McCain Needs Version Two-and-a-Half Smear Ad

What really happened.

“Senator Obama had hoped to and had every intention of visiting our troops to express his appreciation and gratitude for their service to our country,” said Scott Gration, a retired two-star Air Force general who advises the campaign and is traveling on the Obama trip. “Senator Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perceived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go.”

Aboard the flight to Paris, aides to Mr. Obama sought to clarify the sequence of events leading up to canceling the visit to troops.

Robert Gibbs, a senior strategist, said the Obama campaign received official permission two weeks ago from the Pentagon to land a plane in Ramstein, Germany. But on Wednesday, he said, military officials advised the campaign of concerns about a political visit being a violation of government rules.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, issued a statement emphasizing that the Pentagon did not cancel Mr. Obama’s visit.

“Senator Obama, in his official capacity, is always welcome to visit Landstuhl or any other military hospital. But it is not permitted to bring with him campaign staff. His team was notified of that, and they made a decision not to visit the hospital. But we were ready and willing to host him there. In fact, we had made arrangements for his campaign plane to land at Ramstein, and to take care of the campaign staff and press in a passenger terminal there, while the senator and senate staff, if he liked, went on to visit wounded warriors.

I suppose that you could call it a smear but my emphasis continues to be on Obama's handlers. They seem to not have a clue as to what to do when it comes to certain political situations

An earlier statement on Thursday from Mr. Gibbs seemed to suggest it was the senator’s decision.

“The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign,” Mr. Gibbs said.

So ultimately Obama made a judgment and it was not so good of a judgment.

As the McCain camp retorted in response to this:

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, criticized the move.

“Barack Obama is wrong,” Mr. Rogers said in a statement. “It is never ‘inappropriate’ to visit our men and women in the military.”

Smear. Yeah I would think in this case it is. But the bigger picture I find here is in how inept Barak Obama's handlers are in handling these minor events.

If they cannot even handle something this simple, how are they going to run the government? That is what really bothers me about the group he has surrounded himself with.

Barak Obama needs Change he can believe in. /snark

Yah, it is clearly a smear.

Senator Obama would be damned if he visited the troops ("politicizjng wounded troops") and damned if he thought that would be tacky ("Obama ignores wounded American troops").

I would not be surprised if Dorian was right . . . and McCain had two different sets of attack ads ready to go.

Still, this was a failure of the Obama campaign. Maybe the workers were so focused on the Kennedyesque optics of the speeches, and dazzled by the media attention, that they ignored the minor event that has opened Obama to the smear.

Obama should have visited privately, without media and campaign workers. He would have been fireproof then.

Neocon is always saying the Obama team is weak. Maybe he has something there.

I don't see the inconsistency here. Obama was told he couldn't bring Gration because he was deemed a political adviser. Obama smelled a trap and decided not to go. Instead he phoned the troops from Berlin.

Obama was absolutely right. McCain laid a trap. He had an ad ready in either case. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

The media had nothing to do with incident. They were never going to follow him into the hospital. He was going to have them on the plane anyway.

The only reason the media issue came up is that McCain ran a completely lying ad about it.

As strange as it seems, I have to agree with Neocon that I am most discouraged at how poorly the Obama camp handled this little kerfuffle, more than anything else. It only became an 'issue' after the Obama folks mishandled the initial faux-outrage from the McCain camp.

And if this was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, I think I would rather that Obama would have chosen the "damned if you do" option. If he was going to get slammed whether he visited the troops or not, I would have preferred he visit the troops and get slammed rather than the other way around.

Marlowecan said:
"Obama made a judgment and it was not so good of a judgment."

Knowing that this was shaping up to be a political firestorm, instead of visit of respect to the troops, this was the most gentlemanly decision possible.
To honor the privacy of the troops, they had to be kept out of it.

I'm really sickened by the commentary treating this like a horserace. event.
if this is about the troops, Obama seems to be the only one thinking about the troops.

While McCain was preparing alternate attack ads involving the troops, the questions, again, are all about Obama.

Why isn't anyone here questioning the propriety of Mccain using the troops as foils for his campaign of smears? How is that honoring the troops McCain claims to love so much?

In this surreal juxtaposition of facts on the ground, I suppose if McCain shot Obama, it would be Obama's fault for getting in the way of the bullet..

Some folks need to get their own atttack mode minds in logical order.

Since Senator McCain has zero chance of winning, who cares. What not have a discussion of how Senator Obama will funciton as commander in chief, who is Sec of Defense will be, how much he will cut military spending, and what roles Senator Obama sees as legitimate for the U.S. military. Black lawmakers have a habit of seeing the military as much of a pork program as Republican lawmakers. Does Senator Obama see a role for the military beyond a source for 8a contracts.

I think the Obama supporters are missing the bigger picture here as is Obama's handlers.

Judgment. This add is more about judgment.

In 2004 John Kerry arrived at the Democratic Convention, saluted and said "Reporting for duty." It was a clear guantlet challenge to Bush and the GOP.

In 2007 and 2008 Barak Obama has made his lack of experience inconsequential by advocating "Judgment". It is clear he has laid down the gauntlet to McCain and the Gop.

Fine. McCain just keeps hammering him with judgment. judgment. judgment. That is what is at issue here. Is he ready, did he make the right judgment. He makes the decisons. He decides who to surround himself with.

Judgment is the key. Its his gauntlet. He slapped Hillary with it and she didnt know how to respond because...........it was democrats......she could not risk alienating her own party to win the nomination. McCain is a republican.

Judgment is the campaign theme. You do not get judgment about something until you've had experience in dealing with it. I can make a judgment that I don't like Tapioca pudding based upon things that I've read, stories I've been told and documentaries on tv that I've watched but until I actually EXPERIENCE tapioca pudding I will never really have the judgment to accurately say.

The bigger picture in all this and watch for it in coming adds and campaign speechs. Judgment. Everything that McCain and his crowd are going to be doing will focus on that one issue. Does he actually have the judgment to be president. Its a question we all have a right to know.

Unlike those who support Obama, many of us truly believe that the president of the United States should be well experienced. Our reasoning? Look at George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter. To name a few.

The pain is evident on Barak Obama's face as he played the race card yesterday for the first time since Early Hillary. The problem is the race card is not going to work with republicans because Obama is going to get 95 percent of the Black vote anyway. With Hillary that was a different story.