Several sites have the details of Senator Barack Hussein Obama’s abrupt cancellation of a planned visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Donald Douglas of American Power (who occasionally comments here as the Americanneocon) has the details here and here. Though we can expect the Obama campaign to blame everyone but itself, it boils down to one thing: the United States Army, operating under clear rules not to allow political exploitation of the troops, said that he could bring a few of his Senate staffers, but no campaign officials or workers or media. When Mr Obama discovered that he couldn’t use the visit as a photo op, couldn’t use it for political gain in any way he could control — the Army would take whatever photographs were to be taken — he simply canceled.
Just how dumb was this? Yeah, maybe he couldn’t use the event in quite the manner he wished, but this man is running to be the commander-in-chief of these wounded soldiers! Didn’t he realize himself — and if he didn’t, was there no one on his staff bright enough to tell him? — that this would be a public relations disaster, and not exactly the way to win votes from servicemen?
I have to admit: I am absolutely stunned by the idiocy of this. Something like this won’t be forgotten, not by the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines he wants to command half a year from now. If he is elected, they’ll still obey orders, but their prospective commander-in-chief just lost a great deal of respect from the troops; he has let them know, in unmistakable terms, just what he thinks of them.
Sister Toldjah made the same point, quoting Sean Hannity, who put it brilliantly:
And, by the way, you know, I know for a fact because I talked to these kids when I went to Walter Reed and Bethesda, that literally the president would sneak on over often to go see these, kids — you never heard about it, it was never reported. As a matter of fact, I remember I was out there with Ollie North and they said, yeah the president was just here, two days ago, whatever it was. And you know, same thing with Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Rumsfeld used to go over there all the time, but he didn’t turn it into a campaign event.
Anyway, so Obama has it on the schedule. The Pentagon says, look, you can come but they’re going to impose their rule against turning a visit by a politician into a campaign event. Now this is what we finally are finding out here. All the Pentagon said is they advised Obama’s staff — yeah of course he can visit the hospital and injured personnel in Germany but only in his capacity as a Member of Congress, in other words without the trappings of a political campaign, which by the way, it’s unfair to use sick soldiers who risked their lives as a political prop.
Obama apparently cancelled the visit and went to work out instead. He went to work out and then said it would be inappropriate as part of a trip financed by his campaign. Well, as John McCain said, it’s never inappropriate if you are a United States Senator to visit a sick soldier. It’s never inappropriate. There’s not one taxpayer in the country that would have any opposition to this nor is there any rules against this. The only difference is the only restriction that was placed is that they don’t want to have candidates, you know, using the appearance for some type of political benefit. That wasn’t enough. He had to bring along of course the entourage and the multiple 10,000 media press secretaries along with him.
I would guess that some of our friends on the left would not believe that President Bush or former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld would have visited wounded soldiers without making a political trip of it. But this is exactly the kind of thing that the top civilian authorities have to do, to show respect for the soldiers under their command. Somehow, our prospectibe commander-in-chief doesn’t understand that yet.
Sis entitled her piece “Controversy grows over Obama’s cancellation of troop hospital visit in Germany.” I’d bet that some of our friends on the left will see this as an entirely manufactured “controversy,” one of no real moment, but, to me, it says a great deal about the man who might be our next president.
Good grief!
“All the Pentagon said is they advised Obama’s staff — yeah of course he can visit the hospital and injured personnel in Germany but only in his capacity as a Member of Congress, in other words without the trappings of a political campaign, which by the way, it’s unfair to use sick soldiers who risked their lives as a political prop.”
If people couldn’t quibble they couldn’t write.
Someone tell me what the difference is between a person running for president using “a hospital visit” that may or may not have had the intent to use that visit as a part of “the trappings of a political campaign, which by the way, it’s unfair to use sick soldiers who risked their lives as a political prop” and a SITTING president that uses “those same sick soldiers” in order to bolster his position for being in the war they were thrust into by that same sitting president in the first place and do it every danged day like it was announcing the next act in a magic show.
How many of the readers and contributors here were actually volunteered for service in the U S Military and served directly in combat, in Korea, the SEATO wars of the sixties and seventies, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm or either of the two theaters of this current war?
