Well isn't this special. Obama says a visit to wounded troops would be inappropriate.
BERLIN (AP) - 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.
4:49 p.m.: Obama enters the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel wearing a T-shirt, black sweatpants and white trainers -- apparantly to work out in the hotel's gym. He kept up the campaigning on the way there, smiling and waving at tourists and other onlookers.
What a guy. Lifting weights is more important to him than lifting the spirits of wounded troops. Sounds like a different kind of politics all right. I'm not sure I like it. It is not the kind of change I was hoping for.
Atlas Shrugs may have some insight about what was behind the change in plans.
A very interesting email from a source I must protect suggests that Obama's visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center had the green light until a campaign staffer raised a stink about going with Obama. (There are rules meant to ensure candidates do not use soldiers or military bases for campaign purposes, and they state that personal and committee staff may accompany a sitting senator on a visit but campaign staff may not.) I am told that when one of Obama's campaign staff was told he or she would be denied access, the visit was canceled.
The last-minute cancellation speaks more poorly of this unidentified staffer than of Obama himself. But in the end, shouldn't Obama have been able to say, "fine, the staffer stays in Berlin (or where-ever) and I'm going to Landstuhl? Can he still say so?
I'm sceptical of unnamed sources. However, the military rule is that he could visit the military as long as he brought only his personal staff and not his campaign staff with him. After all he visited the military in Afghanistan without a problem.
In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of an evolution in his campaign tactics to prevent gaffs. Keeping Obama from making public appearances without his paid minders is something I can understand. How will he know what to say without some one whispering in his ear? Which probably says something unflattering about Obama's (57) states of mind.
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Comments
Visit wounded troops and impress who? I don't get the necessity, unless you want to paint our troops as helpless fluff, a condition the left prefers because anything else is too complicated for propaganda, in Vicki Hearne's nice line.
McCain visits without cameras and has for years, on the theory that maybe he can help out in this or that matter, but it's a personal matter. It would be ruined by making it a public event.
The hide your light under a bushel thing isn't an exhortation to the virtue of modesty, but a point about the grammar of doing good. You have to avoid getting something out of it, for it to finally shape who you are.
Ron, I take your point, but you are giving Obama credit for a moral elevation for which there is no evidence. I think the way that you imagine these visits be done is correct, and it would be nice if we had more politicians like that. But I don't see a reason to assume that in Obama's case.
What I do note is how far his instincts are from what is considered basic knowledge in some sectors of society - the military in particular, but also the entrepreneurial and traditional religion cultures. It is not merely that he disagrees with them, but that he does not have a clear sense of who they are and what values they operate by.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Visit wounded troops and impress who? I don't get the necessity, unless you want to paint our troops as helpless fluff, a condition the left prefers because anything else is too complicated for propaganda, in Vicki Hearne's nice line.
McCain visits without cameras and has for years, on the theory that maybe he can help out in this or that matter, but it's a personal matter. It would be ruined by making it a public event.
The hide your light under a bushel thing isn't an exhortation to the virtue of modesty, but a point about the grammar of doing good. You have to avoid getting something out of it, for it to finally shape who you are.