McCain Shamefully Politicizes Landstuhl

Update: 9:41 pm Earlier this evening, John McCain from 2007 released this statement:

"How can we possibly find honor in using the fate of our servicemen to score political advantage in Washington? There is no pride to be had in such efforts. We are at war, a hard and challenging war, and we do no service for the best of us-those who fight and risk all on our behalf-by playing politics with their service." [Congressional Record, 5/24/07]

Update: 9 pm - As Mark Impomeni reports, McCain is now using this as the basis for a campaign ad. For shame, Senator McCain. For shame. Whatever this episode said about Barack Obama, it has revealed far more about you. You have exploited those brave, wounded soldiers as surely as if you had slapped bumper stickers on their hospital beds.


Update: 3:46 pm - Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor just released this statement, via email:

"As Senator Obama said today, the last thing he wanted was to have injured soldiers get pulled into the back-and-forth of a political campaign. That's why we imagine Senator McCain would be surprised that his campaign released this wildly inappropriate accusation that politicizes the issue. Senator Obama and Senator McCain share the belief that we must do everything we can to honor and support our troops, which is why Senator Obama has met with our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan this week and visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed numerous times."

The fallout surrounding Barack Obama's canceled trip to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center could turn out to be extremely damaging to the presumptive Democratic nominee, from a political standpoint. As Politico puts it, the "optics" here are not good.

The facts surrounding the cancellation continue to be muddy, but that hasn't slowed the narrative that this is somehow proof that Barack Obama doesn't care about wounded troops, or at least not as much as he cares about touring Europe's scenic Adoring Throngs. It is almost certain that his opponents would have made hay with this no matter what.

Ironically, the very thing Obama sought to avoid, politicizing the visit to wounded troops, has occurred by orders of magnitude. It was helped along by the campaign of the one person who should have known better.

Sen. John McCain's campaign spokesman Brian Rogers criticized the decision, saying, "Barack Obama is wrong. It is never 'inappropriate' to visit our men and women in the military."

Really, Brian? Is it appropriate to visit troops while they are under heavy fire? How about when they are on high alert? Is it appropriate to visit troops when they've just finished a grueling physical therapy session?

Politicizing the troops is an old trick for Republicans. It is something we've come to expect from the likes of George W. Bush, who thinks nothing of using soldiers as props, playing dress-up, lying about and pimping the death of a heroic American, then sneaking the bodies of those bravely slain in through the back door. It is not something I would have expected from John McCain.




I want to start by being fair to both sides. To the extent that this may hurt Obama politically, he and his campaign probably deserve some of the blame. Initially, they issued a muddled statement about not wanting the trip to appear political, then later added facts about Pentagon restrictions that they didn't learn about until it was too late. Keith Olbermann reported, last night, that by the time Obama learned that he could only bring Senate staff with him, they has all gone home already. The initial omission of that information may have been due to an abundance of caution at divulging communications with the Pentagon.

But today, MSNBC's First Read reports that the snafu might have had more to do with the bruised ego of an unpaid Obama adviser:

Pentagon officials say Gration was the campaign's point of contact at Landstuhl in arranging Obama's visit and "got torqued" when he was told he would not be permitted to join Obama. It was Gration who later suggested to reporters that the Pentagon short-circuited Obama's visit.

Whether Gration or the Pentagon dropped the ball, Barack Obama should have seen this coming. Perhaps he did, and in his sincere desire not to politicize the trip, was willing to take the hit. Politically speaking, the smart thing to do would have been to hit the Autobahn with his Secret Service detail, or hop a plane, and go to Landstuhl come hell or high water. Since all of the facts are still not clear, that might not have even been possible.

Now, in John McCain's case, I make no secret of my disagreement with him on most issues, and have been critical of his campaign as well. Until fairly recently, however, I retained a healthy respect for the man, and a belief that his actions, however wrong, were guided by principle.

That illusion has been slowly eroding, by virtue of a string of decisions that fly in the face of his poignant words and deeds on the subject of his own sacrifice to this country, and the sacrifices of others. As I've reported this week, the McCain campaign has been desperate to blunt the impact of Obama's overseas trip, and could not resist this opening.

The implication that any presidential candidate would skip a visit to wounded troops because he or she had something better to do is completely beyond the pale, and while it is grossly unfair to Barack Obama, the real offense here is in reducing those troops, and their sacrifices, down to a negative campaign ad. The only meager defense I can offer of John McCain is that his face didn't pop up in a box next to Brian Rogers and say, "I'm John McCain, and I approved this message."

McCain still has the opportunity to correct this mistake. Obama will still pay the price, but at least McCain will have lived up to his side of the bargain.