I still have a pretty large fragment of a Chinese made 7.62 mm round in my back and a piece of shrapnel from a field radio embedded in my chest under my left breast that can easily seen when I go bare from the waste up.
I don’t have those items removed because I want them as a reminder of what war really is all about. I have some other fruit salad that I wore; among them a Purple Heart with two clusters as far as the rest I don’t even mention them anymore because I don’t think its right to display medals that rewarded me for killing people and that’s all they really amount to.
Ask John McCain if he feels like a hero because he performed the duties of a naval officer/pilot he volunteered his services for or if he feels the hero for having served as a prisoner of war. Ask McCain how he feels when serving on the Forestall on June 29, 1967 when he wet started his Skyhawk that caused a Zuni rocket notorious for faulty wiring in the first place to ignite and fly off it’s rail from the F-4 parked behind him that crippled the ship and cost the lives of 134 sailors. I know McCain feels regret beyond anyone’s imagination because I learned he was ordered to wet start his plane which is never done unless the jet exhaust has nothing behind it.
We who served in our military and fought in combat served proudly, but to be called hero’s because we did our jobs? That word, hero, is reserved by servicemen for other servicemen that perform unexpected extraordinary actions over and beyond the call of ordinary duty whether in combat or not and any honest military person will tell you that straight out.
I personally was in the area at NAS Mainside, Pennsacola, Florida when a young sailor ran to a 500 gallon LOX cart out on the parking ramp to shut off the lock-down pop off valve on the tank that for a reason that will never be known someone stupidly unlocked on purpose. Just as the kid arrived at the cart the LOX ignited, exploded and the boy was literally vaporized…wanna call someone a hero? That boy was a hero and a word I don’t appreciate seeing over used to a point to where it becomes distorted. I feel the same way about the way the word “gay” has been distorted over the years.
Frankly this quibble pattern of political pot calling the kettle black that’s been going on for way too long must be broken and people recognize that each of us prominent or little guy all have human foibles and failings. So if political perfection, and perfect people to elect are to be sought, one may as well forget about human beings cuz it ain’t agonner happen in this gene pool sez this ole country boy.
At any rate the who that becomes our next president is the least of our worries, because like I said in my very first post, neither McCain or Obama can OR WILL pull of any miracles with the mess that they will have left to them and the poorest quality congress from BOTH parties I have ever seen in my forty plus years of being politically aware and active.
The U S Congress and federal bureaucracy where many small people have aspired to and achieved high positions that have real absolute powers that are currently being reigned over us currently, and not to our mutual benefit, and taking advantage of their positions are where the bulk of blame for the problems in this nation lie and only we the voting citizens can “legally” do anything about them and better do it hastily beginning this next November.
I will cite one single example here. The federal bureaucracy’s union representatives in collusion have petitioned and in all likelyhood career democrats will receive AN ADDITIONAL 30 use em or lose em paid days off as and /or in the guise offamily health care..over and above their current 30 days paid annual leave, their 10 use em or lose em paid days off personal sick leave, and 11 or more paid days holiday’s off…all this is not including their two days per week fifty two weeks a year non paid regular days off.
The federal bureaucracy is among the highest paid hourly wage earning employees in this nation; just check out the federal wage scales that are easily found here on the web as a matter of public records.
In my lone opinion, the federal bureaucracy DOES NOT need an additional thirty paid days off the over and above the 51 paid days off already more than generously given to them making 81 paid days off work where private sector tax payers foot the bill…and I’m waiting for someone to come back and say “Well bureaucrats pay income tax too”…in a pigs eye they do…because every cent taken out of their pay checks as income tax this pay period goes right back into the federal payroll pool and in their next paychecks the next pay period in a vicious loop that is eating the private sector alive and a great deal why this nation is tumbling down around our ears.
Shameless, Dana.
1. Obama didn’t have Senate staff with him.
2. Obama’s campaign didn’t receive the Pentagon directives until they were already abroad.
3. Obama went to the gym and played basketball…WITH THE TROOPS.
4. Obama has gone to Walter Reed without
But hey, nothing wrong with you guys completely ignoring all facts and making up a bunch of crap to fit some bullshit narrative about Obama disrespecting soldiers. Dana, do you really believe this, or do you just need to believe it?
