It's been a good political week for Obama, but the best news by far is that his upcoming Iraq trip will feature special guest star Chuck Hagel. Before this announcement, it was a pretty safe bet that the McCain campaign would hijack the media's coverage of Obama's visit with a lot of press releases about how many days it's been since Obama visited Iraq, and how much beachfront property McCain owns in Basra, and all the rest. Rather than being a political boost for Obama, it would almost certainly play into a media narrative about his weakness on Iraq. Now, the story will be that Obama is in Iraq, accompanied by a respected Republican Senator who happened to serve as co-chair of McCain's 2000 presidential run. That's a very, very different story, and a major coup for the Obama campaign.
