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Barack TrackRiding the rails with Sen. Obama in Pennsylvania.

By John Dickerson
Posted Saturday, April 19, 2008, at 2:26 PM ET

Read Part 2 of John Dickerson's travels with Sen. Barack Obama over the weekend.

DOWNINGTOWN, Pa.—At the next train stop, I'm going to stand behind Sen. Obama when he speaks. When he's decrying the trivial distractions in politics, I think he may be crossing his fingers behind his back.

As the senator's campaign train wound from one speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics to the next speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics, his campaign hosted a conference call to engage in the practice the candidate was busy denouncing. I suppose it would have been an even greater act of chutzpah for the Obama campaign to host the conference call while Sen. Obama was denouncing that kind of behavior, but not much more of one.

Obama campaign aides scheduled the call to talk about Hillary Clinton's fantastical story about her breakneck race to shelter under sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia. You might think this would be the last story the Obama campaign would be pushing because in Wednesday's debate, the senator mistakenly suggested his campaign had only discussed the issue because reporters had brought it up—not because they were trying to take advantage of Clinton's extended work of fiction. To push the story again now would make Obama look even more insincere about that claim.

In the same debate, Obama also suggested the story was pretty much off-limits. When asked about Clinton's Bosnia problem, he said this: "I think Sen. Clinton deserves, you know, the right to make some errors once in a while. … I think what's important is to make sure that we don't get so obsessed with gaffes that we lose sight of the fact that this is a defining moment in our history ... for us to be obsessed with this—these kinds of errors I think is a mistake. And that's not what our campaign has been about."

On his train tour Saturday, Sen. Obama continued to condemn the petty distractions that keep Americans from focusing on real issues. He decried Clinton's "tactics of Washington," in which she attacks him with every possible weapon. "She's got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying. The buffet is coming at me … when we get involved in the constant distractions, the petty tit-for-tat politics … that may be good for the television ratings, but that's not good for you."

While the candidate was denouncing the distractions, his aides were promoting them. Three veterans of the Bosnia conflict joined for a conference call to explain just how crucial this particular distraction was and why we should ignore Sen. Obama's guidance and get obsessed with this issue.

Maj. Gen. Walter Stewart explained that because Clinton had fabricated on the issue of sniper fire, Clinton would not be able to perform the traditional ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier who, he averred, was undoubtedly killed by sniper fire. "She will lack the moral authority to lay the wreath on Memorial Day," he said. She would also be unable to honor the veterans remembered on the Vietnam memorial because many of them had also been killed by sniper fire. Capt. Aaron Clevenstine offered a variation on this theme: "As someone who trained snipers, I take offense to the notion that she was under sniper fire." Michael Kotyk, a retired veteran of the Navy, broadened the significance of Clinton's yarn: "We've had eight years of dishonor. We need honor. If you're going to tell stories, then you're not displaying honor."

Shortly after the conference call ended, Sen. Obama's train pulled into Downingtown, and he worked the crowd into a frenzy by denouncing the scourge of petty, distracting attack politics.

Posted Saturday, April 19, at 5:35 p.m.

WYNNEWOOD, Pa.—Barack Obama was grinning like a kid when he stepped onto the platform of the antique train car he's riding in today in his four-city tour through central Pennsylvania. He's enjoying the plush comfort of the Georgia 300 lounge car, which is filled with leather upholstery, Tiffany lamps, and embroidered finery. It looks like the perfect set for a Kenny Rogers vehicle. The candidate even has access to a tidy little bedroom with a pink Pullman bedspread and a bathrobe. He won't be napping today, though. The 100-mile trip is packed with stops, and besides, he's not going to give Hillary Clinton any chance to call him soft again. But Obama couldn't resist taking advantage of the train whistle. Boarding at 30th Street station in Philadelphia at the start of the journey, he tugged on a cable, and it let out a long, loud wail. "That's too much right there," he said with a broad smile.

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photograph of Barack Obama on Slate's home page by Scott Olson/Getty Images.
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