Eh? Did your spambots eat my last comment?
Yes, they did, so read this for completion of my 4th point:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/07/yglesias-awa-10.html
Your first comment is incomplete, even though it never went into either the spam or moderation queues; not sure why.
If Mr Obama didn’t have his Senate staff with him, he could still have gone in alone. You can defend him all you want — and I know that you will — but the troops are learning, fast, who their prospective commander-in-chief really is.
I completed point 4 in the last comment with the link. My first attempt with a quote got canceled.
But holy smokes…you do have no shame indeed. I really have to believe the troops are smarter than this. Do Bush or McCain go anywhere alone? Did Obama’s trips to Walter Reed without photographers fly through one ear and out the other? Did you think that if Obama had some Senate staff on hand he wouldn’t have gone in? Did you even read the link? This is pure bullshit. If McCain or Bush did the same thing, you’d see no problem and everybody would understand it was a simple logistics issue.
This is pure politics on your part, and we’ve seen there’s no limit to what politics the GOP will play when it comes to using the troops as props. It’s telling that even Allahpundit won’t stoop that low.
Actually, I do think that our troops are smarter — which is why the majority will vote for John McCain.
My fellow citizens,
Let me ask you a question.
Do these inane arguments about Obama and McCain and their alleged inadequacies contribute one thing to the over all problems this nation is facing?
Fact! One of those two men is going to be the next president of the United States. Neither of them is my cup of tea. But I will not malign either of them before or after the election and will contribute the only way a voter can contribute and that is through my “CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES” in the house and senate.
And if you folks haven’t noticed it yet, casting a vote for president is a joke due to the fact that on a very few states have legally binding contracts between the voters and their state’s COLLEGE ELECTORS appointed by “the state government and party controlling state government at the time” that force the electors to reflect the majority vote.
Here in ultra right wing Texas the state where most of my life was Democrat then suddenly flip flopped Republican, Obama could get forty million votes and McCain zero and still have the majority of Texas Electoral College votes cast for McCain.
This was done twice in recent history if the allegations about Texas’ privatized voter machine rigging has any credence to it. Right now in the area where I live when talking with people at political action meetings, not one in five people admit they ever voted for G W Bush even once, nor does any of the two exit polls in 00 and 04 I was involved in reflect it, I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I can do simple addition using figures right before my eyes and come up with a correct total sum and have been taking those exit polls since my first vote was cast after returning permanently from overseas and discharged from the military.
I still say I’m amazed about how the left and right are so much at odds with each other about candidates that aren’t ideally perfect.
If ideal perfection is the case then the conservatives should be promoting tar and feathering Bush and riding him out of the White House on a rail. Bush the deregulate/privatize everything president, with his repeatedly demonstrated arrogance, the won’t listen to his own chosen cabinet people president, the I won’t compromise on anything arbitrary decision making president and his overtly demonstrated disdain for the citizenry of this nation will be remembered in history as the single most damaging president to both domestic and foreign policies up to the date of his leaving office of any other president and there are several others that Georgie has put to shame in the lousy president area.
Most states voter votes cast for a president are actually votes cast for correspondingly pledged electors; pledged electors being a very loose term because here in Texas there is nothing legal to bind an elector and their pledges to their area voters.
Anybody that posts here and lives in Texas that doesn’t believe that had better wake up to that fact.
And I iterate, no matter who is next elected president, Obama or McCain, nothing is going to be done unless “the president” can cooperate with not just “our congress” but the government of other nations in this “global world” the majority of U S Citizens seem to be exstatic over. Personally I think a whole lot of old fashion Jingoism is in order until we as a nation get our own S_ _t together. And we can start by ceasing all relations with Mexico including imports from there and cutting off the ninety three to one hundred million taxpayer dollars sent by the U S Government down there as foreign aid every damned year for the past forty years. If Mexico is a friend all I can say is we don’t need anymore friends like them.
Nuff said by me on this subject for today.
Tom
Dana: So you think the troops are smart, but you’ll try peddling this junk to them? You have no leg to stand on here. Anyway, I guess this is as close as you get to backing down. Just think twice next time before you go running with shit from Sean Hannity and Sistah Toldjah.