The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s whirlwind world tour has attracted unprecedented media attention. This still another example of media frenzy reminds me to a degree of the time of Pope John Paul II’s groundbreaking pilgrimage to Cuba.

Practically all of the U.S. TV network star anchors and other media celebrities descended on Havana. That was no surprise, as the pope’s very first visit to the communist island was, without doubt really big news, but just as the papal visit started, the revelations about the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky BJs have surfaced as well. And guess what? Practically all of the media heavyweights rushed back to Washington in order to “cover” the fellatio issue, rather than the papal visit. That should show you where the media priorities really lie.

This is not to say that Barack Obama’s visit to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Europe is not big news, but the media interest accompanying this event is pretty incredible. So overwhelming in fact, that poor John McCain hardly gets any media coverage at all. His solution? Visit Bush 41 in Kennebunkport, get George H.W. Bush’s “My respect for him has no bounds” endorsement and criticize Obama at every step of the way.

With all the attention focused on Senator Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe, Senator McCain finds himself in reaction mode as he comments on what Obama is doing on his travels. McCain reminded us recently that he was one of the few members of Congress to speak out in support of President Bush’s surge strategy in Iraq at a time when the war effort was not going well. McCain added that Obama has yet to say that the surge has been a success.

Frankly, why should he? Many people have serious doubts whether it was actually the surge, which contributed to the lessening of the fighting in Iraq. In reality, a lot of the fighting has died, simply because the Sunnis, organized into the so-called “Awakening Council”, a group of Iraqi Sunni Muslims, discouraged by the brutal tactics of al-Qaida in Iraq, or al-Qaida in Mesopotamia stopped fighting us. The fact that some 70,000 Sunnis have simply stopped fighting the U.S. forces – for now, at least is probably the single biggest reason for the relative quiet in Iraq.

Take a look at our earlier post on the subject:

Is it the Surge, or Simply the Fact that Sunnis Stopped Fighting us for Now?

In a nutshell: McCain, along with his peers would like to stay in Iraq for as long as possible, controlling the Iraqi oil. The Iraqis in turn – or at least a huge majority of them – want the occupying “coalition” out of their country and they want them out as soon as possible. John McCain, like Bush, continues to talk about “winning” in Iraq. He says and I quote: “Our troops will be withdrawing, but they will come home with honor and victory. They will not come home in defeat. They will come home with honor and victory!” How the heck does he define a victory there? What are these people thinking?

Don’t they realize that Iran has won the Iraq war years ago?

Also, when Obama visited Israel, he also visited the Palestinian territories and met with President Mahmoud Abbas. McCain didn’t even bother to visit the Palestinians. Which of the candidates would you rather have as president?

It also seems that at least some of the jihadis have decided to take up the fight in Afghanistan and things over there don’t look so rosy at all. And what is really disturbing is the historical fact that no one, not the British, not the Soviets and probably not the U.S. and NATO have been able to occupy, pacify and stay in Afghanistan for more than a few years. That’s a historical fact, one that is not likely to change anytime soon. Let’s hope that our notable “deciders” take notice and act accordingly.

At this point it appears that the Afghanistan war is being waged on a fairly wide scale, including along the Afghan/Pakistani border. The tribal and religious loyalties run pretty high in the region and the influx of “infidels” is not helping the situation one bit. There seems to be no shortage of volunteers for the fight. It isn’t just the Taliban we are facing. And lets not forget that our nemesis Osama bin Laden was one of the jihadis, fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

My advice would be to concentrate on the real threat – the nuclear-armed Pakistan, with an almost unlimited supply of religious fanatics and which in fact has been supporting the Taliban for quite a few years now.

Recently I had the opportunity to show some European friends around my city.

