Friday, July 25, 2008

Obama CHOSE to Not Visit the Wounded Soldiers

Presumptive Democrat nominee Barak Obama had an opportunity to visit wounded US troops at Landstuhl in Germany, but chose not to do so.

He first said the visiting the troops would be disrespectful. That did not fly.

His campaign then said that the pentagon would not allow him to visit. That did not fly, because pentagon officials advised that Obama was welcome to visit - but he could not take his campaign staff & media entourage in with him. Obama could have visited the troops in his official capacity as a US Senator, but he (or someone not very bright on his campaign staff) made a choice to not visit.

Being somewhat versed in political campaigns, I know the details of things like this are usually handled by staff. Regardless of who made the blunders, Obama is the candidate. Not only did the campaign first make a dumb remark that the visit would not be respectful, after that the campaign told an untruth, trying to pass the blame onto the military officials at the pentagon. Thankfully, the pentagon officials set the record straight. Obama, his campaign, made a huge blunder by not visiting and made it worse by erroneously foisting blame on pentagon officals.

Think about what might have been. Obama could have visited the wounded troops as a Senator. The fawning media who are with him would have made sure that story came out & out big. Obama could have said something along the lines that "while it's a rule to not have media on such visits, it's also the right thing to do to show respect to our brave, wounded fighting men & women." Obama desparately needs blue collar & military affiliated voters, & this could have helped him immensely with these voters. However, his campaign really screwed up big-time.



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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Both sides were clearly at fault. What was best for the troops was lost in the vanity of silly, petty egos on both sides.

The Department of Defense made an error in judgment by initially defining Senator Obama's visit as a campaign event rather than an official visit based primarily on the fact that the retired general who was to accompany Senator Obama was also an adviser to Obama's campaign. A retired general is not simply another member of the entourage, especially when it comes to visiting wounded troops. Period. The DoD failed to put the troops first.

Obama and his staff also failed to put the troops first. Regardless of the actions of the DoD, Obama is a U.S. Senator, and he should have gone alone, if necessary, to meet with the troops.

Lower ranking members of staff on both sides obviously engaged in a pissing match for the sake of their petty, little egos. The leadership on both sides failed to intervene quickly and decisively. As a result an important opportunity was lost.

Of course, the DoD staff and Obama's staff aren't the only ones who've engaged in a pissing match over this story for the sake of petty, little egos in the service of their own agendas, are they? ;)

Anonymous said...

RR, please read this book:

"Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream."
By Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam
ISBN-10: 0385519435
ISBN-13: 978-0385519434

You can read the New York Times review here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/books/review/Ornstein-t.html

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Anonymous said...

RR, please read this book:

"Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream."
By Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam
ISBN-10: 0385519435
ISBN-13: 978-0385519434

You can read the New York Times review here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/books/
review/Ornstein-t.html

Amazon has the best price:
http://www.amazon.com/
Grand-New-Party-Republicans-American/
dp/0385519435

Anonymous said...

RR, please read this NYTimes article also:

Barack Obama, A Free-Market-Loving, Big-Spending, Fiscally Conservative Wealth Redistributionist - NYTimes

Here's the link (NYTimes login may be required. If you don't have a NYTimes login, create one for free online with whatever creative info you want to use.):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/magazine/
24Obamanomics-t.html?em

Anonymous said...

RR, when are you going to publish an email address on your profile?

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