The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to this late political gab fest for Friday, July 25th.

I'm John Dickerson here with Emily Bazelon and David Plotz.

I successfully introduced the show, and that's all I have to do for today.

After many takes.

Because my many takes are much like Barack Obama's many positions on Iraq. And Emily, why don't you use that as a segue way to talk about Barack Obama and his very successful trip around the world? Why don't you tell our listeners what we're going to talk about today? Today we're going to talk about Barack Obama and John McCain. It's not quite done.

Barack Obama's trip around the world, whether it was a success, what that will do, if anything, to the presidential race, the state of the presidential race as it stands.

And then our third topic will be the gossipy news in Washington this week, mainly the John Edwards story that ran in the National Enquirer, but also a very interesting

development in the driving habits of famed columnist Robert Novak.

So, Emily, returning again to the question of Barack Obama's tour, he went to Iraq, Afghanistan,

Israel, Jordan, Germany.

On Thursday, he gave us very well.

He gave a speech to a huge crowd, maybe 100,000 people in Berlin, seems to be quite well received. What do you make of this big trip? Well, I want to hear what you think, because you spend at least part of the afternoon actually listening to his speech, which seemed to be sort of endless from the Brandenburg Gate in Germany. He didn't actually give it at the Brandonmberg game. Oh, sorry. That was crucial.

But anyway, go ahead. All right. Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. But it seems like he's been credible. I'm not really sure what else he needed to do. I haven't heard of a major misstep. It seemed to me like that was the main bar for him. The no gaff bar. The no gaff bar. Well, I think it was better than the no-gaff bar. The no-gaff bar. He was, well, I think it was better than the no-gaff bar because I'm not sure.

When did, had he gone to Iraq as of when we did the show last week?

No, he went over the week.

So, I mean, obviously the big news over the weekend was that in Iraq, his plan for withdrawal,

sort of gradual 16-month withdrawal of U.S. troops was essentially endorsed by

Prime Minister Maliki. And that, I think, at the very moment that he was there. And that gave his

view about Iraq, this huge imprimatur of correctness. And it was a gigantic, I think, boost for him.

If we're looking at who's going to be the steward of foreign policy in the next administration,

he not only synced up beautifully with the prime minister in Iraq, he also was the day he left,

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