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July 25, 2008

Obama can't make up his mind if overseas trip is political or not

Rick Moran
Of all the cynical, hypocritical moves made by the Obama campaign, these one strains the imagination.

Here's Obama at the very beginning of his speech:

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before.  Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world. 

That "fellow citizen of the world" is now using the speech to raise cold hard cash for his very American campaign. Jack Tapper of ABC News:

Shortly after 6 pm Central time -- just a few hours after Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, gave his speech in Berlin, which his campaign insisted was not political -- his campaign manager, David Plouffe, sent out a fundraising solicitation using the speech to raise campaign cash.

"As you may have heard, Barack has been in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia this week," reads the email, with a big red "DONATE" sign. "Today, he spoke in Berlin, Germany. In a city where a wall once divided the free from the oppressed, he talked about tearing down the walls that divide all peoples so we can address our common problems -- the threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, global warming and genocide, AIDS and poverty. Watch Barack's historic speech and share it with your friends."

The letter offers a link to the video and asks recipients to please "forward this email to your friends, family, and colleagues."

This is certainly going to be used as ammunition for those critics who wondered about the true purpose of this "non political" trip. (HT: Sister Toldjah)

Not so, says the campaign who insist the email didn't ask for funds. While technically true, there was a great big fat red "Donate" button at the bottom of the email making it absolutely clear what the Obamabots who received it were supposed to do.

Now to really set your head spinning, Obama said he was forced to cancel a scheduled visit to wounded troops at Ramstein and Landstuhl AF bases because they believed such a stop would be "inappropriate" due to the political nature of the trip.

It must be nice to be able to pull out the "politics card" when snubbing our wounded troops (Obama went sightseeing instead)  and then putting it in your pocket when addressing 200,000 Germans.

In fact, as Ed Morrissey reports, Obama could have still visited the wounded warriors - he just wouldn't have been able to bring the press horde with him. Ed points us to this NBC News report from Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube:

One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama's representatives were told, "he could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign officials or workers." In addition, "Obama could not bring any media. Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama's visit."

The official said "We didn't know why" the request to visit the wounded troops was withdrawn. "He (Obama) was more than welcome. We were all ready for him."

Evidently, Obama's concerns about the press being frozen out as they were in Afghanistan and Iraq where the campaign relied on the army to take pictures and video and distribute them overrode the desire to visit the wounded American soldiers who he may command as CIC.

Ed shows the "decision track" of the Obama campaign:

Obama and his team set up the visits to military installations before going overseas.  After seeing how the media got excluded in Iraq and Afghanistan, they decided it wasn't worth traveling to Ramstein and Landstuhl to visit the severely wounded troops because they couldn't bring the campaign and get the photo ops they wanted.  Instead, Obama went shopping in Berlin.

As I wrote yesterday, that's certainly a revealing set of priorities for a man who wants to lead these troops as Commander in Chief.
Indeed.

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