Why Barry wouldn’t visit Landstuhl (UPDATED)
Folks have been emailing me the story about Obama foregoing a visit with troops recovering from their injuries at the Landstuhl medical facility in Germany.
Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his spokesman said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.
Of course he did. There was no winning way to look at it from the stand point of a political campaign. Either he took cameras with him or he did the reverent thing and forbid the media to follow him. Why would he waste his time doing something he couldn’t make into a photo-op? And if he let cameras in, he’d be accused of using the wounded as props (I’d have been the first to say it), and why would he want a photo op with someone who’d draw the viewers attention away from the Messiah.
From a political standpoint, there was no up side. And we all know that Barack Obama doesn’t deviate from the politically expedient decision. AFP points out why he couldn’t make the visit;
Pentagon officials said the restrictions were in keeping with Defense Department guidelines aimed at avoiding the appearance of military support for any particular candidate.
“Because his visit is official only, Senator Obama may not be accompanied by members of his campaign staff,” a Pentagon memo seen by AFP said. “He may only be accompanied by one member of his Senate staff, and the appropriate number of security personnel.”
Only one handler with him? What if one of the troops asked him a question about the surge and Obama’s failure to support it? Who would be there to whisper the answer in his ears? Rush would have had another 2 minutes of “uh” to add to his unscripted Obama tape.
Nope, there was no up side for the politically adept Obama…no up side except for the troops he would have had to make a personal sacrifice to visit. I guess that was asking too much of the messiah.
UPDATED: Zero Ponsdorf emailed a link to a Free Republic article by Kristinn (a local FReeper whom I’ve met a few times) that pulls together a bunch of articles and sources;
This explanation by the Pentagon that Obama’s plane would be allowed to land and his staff and press taken care of leaves a big question as to what was so objectionable that Obama cancelled.
It couldn’t be the media restriction as some have speculated. Obama visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center last month without the press. He visited troops in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq without the media. The military released official photos of the war zone visits, the only exception being of Obama’s visit to a military hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Read the rest.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Support the troops
How about visiting as a U.S. Senator? Could he take a couple of hours in that capacity? I’m sorry for my racist rant.
So you have a chance to thank the troops but you can’t drag you media disciples or goggled eyed staff, which makes you cancel. More concerned over the Photo op then the men.
How big of a coward are you Sen. Obama? Is this the respect you are going to give our Troops? Is this how you will treat the military if you get elected?
What a slap in the face of our hero’s who have sacrificed.
Pathetic.
Wake up America this is what the left is coming too.
I try not to be too harsh, but I have to agree. Spend all your time talking about the troops, and then no time with the ones who were wounded? Strikes me as classless frankly. Just go without all the PR people from your campaign. Not everything needs to be scripted and effect the election.
This puts just a little more meat on teh bone for McCain’s charge that Obama would rather win and election and lose the war.
I could very easily believe a retired General that would work with The Obama campaign might get pouty about not being allowed to tag along and cause the cancellation. I have seen a post at Newsbusters, about Andre Mitchell at MSNBC saying the scuttlebut from the Obama campaign is that it is McCain operatives that caused this through ties at the Pentagon. Obama, most of the MSM and many democrats are becoming very pathetic.
Barry was cleared to land his plane at Ramstein. This retired General pitched a major fit about not being allowed to come along on tour of hospital.
I’m going to throw up the nay voice here, and say, just why COULDN’T the retired general come along? What’s so horrible and evil about a retired general visiting wounded troops?
Jonn wrote: I dunno…maybe because he wouldn’t have been there as a retired general but a political advisor and the military has forbidden using the wounded troops as props and back drops in a political campaign?
INSULT TO INJURY …
The ‘real’ story is that Obama could have visited the wounded soldiers, but the Pentagon said not with the huge entourage and media circus … however, Obama supporters are now trying to mislead the American people by enabling Obama to now blame the Pentagon for HIS bad decision. This is a typical form of damage control that the Obama and his people have used throughout his campaign. If Obama does something right, they shower credit upon him … if he does something wrong, they blame it on someone else, or they tell us we misinterpreted what happened.
A/S,
Campaign official, what’s so hard to understand about that?
Anybody from IVAW gone to see Tomas in the hospital?
Jonn,
Don’t forget that Vietnam Veterans Against the War leader John Kerry tried to convince an editor to cover a story with, “How about I chain a few criples to the White House fence…”
Seems VVAW set a bad example for the kids. They just don’t get it.