Pentagon sabotaged Obama's military hospital visit. Report sees McCain's hand.

Well, Andrea Mitchell reports that the cancellation of the hospital trip was caused by ... yeah, you guessed it right, McCain.

She broke the news during today's Morning Joe.

The background on the military flap is that they (Obama campaign) had clearly planned a trip to Ramstein (AFB). 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

JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's curious, if that's the case, why the campaign didn't make that announcement yesterday, and allowed stories to go like this. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of he said/she said in the days to come about this.

MITCHELL: But they thought that they couldn't win. Yeah. They thought that they were, you know, you know, no-win situation, that the Pentagon, perhaps the military with cooperation from some Republican operatives and, that's the sort of scuttlebutt, that there have been some foreign policy advisers of John McCain with connections in the Pentagon who had something to do with this. But that is, perhaps, just the normal political paranoia of the season.

more at:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/07/25/mitchell-scuttlebutt-says-mccain-sabotaged-obama-military-hospital
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/25/8227/32024/605/556729

Spread it far and wide

Dammit this needs to go VIRAL :mad:


"One interesting question: do Pentagon rules against campaigning by a candidate (vs. mere visits by a sitting senator) equally apply to the McCain's campaign as well?

Not always, said CNN in April, after McCain secured GOP nomination:

Stops by Sen. John McCain at U.S. Navy bases this week prompted internal Navy and Pentagon discussions, according to a military official with direct knowledge of the discussions.

The official said the discussions regarding the McCain appearances, including Wednesday's speech and private meetings at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where his son is midshipman, "were not contentious" and there is no allegation of any wrongdoing.

With Department of Defense rules prohibiting political campaigning on military bases, it was determined that in some cases McCain could visit the installations as a senator but could not engage in any political activity or have news media present."

yesterday and attacked Obama because he hadn't visited hospitalized troops which campaign respects the troops more - the one who wants to get them out of harm's way, or the one that would deliberately undermine the opportunity for injured troops to meet with a presidential candidate.

HE THUG MENTALITY IS PAMPANT

from karen:



Must be fun to get a ride on the short bus.

Karen, whoever you are - SPOT ON!

should be run out of this country with his nuts in a plastic baggie.

I hate that fucker!

It wasn't that high to begin with. The Old Dog increasingly appears totally worthless to me - just another damned bush.

McCain using the troops in an attempt to score political points is REPREHENSIBLE. I'm sure there were wounded troops in Germany who where looking forward to a visit from Senator Obama. But McCain and his disgusting cohorts had to stop Obama from visiting the troops b/c they where so desperate to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING they could use to hammer Obama. I saw his low-life representative on MSNBC accusing Obama of disrespecting the troops. How does he think this makes the wounded soldiers in Germany feel? Sure, many will hear of the manipulation by McCain and his gang to stop the visit and they will be angry (great way to make the troops feel good) while others will wonder if it's true (again, great way to make the troops feel good). Plus, what a a great way to make U.S. troops in general feel appreciated. You can tell it's an election because once again they are being USED for political benefit.

Nothing like putting your political campaign ahead of doing what is right for the wounded troops. I think this wins hands down the "Most Despicable Political Play" of the general election.

If there is a way that Obama can pop in for an unannounced visit before he heads back to the states, I hope that he does.

On edit: I hope people will call McCain's office and let them know that using wounded troops to score cheap political points needs to stop now!

:kick:

My hatred for McCain is growing daily.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

to score political points. I hope K.O. hammers him on Countdown.

He directly caused those wounded soldiers to not see our future President.

He deserves the throw-away role his party has assigned to him.

it in an attempt to score political points speaks volumes about what kind of man Mccain is.

What I was trying to emphasize is whether or not the McCain campaign had the trip canceled (my money is on they did), just using it for political games was bad enough.

Then watch him flipflop later after it's big.

points, to heck with what it does to troop morale.

But then again, this is the jerk that was against the new GI Bill.

And on another note, I love that someone in the Daily Kos thread posted a picture of Joe Scarborough clapping in the front row of a Bush rally.

:grr:

broke the story.

I mean really, how much fun could living a life like that actually be? Even with all the stuff they've stolen, still gotta be boring and empty and after awhile even the dimmest among them might finally realize it.

When he was a POW, he denounced his country 72 hours after he was captured. They gave him a cell whore as a gift. He then denounced his country on film over 30 times so he could keep his whore.

Now he uses the troops to somehow take away what would be something seen as "respecting the injured" from a war he was licking his turncoat lips to start.

McCain is scum. There is no better way to put it.

that were never approached in '04, even taking the Swift Boat lying assholes into account! :banghead:

My real fear is that the sheeple are actually BUYING IT!!!

and now the Pentagon suddenly putting conditions on a visit and requiring that they be pre-approved whereas no similar rules were enforced in Iraq...I think this smells of Chimp.

"Chief Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell confirmed to Politico that Department of Defense officials cautioned Barack Obama's campaign that his planned visit to wounded American troops in Germany could not be political in nature and that he would be barred from bringing along campaign staff and reporters. He also said that Cindy McCain recently requested to visit sailors aboard the U.S.N.S. Comfort and was denied.

