The MSNBC website tells us that:
"During his trip as part of the CODEL to Afghanistan and Iraq, Senator Obama visited the combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad and had a number of other visits with the troops," Obama strategist Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "For the second part of his trip, the senator wanted to visit the men and women at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to express his gratitude for their service and sacrifice. 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."
A U.S. military official tells NBC News they were making preparations for Sen. Barack Obama to visit wounded troops at the Landstuhl Medical Center at Ramstein, Germany on Friday, but "for some reason the visit was called off."
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The official said "We didn't know why" the request to visit the wounded troops was withdrawn.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."
I sure hope that he didn't cancel the visit to the wounded troops just because he couldn't take along photographers. I heard yesterday, but cannot confirm, that instead of the hospital visit Obama went shopping and worked out.
If he did cancel the hospital trip because it wasn't a politically advantageous use of his time then what are we to think of him? The reason he gave, that it wasn't appropriate to visit the troops as part of a trip funded by the campaign, doesn't make any sense at all since he visited wounded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The decision to cancel the visit makes it look an awful lot as though Obama's just exploiting the wounded troops for his own political purposes.
The cancellation makes it appear that if Obama's going to visit our wounded and maimed soldiers and Marines he wants everyone to know that he's doing it. I wonder how many visits to our kids McCain has made that nobody but his people and the hospital staff and patients know about.
RLC