Obama might have big ears, but he’s tone deaf
Did Barack Obama really give The Heisman to wounded U.S. troops in Germany today? Ed Morrisey broke the story at Hot Air by reporting that Germany’s SPIEGEL ONLINE posted this today,
Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday. “Barack Obama will not be coming to us,” a spokesperson for the US military hospital in Landstuhl announced. “I don’t know why.” Shortly before the same spokeswoman had announced a planned visit by Obama.
Ed commented,
The message here is that thousands of screaming German fans at the Tiergarten take precedence over visiting Americans serving their country at Rammstein and Landstuhl. Maybe one of the networks following Obama could interview a few of the soldiers about how they perceive that set of priorities from Obama.
Kind of harsh Ed. I’m sure that there has to be some kind of scheduling conflict that made such a trip simply impossible, given his busy schedule…
…or not…as noted by ABC News reporter Jake Tapper,
Obama noted that in a break from his whirlwind schedule, “we’ve got some down time tonight. What are you guys gonna do in Berlin? Huh? Huh? You guys got any big. plans? …I’ve never been to Berlin, so…I would love to tour around a little bit.”
Ed closes his excellent post with this observation,
Obama canceled a previously-planned stop to visit thousands of American service personnel, including troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan being treated at Landstuhl, so he could hold a political rally for Germans and go shopping in Berlin. Now that’s a nice set of priorities for a man who wants to become Commander in Chief.
How prophetic does this cartoon look now?
UPDATE: Obama’s camp tries to explain.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
And if Obama had, in fact, used campaign funds to arrange a high-visibility appearance with wounded servicemembers and brought a hundred reporters along with him, you would’ve been applauding his concern for their sacrifice, right?
I give him credit for recognizing the difference between honoring their service and employing them as campaign props. And I give Ed Morrisey boundless credit for managing to present every story that includes the word ‘Obama’ in a negative light.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Obama does tend to visit VA Hospitals, but he usually tries to make sure media isn’t with him. As said above, he dosn’t like using troops as a political prop, and props on that.
This is very much in that vein, as there’s no way the media would let themselves be left behind on this trip.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
So far on this trip, it has been part Senate fact finding mission, part campaign trip and now today, in his big Berlin speech, he’s there as a citizen of the world.
He wants to have it every which way to suit his purposes.
Why was the trip to Landstuhl on his schedule in the first place, anyone care to explain that?
July 25th, 2008 at 7:22 am
No-bama,
I’m afraid that your chosen moniker reveals your built in biases, so this is probably futile. But I’d point out that the first half of the trip was, in fact, a senate fact-finding mission. It included three influential senators (including a senior member of the GOP), and brought them to see, in person, the two most important battlefields on which our military is presently engaged. More to the point, it was classed and funded as a CODEL.
From there, Obama continued his travel as a campaign trip, paid for with campaign dollars, and billed as such. That’s not having it both ways; it’s doing one perfectly proper thing, and then doing another. As for Obama calling himself “a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world,” I suspect you’re already well-aware that politicians from Kennedy to Reagan have used that phrase. (If you want radical, think back to Kennedy proclaiming himself a Berliner - practically traitorous!)
As for Landstuhl, it was never on his public schedule. It’s unclear who made the arrangements, when, or why. It’s possible that Obama had hoped to slip away from the media pack to share some quiet moments with wounded troops, and that the announcement from the military foiled that plan - it’s extremely unusual for events like these to be announced by the military before they’re announced by the senator’s office - and once it was public, it had to be canceled. More likely, someone on his campaign thought it would be a good idea, and he (or some senior staffer) shot the idea down as being in poor taste.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Cynic,
Here’s No-Bama’s campaign manager last week talking about the Berlin speech,
“He is going to talk about the issues as an individual … not as a candidate, but as an individual, as a senator,”
Another campaign aide said, “the Berlin speech “is not for campaign purposes.”
Yet what does No-Bama do this morning? He distributes a solicitation email raising money with the speech embedded inside.
Here’s the pitch..
“As you may have heard, Barack has been in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia this week. Today, he spoke in Berlin, Germany…
What flavor Kool Aid are you drinking?
No-Bama