"Sen. Obama is welcome to visit Landstuhl or any military hospital in his official capacity as a United States senator," Morrell said in a brief interview. "But there is a DoD policy which governs campaigning and electioneering at military facilities that would have to be respected if he were to visit. That distinction was relayed and made clear to campaign, and they made a decision on their own based on that guidance."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/DoD_spokesman_says_Obama_camp_was_reminded_of_political_rules.html

The artilce also quotes David Axelrod as saying that he took that response from the Pentagon to mean the Pentagon thought it would be a campaign event and therefore cancelled the visit.

Eight years of nothing but lying, stinking, dirty tricksters from this bush administration, a bunch who outted a CIA spy for short term political gain, lied about it, covered it up, and when someone was convicted, let him off the hook.

Bush is clearly the only person who can order the military and Condi to give Obama the cold shoulder on this trip. And what are they babbling about? Not the man behind the curtain.

The woman has a LONG history of pulling "facts" out of her ass and spreading unfounded rumors.

"Pentagon sabotaged Obama's military hospital visit"

No, they didn't. And suggesting they did only feeds the "the military doesn't want Obama" ridiculousness. Th Pentagon did not "sabotage" anything. They expressed a concern, Obama respected it, the McCain campaign threw a tantrum trying to get attention.

which will be the CW on this

merely political paranoia on Obama's part, regardless of the truth

they really are amazingly obvious, aren't they?

k-thank you so much for the best bird-dogging DU could hope for--every day!


you rock!

a' la Michael Moore...but Obama's not so hotheaded. Which is good.

slimy slimy slimy slimy

"I'm sure there's going to be a lot of he said/she said in the days to come about this."

There is no "he said/she said" about this. Obama planned to go, the brass told him he could not. But what Joe was trying to say is: there are going to be some people trying to prove the brass is treating Obama differently from McCain and McCain and or Bush et al might be behind it.

IF, and its a big if, this gets more traction it could be very harmful to the straight talker. "McCain criticized Obama for not going to see the troops but he was the one who got the Pentagon to stop him from going to see the troops."

Wait, what am I saying. This is America. We elected Reagan twice and Bush twice. We don't care if they lie to us and manipulate us.

And they wonder why we criticize America.

Bush and Rove set this scam up.

They blocked Obama from seeing troops, even though he's a sitting US senator, then put out another bogus story claiming "Obama didn't want to see the injured!"

Guys like Joe Scarborough, RNC mouthpieces, get their talking points early in the day, and they all have them ready to go at 5 AM.

Morning Joke is an RNC outlet.

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/91923/

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees medical care for injured veterans, is locked in a growing dispute with 19 secretaries of state -- Democrats and Republicans -- who are urging the federal agency to allow voter registration drives for former soldiers living at its facilities.

In a letter this week to Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, who earlier this month was barred from registering voters at a VA facility and has since been organizing top state election officials, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James B. Peake said his agency would not allow registration drives unless "these efforts be coordinated through the VA Voluntary Service (VAVS) office at each VA medical center."

"This policy is the result of careful deliberation and consideration for the needs and rights of our patients, concerns about disrupting facility operations, and the need to ensure VA is not involved in partisan political activities," Peake wrote in his July 15, 2008, letter.

Voter registration advocates said the VA policy will not help injured veterans to vote.

"It's official. State officials cannot help veterans vote," said Scott Rafferty, a Washington, D.C., attorney who has been fighting the VA in court to allow voter registration drives at its Menlo Park campus in northern California. "No one, except fingerprinted volunteers, can tell them anything about elections -- and only if they ask."

it was not just a last-minute screwup. That slime Hannity led off last night with "Obama chose to work out instead of visiting wounded troops."

That fucking line was probably written days in advance.


This was an orchestrated hitjob. I am disappointed that it worked. I think if the campaign had seen it immediately for what it was, they could have somehow called their bluff and exposed it. Go to the gate of the base alone except for Secret Service, with Andrea Mitchell and cameras in the distance and get turned away. A Michael Moore "gotcha." Maybe that could not have been done for reasons of which I am unaware, and it would have required both an immediate recognition of what was going on and fast thinking.

This is a "heads up," though, top what is coming. The cabal is going to do any and everything to smear, disrupt, embarrass, derail anything they can. He and his team need to be on guard as if they were negotiating a minefield every freaking second. This is not a political campaign, it is a counterinsurgency.

But you can bet Faux won't breathe a word of this, while shouting the whole "He refused to visit the troops" line.

Beyond the normal pissing-me-off stuff.... I'm tearing out my hair here.
I can't imagine what the Obama campaign is feeling.
Utter frustration.

I love that... Joe S... blaming the Obama camp.

I just can't believe Andrea Mitchell (who NEVER seems to have a good word about O) stepped up to the plate.
Weird, huh?

I'd email it to my family members who still think they are Republicans, but by now they won't even open my emails.
Sheesh.

Keep track now folks . . . in matter of a few days old Grandpa McCain will forget what he did and said. He will begin negative spin on how Obama neglected to visit the injured troops in Germany to allow himself more time to hob knob with the "elites". :shrug: