I think we’re all up to speed on how McCain thinks it’s wrong for Obama to give speeches in Germany, but had no problem giving one last month in Canada. And how Obama’s overseas “victory lap” was bad form, but his travels to Canada, Mexico, Colombia, England, and France during this campaign season were fine.
Despite, as the link points out, McCain’s having had to similarly skip a visit to a military base this spring, because the DoD has rules against military bases, uniformed military personnel, etc. being used as campaign props.
IOKIYJMcC.
Bonus round: while McCain never called himself a “citizen of the world,” Reagan did. As did JFK. And Bush Sr., as President, called pianist Vladimir Horowitz a citizen of the world, and clearly meant it as a compliment. But apparently it’s not OK with McCain when Obama does it.
[snark]
I’m thinking that not only is McCain having dementia problems, but so is his entire campaign - the stuff must be catching. I mean, they’re slamming Obama for stuff they’ve done too recently to have forgotten (at least one would think), absent some serious ‘senior moments.’
[/snark]
That’s particularly ironic about not visiting the wounded troops since it’s something that McCain does frequently, albeit without a lot of public fanfare; my husband sees him regularly visiting at the military hospital where he works. I guess it’s okay when he does it at home but not okay if Obama wants to work it into a trip to Germany?
Wait until he makes a talking point ouf of the fact that Obama was well received overseas, so it means that he’s unelectable here because he’ll be at the beck and call of those overseas. It’s already being bandied about by others in the party and on the conservative circuit.
Under the same regulation, McCain was also asked to skip a speech at the US Naval Academy, which he got around by speaking at the US Naval Academy’s football stadium. The stadium is owned, or operated, or leased by the USNA Athletics (or something like that). The speech was voluntary, but hundreds of midshipmen attended… and sure enough, the news cycle was dominated by Senator McCain, CAPT USNA (Ret), standing in front of a backdrop of uniformed midshipmen, making what amounted to a campaign speech.
For him to (1) be told that visiting a base as a campaign stop is against regs, then (2) schedule a campaign stop that flouts that regulation, and then (3) assert that it is “never inappropriate” to do something (even if you have to weasel around the letter of the law to do it)… ugh. When I wore the uniform it always disgusted me when the sitting President would go to a base in order to use it as a backdrop for some policy speech, but I understood that the President has the right to do so. For Sen McCain to do it, though, regardless of his ties to the school, strikes me as wrapping himself in the flag. It’s pure theater, and it sounds all of the same ethical notes that Bush’s signing statements and the US Attorneys’ firing scandals did.
McCain is allowed, and entitled, to visit military hospitals – he’s a disabled veteran. He is also the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, so if he asks to walk the wards and visit the other troops, nobody is going to refuse him. The reason you see no fanfare is because no base commander would allow the press to follow a candidate for office (no matter how distinguished) as he makes those rounds, lest it appear that the base and/or the service supports his candidacy… and McCain knows better than to ask. The most you’ll ever see is a note in the base paper. It does warm my heart a little that he takes the time to visit the troops even though it’s not in the public eye, but I can’t understand why he thinks Barack Obama would be afforded the same courtesy.
I wonder why it is against military regs for someone that’s a retired 22-year career Naval officer, a holder of Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts, Distinguished Flying Crosses, a graduate of the War College, a holder of a Master’s Degree in national Security Strategy and a quarter-century member of the Senate, including 21 years on the Senate Armed Services Committee to visit a military base? Because he’s campaigning?
Has this always been the case? Why are these two Senators allowed to visit a combat zone, eat with the troops, etc but not a base back here at home? They’re campaigning either way, right?
Maybe it was an insult instead:Major Strasser: What is your nationality?
Rick: I’m a drunkard.
Captain Renault: That makes Rick a citizen of the world.
[right]-- Casablanca[/right]
Well, it’s all theater; McCain’s pageant is just more transparent than most. Pretty weak showing, really; clearly, he has some second rate hack working his campaign dialogue. If he’s smart he’ll hire Paul Haggis–everybody else has–to spin his speachifying and give it a bit of back-and-forth.
What do you expect, RTFirefly? They’re desperate, flummoxed and befuddled. They’re so bereft of ideas at this point they’ve resorted to simply reacting to everything Obama does, hoping something, anything, will bring the public out of its obafugue.
Obama actually has visited military hospitals in the US without any fanfare. He’s a US Senator. He has the right and he exercises it. In Germany, the Pentagon told him the day before he was scheduled to go that he was not be allowed to go and then McCain attacked him for not going. The whole thing was a set up by the White House to make it look like Obama was snubbing wounded vets.
The ironic thing is that John Mccain doesn’t give two shits about the troops except for how he can exploit them politically. If he cared about them, he wouldn’t keep wanting to kill them and maim them in Iraq for no reason. His vists to them in hospitals are completely hypocritical. They don’t need his fucking vists, they need him to get them out of Iraq and they needed him to show up and vote yes on that GI Bill. He can’t pretend he cares about them on the one hand and then say that a guy who gets his legs blown off has not done enough to earn a free education.
Funny thing is, many of the conservative bloggers are piling on for the Obama “cancellation.” Do they even care that McCain has done the same, for equally reasonable reasons? Or does he get a pass because he’s a war hero?
Then again, I saw one assert with a “straight face” that Obama is much more like Hitler than Bush is (because of his “messiah following” and such), so whatever the answer is, it probably wouldn’t surprise me.
Yep. Ever since Greer v. Spock, 1976, a commander may use his/her authority to prohibit political activity on-base. The services have each codified this under various regulations. For example Air Force Instruction 51-902 prohibits military members on active duty from participating in political activity in uniform, among other things (see Section 3) and highlights the many federal laws which prohibit similar activities (see Section 9). The prohibition against military members participating would include any of the wounded vets or uniformed medical staff interviewed or photographed in uniform as part of the campaign stop. If they agreed to be part of the campaign stop, that would be against the rules, and if they declined to be part of the campaign stop, then the candidate would be using them as unwilling props.
Cite? All I’ve seen is that the Pentagon turned Obama away because he was traveling with his campaign staff on a campaign trip. That’s well within the rights of the base commander. Ordinarily I would say “nobody is stupid enough to order them to do that when they’d do it anyway,” but by all means, if you have proof that someone in the White House used this as a Gotcha-Ya, I’d love to hear it.
This is hardly adequate, but timing of Rice’s move to crack down on aid to candidates by embassy staff, coming as it did in the wake McCain’s South American jaunt, but before Obama’s trip, struck me as suspiciously timed:
They waited until the day before the visit to spring it on him that he would not be welcome (regardless of their disingenuous statements that he would have been welcome had he come alone). They knew about his planned visit well ahead of time, yet didn’t bother telling him about the restrictions until it would force him to have to cancel.
In my opinion, it was orchestrated by the WH to make it look like Obama was snubbing the troops. That’s how they operate. We know that.
And when W landed on the aircraft carrier with the Mission Accomplished banner behind him? How is that any less political? Can you refuse the CINC from making a political statement on your command?
So then military commanders in a combat zone can enforce the same rules then, yes? So why don’t they?
Why is it OK for political candidates to visit US soldiers in Iraq but not at military bases at home? It would be a hell of a lot less of a nightmare, logistically speaking.
