Pentagon Confirms That It Told Obama He Couldn't Visit Army Base With Campaign Staff

[deminks]

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

By Greg Sargent - July 25, 2008, 11:13AM

I've just gotten clarification from the Pentagon on what really happened with regard to Barack Obama's canceled visit to an Army base in Germany, something the McCain campaign has been using to hit Obama since yesterday.

A Pentagon spokesperson confirms to me that because of longstanding Department of Defense regulations, Pentagon officials told Obama aides that he couldn't visit the base with campaign staff. This left Obama with little choice but to cancel the trip, since the plan to visit with campaign aides had been in the works for weeks.

The Obama campaign yesterday announced that it had decided to cancel the visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, saying that it would be "inappropriate" to make such a visit as part of a campaign trip.

The McCain camp has nonetheless been using Obama's canceled trip to insinuate that he's anti-troops. "Barack Obama is wrong," McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers said in a statement yesterday. "It is never 'inappropriate' to visit our men and women in the military."

But it turns out that the Pentagon did in fact tell Obama that in this case, it was not only "inappropriate," but against DOD rules, for him to conduct the visit with campaign staff.

[dkf]

1. McCain is a reactive idiot.

He is bouncing around making accusations and being hypercritical and he doesn't know what he is doing.

Now he is criticizing Obama for something that his ally Bush probably orchestrated. What a sleazebag.

[tuckessee]

2. Good for them.

Time to stop using the troops as props at propaganda events.

Plus, Landstuhl is a major and very busy base.

They don't need to stop treating wounded GI's and disrupt other operations so Obama can play JFK.

[libodem]

3. That makes me sick

I wonder if they'd let McSame? I was watching a local TV call-in talk show early this morning. And one of the hosts were saying that 'he didn't know if were true but he'd gotten an e-mail from the wife of an Iraq soldier saying that Obama was stand-offish with the troops, he only shook hands with a few, and that he ignored and turned his back on most of them'. He went on to say he didn't know if it was true or not, but went right on talking about this supposed e-mail saying 'Obama does not have the interest of the troops at heart'. Made it sound like it was a photo op and that was all. This was a Fox station, mind you and they play the show over the air on AM radio while they broadcast it on TV. Makes me sick.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I don't believe it for a minute.

Swiftboating shit that the Republicans are known for.

[progressive_realist]

9. That email has been shown to be factually inaccurate, i.e. fiction

Snopes is your friend: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/afghanistan.asp

Can't expect much better from Fox Propaganda.

[napi21]

4. If you listen to Andrea's youtube video in our DU Video's section,

there's more to it than that. Obama was going to visit the troops alone! He was going to leave his staff & all the reporters on the tarmack and be accompanied by a group of military personnel. Tha fact that he was in Germany with campaign staff and not his Senate staffers seems to be an additional problem for the Pentagon.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Would McCain be likewise banned from visiting the troops as a candidate?

[scheming daemons]

7. The obvious question they'll ask him.... why couldn't he make the visit WITHOUT campaign staff?

The campaign's answer to that question will be important.

[Imagevision]

8. McCain owes Obama an apology running his mouth off knowingly it wasn't true about

Obama canceling the trip to visit the troops,

[Mike Daniels]

10. As I read it, he did cancel the visit upon finding he couldn't bring his campaign staff

What kept Obama from going in on his own? I agree with the other poster that this is going to be the follow up question and will need to be answered.

This issue isn't done I'm afraid.