Last Friday, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama stood inside a gymnasium filled with United States soldiers at Camp Arifjani in Kuwait. Obama, dressed in khakis and a black polo shirt, bounced a basketball with one hand and held a microphone in the other as the throng of adoring soldiers watched his every move.

The Democratic contender for president of the United States stood beyond the three-point arc facing the basket, talked a little self-deprecating smack while bouncing the ball slowly and deliberately. Then he handed the microphone off to a soldier standing nearby, still bouncing the ball slowly, methodically, eyeing the basket.

Then -- cool as Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, yet reminiscent of another famous lefty, Larry Bird -- the pride of Chicago’s Southside and Indonesia and Hawaii rattled home a long distance three. Obama threw his hands in the air triumphantly as the crowd erupted with cheers.

It couldn’t have been scripted any better -- one shot, bottoms. Despite the moniker given him by his campaign, “No drama Obama,” the brother clearly has a flair for the dramatic. With the eyes of the world watching, Obama came through in the clutch, and Earl the Pearl and Larry Legend would have both been proud.

This is how Barack Obama’s excellent international adventure began, and it would turn out to be an omen for his entire trip. He sank one pressure-filled shot after another, all with the world watching, draped in his now famous duende.

There was Obama, chillin’ with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, looking elegant, statesman-like and yes, extremely presidential. It was al-Maliki who, during Obama’s visit, stunningly agreed with Obama’s timeline of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and, perhaps even more incredibly, it was the Bush administration that acquiesced.   

There was Obama, meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, who flew back to his country from the United States overnight just to visit with the senator from Illinois. Then, when it was time for Obama to leave Jordan, it was King Abdullah himself who gave him a lift to the airport tarmac in his phat Benz.

There was Obama, holding a press conference on the rooftop of a hotel in Amman, Jordan, flanked by his Senate colleagues, Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska (Imagine if either Reed or Hagel had to whisper in Obama’s ear that he had mixed up Sunni and Shia like McCain’s lapdog Sen. Joe Lieberman had to do with his pal in Jordan in March).

And, of course, there was Obama, being given an tour of Baghdad by Gen. David Petraeus via helicopter while, back at home, Sen. John McCain was riding in a golf cart driven by none other than President George Bush 41.

Since Obama embarked on his world tour, the Arizona senator -- who goaded Obama into making the trip -- has been crying about the torrents of attention being showered upon the Democrat overseas, while, in America, McCain squirms uncomfortably in his rival’s ubiquitous shadow.

The image of McCain being shuttled around the Kennebunkport, Maine Bush compound in a golf cart by Bush 41 -- the father of his “frenemy” W -- was startling and hilarious. There was Poppy Bush at the wheel rocking the white turtleneck, tan tweed sport coat, blueblood combo with McCain riding shotgun, his face tight as ever, frozen in a perpetual frown as a smattering of reporters witnessed the sad scene.

One reporter asked McCain for a comment on the media attention being received by Obama. “It is what it is,” was the response from the Republican senator.

What it has been is one cheap shot after another from McCain and -- like an insolent child sitting in a tree with a slingshot shooting rocks at a massive parade -- too far out of range to make any impact on Obama’s international mission.

It was McCain’s campaign that launched a laughable television ad in Obama’s absence that inexplicably blamed the Illinois Senator for high oil prices.

It was McCain’s campaign that diabolically suggested that Obama was being insincere when he uttered the words, “Never again” in remarks Obama made during his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, Israel.

It was McCain himself who attacked Obama’s patriotism when he told Katie Couric that Obama “would rather lose a war than lose a campaign.”

Yet it was Obama who rode above the rants of McShame and his bumbling goon squad.

“I was disappointed by that language,” he told NBC news anchor Brian Williams in Berlin Thursday. “You know, John McCain and I disagree on policy. We disagreed on going into the war in Iraq. We disagreed, until recently, about the need to get more troops into Afghanistan,” Obama added. “But, I’ve never questioned that he wants to make America safer. And for him to suggest that I don’t, for him to suggest that somehow I’m less concerned about the safety of my wife and daughter than he is I think was unfortunate.”

Like a scorned lover, McCain feels jettisoned by a once-adoring press corps for a taller, charismatic, more intelligent, more attractive suitor -- and its driving him crazy. He has become the living embodiment of “hateration.”

As Obama basks in the international spotlight, another side of his Republican rival is being revealed. The crumbling myth of McCain the Maverick is giving way to a dotty old man trying to remain relevant. Yet, how much more irrelevant could McCain be as he had lunch in a German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio while his rival addressed a crowd of more than 200,000 in Berlin, Germany?

“Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen -- a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world,” Obama said. “We are a people of improbable hope. Let us build on our common history and seize our common destiny, and once again engage in that noble struggle to bring justice and peace to our world.”

And indeed, the world was watching.