Freeporter Dan Balz and colleague destroy McCain’s slur on Obama over hospital trip
July 30th, 2008 at 06:41am Pat Cunningham
My old childhood chum from Freeport, Dan Balz, and one his Washington Post colleagues have a front-page story this morning that PUTS THE LIE to John McCain’s scurrilous charge that Barack Obama dishonorably skipped a visit to wounded U.S. troops at a military hospital in Germany last week.
The story says there is “no evidence that the charge is true” and adds that a McCain adviser admits that it’s part of an effort, in the words of Balz and his colleague, “to portray the Democratic presidential candidate as a craven politician more interested in his image than in ailing soldiers.”
Despite widespread refutations of McCain’s charges, his campaign seems bent on continuing to push the bogus story.
POSTSCRIPT: Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times also has a GOOD PIECE on the controversy this morning.
UPDATE: McCain’s negativism WORRIES some Republicans.
UPDATE II: And then there’s THIS.
UPDATE III: The McCain camp is DISOWNING at least part of its attack ad concerning the hospital visit.
Entry Filed under: John McCain, Barack Obama
2 Comments Add your own
1. equalityrkfd= | July 30th, 2008 at 9:52 am
You can just smell the desperation…
2. Menlo Bob | July 30th, 2008 at 11:07 am
I thought Factcheck.org did a good job of covering this earlier. I’m unsure what Dan Balz has added to that. The story of the Obama visit seems to revolve around two themes 1. John McCain’s commercial was wrong about taking reporters, and 2. Barack Obama was wrong not to visit wounded troops based on the inability to bring along a retired general. Let’s agree that McCain’s commerical was partly wrong. That leaves #2.
Obama certainly would have been allowed to visit alone, but according to Factcheck.org there was some question that an Obama campaign airplane would not have been permitted to land at a military installation. Since Obama’s campaign doesn’t raise that as a problem, I’m thinking it wasn’t.
There seems to be a bit of last minute change by the DOD regarding the visit. But even with that no one says that a sitting US senator would not have been able to visit Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. So what’s the problem with pointing out that Obama chose not to go because he wouldn’t be allowed to have a guest?
Somewhat bizarrely Obama’s press spokesman Gibbs says that they would have been criticized either by going or by not going. Well I guess if you’re concerned about being criticized you’ve got every angle covered then. What about doing the right thing?
Forget what the NYT says about press visits to hospitals. If Obama wanted photos HE could have brought a camera. See (scroll down) how easy it is.
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