Obama Slips Into Role of Acting President

With a lame duck in the White House and his party's nominee beginning to sound like a quack, Barack Obama is coming off the success of last week's world tour looking like America's acting president, writes Frank Rich in the New York Times. The Illinois senator offers more than "charisma, slick rhetoric, and stunning visuals," and that's why he's won over the network talking heads. 

"The election remains Mr. Obama’s to lose," writes Rich, and John McCain's ignorance of the country's No. 1 issue, the economy, will boost Obama's popularity—a future debate is a "Gerald Ford train wreck waiting to happen." But Obama could still run into trouble from "unexpected events, his own vanity, or a vice-presidential misfire." (More Barack Obama stories.)