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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Maverick Moment of the Day

posted by on July 30 at 10:10 AM

John McCain has been bashing Barack Obama for not visiting wounded U.S. troops in Germany after Obama found out he couldn’t bring cameras with him. One problem. That’s demonstrably false:

For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.

The attacks are part of a newly aggressive McCain operation whose aim is to portray the Democratic presidential candidate as a craven politician more interested in his image than in ailing soldiers, a senior McCain adviser said. They come despite repeated pledges by the Republican that he will never question his rival’s patriotism.

The essence of McCain’s allegation is that Obama planned to take a media entourage, including television cameras, to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany during his week-long foreign trip, and that he canceled the visit when he learned he could not do so. “I know that, according to reports, that he wanted to bring media people and cameras and his campaign staffers,” McCain said Monday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

The Obama campaign has denied that was the reason he called off the visit. In fact, there is no evidence that he planned to take anyone to the American hospital other than a military adviser, whose status as a campaign staff member sparked last-minute concern among Pentagon officials that the visit would be an improper political event.

“Absolutely, unequivocally wrong,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in an e-mail after McCain’s comments to Larry King.

Despite serious and repeated queries about the charge over several days, McCain and his allies continued yesterday to question Obama’s patriotism by focusing attention on the canceled hospital visit…

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said again yesterday that the Republican’s version of events is correct, and that Obama canceled the visit because he was not allowed to take reporters and cameras into the hospital.

“It is safe to say that, according to press reports, Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons,” he said. “We’re not making a leap here.”

Asked repeatedly for the “reports,” Bounds provided three examples, none of which alleged that Obama had wanted to take members of the media to the hospital.

RSS icon Comments

1

And still, I wake in a cold sweat thinking that the Democrats will manage to loose to McCain in November.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | July 30, 2008 10:19 AM
2

McCain's lucky nobody's been nearly as critical of his "Straight Talk" "Town Hall" meetings where the audience is cleansed of any ideological dissidents before the cameras roll. This by comparison is a non-issue.

Posted by Ziggity | July 30, 2008 10:24 AM
3

100 days out and the Republican attack machine is starting fire on all cylinders. We can expect this every day up until the election

Posted by Stop the Insanity | July 30, 2008 10:28 AM
4

Why are people named "Tucker" always right-wing propagandists?

Posted by leek | July 30, 2008 10:29 AM
5

@1

So terrifyingly agreed. The dems are like Seattle sports franchises; sometimes we can put together a hell of a season and make it all the way to the big game, but then we'll find a way to lose it, because that's what we do.

Posted by jackie treehorn | July 30, 2008 10:34 AM
6

False?

Um, in the real world, MSM, we call it a "LIE".

Learn it.

Love it.

Use it.

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 30, 2008 10:36 AM
7

Not to be too nitpicky, but the excerpt doesn't necessarily show that the accusation is demonstrably false, it shows that it's not demonstrably true.

There is no evidence that supports the accusation, but it doesn't seem like there's anything I can point to to prove that it is definitively false (e.g., something that would prove that he canceled the visit for a different reason).

Posted by Julie | July 30, 2008 10:50 AM
8

Will @6: I agree, but it is great to see the Post actually spell out that it's not true in the first sentence, rather than bury it in the 9th paragraph. This is an A1, above the fold story.

Posted by Jen | July 30, 2008 10:50 AM
9

While I deplore McCain's despicable, hypocritical remarks about this situation and he deserves to be called to task for it, there lingers the simple question of why Obama didn't simply go and visit the troops without cameras OR campaign staff?

Would this not have accomplished the objective--to meet meet the troops--while silencing the Pentagon's objections?

(And before anyone tars me as a Barack-hater, I'm a grass-roots organizer for the man and donated thousands of dollars out of pocket to the Obama campaign. Reasoned critical discussion is healthy for--and within--any campaign.)

Posted by Andy Niable | July 30, 2008 11:01 AM
10

Julie @7, the complete article is only about 1,200 words, and it makes the case fairly well.

Posted by lostboy | July 30, 2008 11:01 AM
11

@9

i'm sure the obama campaign saw this as a no-win either way and chose the lesser route.

you go visit the hospitalized troops, even without press or campaign staff, and the GOP talking point the next day is "HE'S POLITICIZING OUR TROOPS FOR PERSONAL GAIN!"

the pentagon says it's not a good idea, so you take that as an out, and of course you get "HE DIDN'T VISIT OUR TROOPS!" (a point driven home with images of you shooting hoops with other troops...wait...whoops.)

they made a call that the second was easier to defend.

Posted by chops | July 30, 2008 11:14 AM
12

We won't support arrogant NO-Bama and will re-defeat him in November!!!

Posted by clintonsarmy | July 30, 2008 11:14 AM
13

@10 - I don't think the article proved the claim is demonstrably false either.

Just to play devil's advocate, the Obama campaign could have found out no media were allowed, then canceled the visit and said it was because of the military adviser and/or the Pentagon's "campaign visit" stance. Just because they hadn't informed the media that there would be a visit or made arrangements for them to come along doesn't mean that they hadn't thought about the potential of bringing the media and then canceled once it was clear they couldn't come.

I'm not saying that I believe this is true, I'm mainly thinking about it from the standpoint of, if one of my crazy Republican relatives brings this up, how can I prove that it is demonstrably false?

Posted by Julie | July 30, 2008 11:23 AM
14

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Posted by clintonssarmy | July 30, 2008 11:23 AM
15

Barack needs to come out blazing with both barrels on this. He needs to stop pussyfooting around with "unequivocably wrong" and bring some "John McCain is a liar; it's not true and he knows it's not true". He needs to be BLUNT. You can't let them spread this garbage, and you can't fight them with six-syllable words. HIT the motherfuckers.

Posted by Fnarf | July 30, 2008 11:27 AM
16

@8 - good point, I rarely read the print edition of the WaPo, so I didn't know that it was above the fold on A1 that they said that.

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 30, 2008 11:30 AM
17

Actually, @15, that's what your VP nom is supposed to do, which is why he needs to pick one soon to do the hard attacks.

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 30, 2008 11:33 AM
18

@15: Damn right, Fnarf.

Posted by Andy Niable | July 30, 2008 11:38 AM
19

I really hope he's saving all this up for the first debate so he can turn to McCain and call him a liar to his face.

Posted by monkey | July 30, 2008 12:00 PM
20

A blatant lie during a political campaign?

Thank God that Slog is here to ferret out something so rare ...

Posted by Youngblood | July 30, 2008 12:51 PM
21

@Fnarf...This is something all Dem candidates need to do and don't. The GOP is amazingly effective at creating something COMPLETELY FALSE and then having it driven into people's minds and soon enough, they won't believe reason, they will say it's a 'cover-up'.

Dems need to attack outright and beat home that it is wrong. Kerry made this mistake and I see Obama doing the same thing. There is no advantage to taking the high road, we are going to lose. I am scared.

Posted by Original Monique | July 30, 2008 1:16 PM

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