It turns out that Barack Obama had originally intended visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center--which is near Ramstein Air Base, Germany--but canceled the visit because the Pentagon did not want to pay for a campaign event for the senator.
The Obama camp said they canceled the event after the Pentagon ruled it was a campaign event, and needed to be funded from the senator’s election kitty.
“Senator Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perceived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go,” Obama advisor, retired Gen. Scott Gration, said in a statement.To be sure, the Pentagon authorities were happy about the cancellation, since they are loath for anyone to use injured troops as campaign props.
The Obama campaign’s chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said: “The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign.”Granted this is a valid concern, but I bet that the Pentagon would have paid for the visit had Obama skipped the “We Are the World” campaign speech in Berlin.
But there was never any chance of that happening.
Am I being unfair? Maybe. But neither the candidate nor the campaign has shown that either is capable of making a decision that does not put Obama's self-promotion first.
Next stops for the candidate: Paris and London.
UPDATE: As I suspected, the Obama campaign canceled the visit because the military wouldn't allow him to be photographed with injured troops. Predictably, some news and blogging outlets are reporting that it was the Pentagon who did the canceling. Wrong. The DOD simply imposed preconditions that Obama didn't like.
(Thanks to reader 'me')
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