Donklephant » Blog Archive » McCain’s “Obama Wouldn’t Visit Troops” Attack Backfires

McCain’s “Obama Wouldn’t Visit Troops” Attack Backfires

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Bad Decisions, Barack, McCain, Media, Memes, Republicans

McCain is better than that ad, and he shouldn’t have made it. What’s more, I think he knows this.

But just in case he doesn’t, the media is reminding him…

From Washington Post: 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.

From FactCheck.org: McCain’s facts are literally true, but his insinuation — that the visit was canceled because of the press ban or the desire for gym time — is false. In fact, Obama visited wounded troops earlier — without cameras or press — both in the U.S. and Iraq. And his gym workouts are a daily routine…

From NY Times: Mr. McCain repeatedly said Mr. Obama “would rather lose a war to win a political campaign” and that he “does not understand” what is at stake in Iraq. He also accused Mr. Obama of canceling a visit to wounded American troops in a German military hospital because news cameras were not allowed. That’s a false account of what occurred — and Mr. McCain ignored Mr. Obama’s unheralded visit to a combat hospital in Baghdad.

Ultimately, this ad makes him look petty and angry. Hell, even Mike Huckabee is noticing this…(from an apperance on Hannity & Colmes):

HUCKABEE: Well, I think he missed an opportunity. Instead of having some fun with it and showing sort of a buoyant ‘hey, do what you’ve got to do, let Obama go play basketball, I’m solving problems.’ Do it with tongue and cheek.

Frankly, I thought he looked more like Bob Dole in the last days of the 1996 campaign saying ‘look at the record, look at the record,’ and there was some anger and sense of frustration there.

He shouldn’t show that. He needs to show that nothing is getting to him, it’s rolling off his back, and I think he missed an opportunity to do that last week.

And so it goes…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Bad Decisions, Barack, McCain, Media, Memes, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “McCain’s “Obama Wouldn’t Visit Troops” Attack Backfires”

Dr. Pete Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Is the rumor true that the basketball footage McCain uses in the ad is actually footage of Obama playing basketball WITH THE TROOPS? I’d love to see that get more press.

I’d really like to see McCain rise above the kind of attacks that he took from his own party in 2000. He didn’t deserve that, and neither does anyone else.
ShortWoman» Blog Archive » Selected Passages Only Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 11:18 am
[...] federal budget so I don’t have to; some new daily reading, Kill This Character, Please; the campaign commercial that backfired due to lousy research; Federal Employees Work for Us; granted ADP job numbers tend [...]
Jimmy the Dhimmi Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“Senator Obama has explained his decision to cancel a scheduled visit there by blaming the military, which would not allow one of his political advisers to join him in a tour of the facility. Why Senator Obama felt he needed an adviser with him to visit U.S. troops is unclear, but if Senator Obama isn’t comfortable meeting wounded American troops without his entourage, perhaps he does not have the experience necessary to serve as commander in chief.”

-Command Sergeant Major Craig Layton, USA (Ret.)

If that is the official reason Obama gave, I don’t think it makes the situation any more reasonable for him. My guess is he simply did not want to be caught off script when discussing military matters with wounded soldiers. Obama is showing him self, more and more, to actually be worse than president Bush when confronted with candid or impromptu questioning.
mike mcEachran Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Jimmy - Good luck getting that one to stick.
ThePete Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Hm, to me this is just one more thing that makes me wish we had an *actual* choice of candidates to vote for. Sure, Obama sure *looks* different from McCain ;) but there are plenty of reasons to have issues with both of them.

Some believe that something like the concept of the “Donklephant” should be the mascot for the United States government because there really aren’t two parties, but two aspects to a single party that controls everything.

Sorry to tout my own belief system, but it seemed appropriate after reading Jimmy’s comment above.
J. Harden Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 5:10 am
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This email has recently been thoroughly debunked. See here.

Moreover, if anybody else is thinking about posting rumors like this, please first search for it on Google and find out if it’s real or not.

Thanks,
Justin)

I recently received this e-mail. Anyone else??

Hello everyone,

As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to ‘The War Zone’. I wanted to share with you what happened.

He got off the plane and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet with the Major General (2 Star) who is the commander here at Bagram.

As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand he blew them off and didn’t say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General. As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service.

So really he was just here to make a showing for the American’s back home that he is their candidate for President. I think that if you are going to make an effort to come all the way over here you would thank those that are providing the freedom that they are providing for you.

I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheer leaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States . I just don’t understand how anyone would want him to be our Commander-and-Chief. It was almost that he was scared to be around those that provide the freedom for him and our great country.

If this is blunt and to the point I am sorry but I wanted you all to know what kind of caliber of person he really is. What you see in the news is all fake.

In service,
CPT Jeffrey S. Porter
Battle Captain
TF Wasatch
American Soldier

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