They liked quite few things and at the same time also complained about the usual issues: bad food, inadequate public transportation, the U.S. government policies in general and so forth. But what really had them puzzled was the fact that every second vehicle they were seeing was one of the so-called Sports Utility Vehicles, or SUV’s. Craning their necks, the Europeans kept staring at the urban procession, composed of Chevy Suburbans, Tahoes, Denali XLs, Ford Explorers, Expeditions and Excursions, Cadillac Escalades, Toyota Sequoias, Nissan Armadas, Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Toyota and Nissan pickup trucks, with the inevitable “intimidator” front treatment, the ever larger Jeep models and of course the Hummers, H1, H2 and H3s – most with one, or two people inside.

“This is insane,” exclaimed a very distinguished German professor of engineering, who drives a fancy 500 series Mercedes Benz at home. “There’s room for at least six other people and a refrigerator in each one of these monsters. Do they use these vehicles for commuting to work and shopping?” “That’s how most of them use them.” I confirmed. “Let’s not forget the all-important shuttling of their and their neighbor’s kids to soccer and baseball games.” I added. “But, unless they need to fit in a whole team, they would be just fine with a car half that size,” exclaimed the professor. His logic was unassailable.

Having driven some of these vehicles in the past, I wouldn’t even consider buying one, not even if gas cost 25 cents per gallon, like it did in the 60s. They are just too ugly, too often badly designed and downright crappy (maybe with the exception of the Toyota Land Cruiser, or the Mercedes Benz G-Class, or the classic Land Rover Defender 110 diesel – but even these are usually available in the U.S. only with an automatic transmission – a total no go for me), handle poorly and are not fun at all to drive. Their lousy gas mileage is the least of the problems as I see it.

Anyway, it appears that the arrogant, under-educated and dumb SUV owners have finally found themselves between a rock and a hard place. For them, the only consideration of course is the price of fuel. They don’t care that their vehicles, by burning inordinately large amounts of gas, also emit much more pollution than smaller cars, or that they can and do cause considerably more damage, when running into another vehicle, or that their headlights are mounted so high, that even at the low beam setting, they blind everybody as if they were switched to a high beam. And what is it with this dumb trend of using the fog lights on perfectly clear nights? About half of the SUV drivers seem to doing that, probably reducing their already miserable gas mileage by another mile per gallon and blinding everybody even more. I doubt if these considerations even enter the constricted, little, arrogant minds of most SUV owners. After all, Joe Blow might get himself an Excursion, so he doesn’t feel inferior to the Joneses next door, who happen to own a Suburban.

Because of the rising price of gasoline during the past six months, the price of a used Chevrolet Suburban has dropped as much as $8,000. The full-blown infatuation with SUVs began here about 10 years ago. Many insecure people felt as if they dominated the road, salivating over the ability to scale rocky hillsides and barrel through mud, even if they never left the pavement. Office workers and soccer moms were prepared for anything – a flood, a snowstorm, a long ride to grandma’s house, or to carry three washing machines, a refrigerator and two month’s worth of groceries – all in one trip. What a turn-on this must be for some!

Through the years, SUV owners drove on, unfazed by the danger of rollovers or environmentalists’ criticism, really sticking their fingers at everybody, including the planet they are living on. The manufacturers – starting I believe with Ford – started offering the ludicrous, higher than ever pick up trucks, with the so very popular “intimidator” grilles and front ends. Just for the people, who savor the “I can crush you, like a cockroach” mentality.

Meanwhile, large vehicle’s prices are still dropping. May saw the steepest drop yet in the price of full-size SUVs, which are now down 24 percent compared with last year.

Some dealerships have stopped accepting SUVs as trade-ins, even as the hybrid Toyota Prius grows scarce and dealers troll the streets for them.

Personally, I am waiting until the fall, when some manufacturers, including Volkswagen will start selling the excellent, clean turbo diesel models and in case you haven’t heard, VW is about to unveil a diesel hybrid, which gets up to 70 miles per gallon.

As for the SUV owners, I really hope that they will lose a lot of money in the process, because their stupidity and arrogance is indefensible. As it stands, with very, very few exceptions, there are no real compelling reasons to ever buy such a monstrosity. And it is to be hoped that the Suburbans, Excursions and Hummers will end up in the recycling heaps as soon as possible.