FishbowlDC has learned that the National Journal's Linda Douglass is joining the Obama campaign as its traveling press secretary. Her husband, John Phillips, has long been an Obama supporter. She is the former ABC News Congressional correspondent.
Posted on 07/19/2008 10:25:45 AM PDT by STARWISE
Brack Obama launched his week-long world tour with a brief stop in Kuwait and then began a longer visit to Afghanistan, ahead of planned stops in Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England.
The highly anticipated trip was launched in secrecy, with Obama’s campaign refusing to confirm that he had left the country, citing security reasons.
The campaign announced early Saturday morning that Obama was on the ground in Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. military later said Obama was greeting U.S. troops at Jalalabad airfield in eastern Afghanistan.
Obama made a secret stop in Kuwait and visited U.S. service members, then flew on to Kabul.
Obama and his party also met with troops and military brass at the huge Bagram Air Base, according to reporters on the ground.
The stops in Afghanistan and a later visit to Iraq are part of a congressional trip that includes Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).
Mark Lippert, foreign policy adviser in Obama’s Senate office, was the only staff member who accompanied him on the congressional delegation trip, the campaign said. Lippert had returned in the late spring from a tour of duty in Iraq as a naval reservist.
A blogger briefly posted word Friday that Obama was in Kuwait, but the campaign refused to confirm it and the post was removed. The campaign had not given the dates of the trip, insisting that the press refer to it as “upcoming.”
The later two stops in the Middle East and the three stops in Western Europe are part of a separate campaign trip that will include a full plane of press and staff.
The campaign said Friday that Obama will meet with a huge slate of world leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, King Abdullah of Jordan, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert, Israeli President Shimon Peres, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni, Israeli Likud Party Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Robert Gibbs, the campaign’s senior strategist for communications and message, announced the beginning of the trip with a 3:24 a.m. e-mail to reporters:
“At approximately 3:15 AM Eastern/2:15 AM Central, I received a phone call telling me that Sen. Obama had landed at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Since leaving Washington on Thursday, Sen. Obama had stopped and visited troops in Kuwait.”
That was followed by a 1,000-word pool report by the Chicago Tribune’s John McCormick that covered Obama’s movement to Washington, where he dropped the pool.
Obama’s small traveling party flew from Chicago to Washington on a Gulfstream III (G-III) on Thursday, then took a military plane from Andrews Air Force Base.
The G-III was hot when the party boarded, and the pool report by McCormick says Obama made a joke about the upcoming desert weather.
“We’re just easing you into it,” Obama told the Secret Service agents accompanying him.
Obama was accompanied on the flight to Washington by eight Secret Service agents; just one staff member, senior adviser Linda Douglass, his traveling spokesperson; and two reporters — McCormick and Glen Johnson of The Associated Press.
Obama read The New York Times on the flight to Washington, then paused for the reporters to ask him what he hoped to learn on the mission.
“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is,” he said. “I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, ah, their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they’ve been doing.”
McCormick says the senator then was asked whether he plans to deliver some tough talk to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about doing more to stand up as the instruments of self-governance in their own nations.
“Well, you know, I’m more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking,” Obama replied. “And I think it is very important to recognize that I’m going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time, so it’s the president’s job to deliver those messages.”
Obama left Andrews at about 3:17 p.m. Thursday. The campaign said Reed and Hagel were aboard.
The Illinois senator said in the days building up to the tour that Afghanistan needs more help as it battles the Taliban-led insurgency.
If he wins the November elections, he has said he would commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan while downscaling the size of the force in Iraq.
"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama said in The New York Times on Monday.
"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
In a major foreign policy address on Tuesday, Obama reiterated his promise to get most US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months, and to focus on Al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president I won't," he said.
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Talk about gratuitous dribble:
"Obama read The New York Times on the flight to Washington, then paused for the reporters to ask him what he hoped to learn on the mission."
Just long enough to go to the airport gift shop, get a pressie photo taken, visit the head, make sure the passport was stamped and reboard the plane.
The Lamestream Media have long since given up any pretence of neutrality in this presidential election.
FishbowlDC has learned that the National Journal's Linda Douglass is joining the Obama campaign as its traveling press secretary. Her husband, John Phillips, has long been an Obama supporter. She is the former ABC News Congressional correspondent.
Here’s why our parents told us “never say never”...I KNEW I could NEVER dislike a dem more than Hillary...but Barack Obama has shown me the error of my ways.
Focus on Al-queda havens in Pakistan...Whoops... better ‘splain that!! Maybe REFINE what you said...
Senator Barack Obama at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan with, from left: William B. Wood, the American ambassador to Afghanistan; Senator Chuck Hagel; Sgt. Maj. Vincent Camacho; Senator Jack Reed; and Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser.
If Afghanistan is the focus, why did he visit Iraq in 2006...and not Afghanistan??
I wonder if they made the troops unload their weapons as they did when LBJ visited us during VEEEEEtnam?
Oh nooooooo...he’s standing in front of my/our beloved eagle of the 101st AB. #$%@^&*@$)&*!!!!
(Screaming Eagle)SE Mom
I hope someone is watching the bedroom door on the plane least Perky Katie Crock... and his Lordship The Messiah decide to compare inches or news LINES during the flight.
Speaking on the plane before it landed in Afghanistan, Obama said: “We have one president at a time so I’m not gonna be travelling to negotiate anything or making promises.
“I am there to listen, but there is no doubt that my core position, which is that we need a timetable for withdrawal, not only to relieve pressure on our military but also to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and to put more pressure on the Iraqi government, is now a position that is also held by the Iraqi government.”
Obama said that it was time to respect the wishes of Iraq as a sovereign government and start withdrawing troops. A move he said, is in the strategic interests of the US.
Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from the capital, Kabul, said Obama’s visit is attracting a lot of attention even among ordinary Afghans.
“His visit is cloaked in secrecy ... during his time here he will meet the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, although there will be no press conference just an opportunity for the two leaders to speak and pose for photographs.”
Bays said that if Obama is elected president and takes office in January 2009, then the Afghan elections will be one of his top priorities because Karzai will also be facing elections in the next year.
“Afghanistan is one of Barack Obama’s top priorities ... his key note speech on foreign affairs and he spoke for much of that speech about Afghanistan.
“He said he was going to withdraw troops from Iraq in his first year in office, and he was going to send two extra combat brigades to Afghanistan, an extra $1bn each year for this country.”
The senator has said that Afghanistan is the central front in the so-called “war on terror,” and he is expected to call for more US action to rout the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Obama is also expected to visit Iraq on his tour ahead of the November election.
Also in a surprise visit, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, touched down in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, on Saturday.
I 2nd your disgust with this circus.
That is an amazing admission and one that I share with you.
Note how Osama Obama HUSSEIN stands next to his fellow commie Reid and as far as possible from the Maj. General.
All the way to Afganistan for a fifteen minute photoop with one Serg. Major and One Maj. General who thought too highly of his Men as to force them to meet with this “Expletive Not Inserted”.
Hopefully, the Proud, Strong, Patriotic Screaming Eagle crapped on Hussein’s Weird Head and Dumbo Ears! :-)
Obama makes Chuck Hagel look Presidential...now that’s pretty sad (and lest I be labeled a racist, it has nothing to do with his race, everything to do with how he carries himself.) Obama definitely looks “out of his element”...hands clasped behind his back, not good body language for a Presidential candidate.
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/body.php (interpretation of body language)
At certain moments I even get a little bit nostalgic for Hillary’s screeching cackle... Obama is the most loathsome Alpha-Democrap since Jimmy Carter. Okay Pelosi comes very close. But she is actually more pathetic than loathsome.
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