likes to think of himself as a straight shooter—a man of honor who doesn't duck tough questions. But at least one question does get him bobbing and weaving: why doesn't he renounce the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, the San Antonio televangelist who has offended Roman Catholics and other groups?
INTERNATIONAL
The Rise of the Rest
Fareed Zakaria
Americans are glum at the moment. No, I mean really glum. In April, a new poll revealed that 81 percent of the American people believe that the country is on the "wrong track." In the 25 years that pollsters have asked this question, last month's response was by far the most negative. Other polls, asking similar questions, found levels of gloom that were even more alarming, often at 30- and 40-year highs. There are reasons to be pessimistic—a financial panic and looming recession, a seemingly endless war in Iraq, and the ongoing threat of terrorism. But the facts on the ground—unemployment numbers, foreclosure rates, deaths from terror attacks—are simply not dire enough to explain the present atmosphere of malaise.
LETTERS
Mail Call: Debating Hillary

Readers of our March 17 cover story on Hillary Clinton's historic campaign were divided. One wrote, "I got choked up reading your essays." Another asked, "What's with all these love letters?" A third said, "At 18, I had voted for Hillary. Later, I beseeched her to oppose the Iraq War … she did the opposite."
CAMPAIGN 2008
A Man at Home in the World
Richard Wolffe
He was just a college kid, vagabonding around the world. But Barack Obama says the weeks he spent traveling through Pakistan in 1981 shaped the views that he still holds today—and that he would bring into the White House. Obama remembers most vividly the desperation and hopelessness—"essentially a feudal life"—he witnessed in the countryside surrounding Karachi, a city that is today a hotbed of jihadist activity. At the tender age of 20, Obama suggested, he was already beginning to understand more about what ailed Muslim societies—what generated terrorism and fratricidal conflicts—than George W. Bush or John McCain do today. "Both as a consequence of living in Indonesia and traveling in Pakistan, having friends in college who were Muslim, I was very clear about the history of Shia-Sunni antagonism"—which is one reason why, as an Illinois state senator 21 years later, he opposed the war in Iraq, Obama told NEWSWEEK last week. "This notion that somehow we were going to be able to create a functioning democracy and reconcile century-old conflicts, I always thought was a bunch of happy talk from this administration."
CAMPAIGN 2008
The World According to John McCain
Michael Hirsh
"We need to listen," John McCain was saying, "to the views … of our democratic allies." Then, though the words weren't in the script, the Arizona senator repeated himself, as if in self-admonishment: "We need to listen." A lot of meaning was packed into that twice-said line, which was a key theme of McCain's first major foreign-policy speech since becoming the GOP's nominee-apparent. McCain was telling America, and the whole world: if I'm elected there will be, at long last, a return to what Jefferson called "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." There will be no more ill-justified lurches into war, no more unilateralism, no more George W. Bush. Above all, McCain seemed to be saying that while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tear each other to pieces, I'm going to be the wise and welcoming statesman patching up America's global relations even before I get to the Oval Office. Not surprisingly, after the speech last week at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, McCain's campaign could not talk enough about international cooperation—what McCain had called a "new compact." "He has such a deep relationship with so many Europeans and those in other regions, including Asia and the Middle East," said one adviser, Rich Williamson, who added that McCain has kept up his global profile by "going each year to the Munich Security Conference."