This is AWFUL. Obama wanted to visit injured troops at Ramstein, but Pentagon prevented him.

[beachmom]

This is where politics goes out the door. From everything I have read and heard, it's just nice when VIPs show up to see the troops -- whether they're super famous, relatively obscure, or even a politician who had just botched a joke -- it's a break in routine and a nice surprise. So what the Pentagon did to the injured troops at Ramstein is beyond despicable:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/25/8227/32024/605/556729

This per Andrea Mitchell:

The background on the military flap is that they had clearly planned a trip to Ramstein . They were planning to visit the injured troops. And then the Pentagon explained that they couldn't go as part of a political trip. The Obama campaign thought that they could go, leave the press corps on the tarmac, and then take off with military escort and make this one last visit. As he did in Iraq, by the way. He visited a casualty unit in the Green Zone, without photographers, as part of the congressional delegation. But the military said that the rules are that he could only go as part of a previously-arranged congressional delegation, to Ramstein

Clearly, people in the campaign are really angry. They had wanted this to be the final stop on the trip here in Germany, and to do it without the press corps, just to do it on his own. But the objections of the military are that he is now being staffed by campaign aides, not by his Senate staff, who are the people of course with him when he went with Hagel and Jack Reed in Iraq. So, you know, the anger here in the campaign is pretty intense at the Pentagon. They feel that the military are drawing some lines--they're not saying this publicly of course--but drawing lines that they might have drawn for other people. He was planning to just go by himself, not with cameras, not with any entourage, as he had done in Walter Reed in the past in Washington, as he did in Iraq. Joe

I mean, what the hell? Dirty tricks against Obama with injured troops in the cross hairs? This is really low, even for the Bush administration. And now the Right Wing is attacking him with a bunch of lies. It's like the "Lonely Kerry" smear all over again. I am so sick of these jerks.

[beachmom]

1. Ugh!! Look at McCain's statement:

McCain campaign blasts Obama's change in plans

Looking for any chance to sully Barack Obama's trip abroad, John McCain's campaign blasted him yesterday for canceling a visit to wounded US troops in Germany....

But McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responded: "Barack Obama is wrong. It is never 'inappropriate' to visit our men and women in the military."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/07/25/mccains_attack_on_war_stance_disappointing_says_obama/

I don't think any of this is OT. It is very related to the way Kerry was treated, and how the troops are literally being used once again to shield McCain from his feckless campaign.

[Inuca]

2. Disgusting statement

as more more of his statements have become. Where the hell is the civilized campaign he was talking about earlier?

[karynnj]

3. McCain's statement crosses the line of decency

He should be asked to retract it and the Pentagon asked to put out a statement of their policy decision. How Republican to want to throw a false charge to change the topic from something good real and genuine.

[ginnyinWI]

4. So he was prevented from going by the Pentagon?

And then McCain attacks him for it? Beyond the pale.

In my newspaper the article (LAT, NYT feed) says that the Obama campaign decided not to go as it would be "inappropriate" as part of a campaign funded trip.

[Blaukraut]

5. according to kos update, mccain had a hand in this??

This is just disgusting! McCain has no integrity. Knowing damn well that the Pentagon forbade Obama to visit the troops in Landstuhl (because he apparently had something to do with this) he still attacks Obama about it! What a dirtbag!

[beachmom]

6. Well, the Pentagon said it would be called a "campaign" visit, highly inappropriate,

so Obama was forced to cancel. I don't see why a Senator can't go by himself without entourage or press to visit wounded soldiers. That was the issue -- and it was a Catch 22. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. So the Pentagon prevented Obama going there as an official member of Congress.

Edit: okay, TPM is on it. Uh, no, Obama was not allowed to land there:

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/pentagon_confirms_that_it_told.php

So, clearly, McCain hitting him over the head with this is just utter BS, since the Pentagon said that it is against DOD regulation. But this Politico story shows how it was a set up:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/Obama_camp_says_Pentagon_nixed_troop_visit.html?showall

Senior strategist Robert Gibbs said the visit to the military hospital in Germany had been in the works for about three weeks, with Gration serving as the campaign's contact with the Pentagon.

The Pentagon cleared the Obama plan to land at the base on either July 15 or 16, Gibbs said. The plane needed the clearance because of restrictions on landing nonmilitary aircraft there, he said.

But then on Wednesday, Gration told Obama aides that the Pentagon had informed him that the visit could be viewed as a campaign stop.

"They cited a regulation," Gibbs said of their point of contact, described as legislative affairs in the office of the secretary.

"We believed that based on the information we received that any presence, even his own and only his own, would get into a back and forth on whether his own presence was a campaign event," Gibbs said.

Obama decided on the flight Wednesday from Tel Aviv to Berlin not to visit the hospital.

Asked why he believed the Pentagon would clear the visit, then raised questions about it, Gibbs declined to speculate: "I don't know what to make of it."

Asked whether he thought the Pentagon set up the campaign for a political embarrassment, Gibbs said no.

Look, the Obama campaign is not going to criticize the Pentagon here in any blatant way, obviously. But we can. This was done for maximum effect to embarrass Obama.

[Inuca]

12. Also

read or heard that if he still had the Senate office staffer that was with him on the codel part of the trip supposedly it would have been OK. But he had already gone back to Washington. How else can you explain McC's visits to I do not remember how many bases shortly after he clinched the nomination? Not a campaign, Senate work!

[wisteria]

7. I wouldn't expect any agency under the thumb of the Bush and Republican administration to do

anything to help Obama.

[JI7]

8. if he met them they would have attacked him still

claiming he was using them for campaign purposes. fuck them all. i HATE the media.

[sandnsea]

11. That's certainly true

I have completely tuned out, I just can't stand it. This should be the most exciting election of our lives - and the media is ruining it. They can give 3-1 coverage to McCain, I don't even care. Just be honest. What happened to honesty.

[politicasista]

17. I hate them too n/t

[ladym55]

9. And the Today Show tease was also appalling

I don't remember the exact words but it was something like troops in Germany upset with Obama ... hinting that it was ALL Obama's fault. Then the reality was in the story.

Everytime I think the media, John McCain, and the Bush administration can't POSSIBLY go any lower, they DO!!! :grr:

[sandnsea]

10. No campaigning on federal property

This comes up at least once a year it seems. I don't understand why this issue even comes up, campaigns ought to know better.

[ray of light]

13. McCain will always receive the benefits of having the President abuse the power of the government

against any person he wants.

[YvonneCa]

14. Only until...

...January 20, 2009. :7

[Inuca]

15. And now McCain is using this in an AD!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6544342 :nuke:

[JI7]

16. wow, that is both disgusting and at the same time a sign

of how pathetic and desperate his campaign has become.

[Mass]

18. He made a mistake there. He should have gone just with a couple of aides, then make

a press conference about it. And then, if he had been refused access, he would have had the right to complain.

This will probably be forgotten quickly, but it will hurt with military families.