Posted on 07/25/2008 11:56:10 AM PDT by kristinn
Was the Pentagon's exclusion of Obama foreign policy advisor Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, USAF (Ret.) from Barack Obama's planned visit with wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany the reason for Obama's cancellation of the visit?
Piecing together the information being reported in various news outlets points in that direction.
Der Spiegel first reported the story in a brief note on their live thread on Obama's visit to Berlin yesterday morning (EDT). Free Republic was the first to pick up the story. From there it was picked up by Hot Air, then spread through the blogosphere and into the the mainstream press.
Obama's campaign issued their first statement on the matter, saying Obama cancelled out of concerns the visit would be seen as political. That didn't wash when Obama opened his speech in Berlin saying he was not there as a candidate for president but as a 'proud citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world.'
The Obama campaign issued a second statement that blamed the Pentagon for the cancellation.
Today, Obama's staff held three briefings within forty-five minutes on O-Force One in an effort to get their story striaght. they added supposed Pentagon objections to the campaign plane and staff landing at Ramstein.
Last night NRO reported a confidential source informed them that an Obama staffer had a fit when told they couldn't participate in the visit to Landstuhl:
A very interesting email from a source I must protect suggests that Obama's visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center had the green light until a campaign staffer raised a stink about going with Obama. (There are rules meant to ensure candidates do not use soldiers or military bases for campaign purposes, and they state that personal and committee staff may accompany a sitting senator on a visit but campaign staff may not.) I am told that when one of Obama's campaign staff was told he or she would be denied access, the visit was canceled.
Today, responding to media queries, the Pentagon said they informed Obama that while he could bring a Senate staffer and a security team, he could not bring Gen. Gration and another campaign staffer named Jeff Kiernan.
Gen. Gration had served at Ramstein in the early 1990s.
The Pentagon informed the Obama campaign of the exclusions on Wednesday, even though the trip had been planned at least a week ahead of time. The Obama campaign says he decided to cancel the visit on the flight from Israel to Germany.
The Pentagon told the Los Angeles Times that Obama's campaign plane, dubbed O-Force One by his travelling press corps, was cleared to land at Ramstein AFB and that the press corps and Obama campaign staff would be accomodated in the passenger lounge while Obama visited the wounded at nearby Landstuhl.
This explanation by the Pentagon that Obama's plane would be allowed to land and his staff and press taken care of leaves a big question as to what was so objectionable that Obama cancelled.
It couldn't be the media restriction as some have speculated. Obama visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center last month without the press. He visited troops in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq without the media. The military released official photos of the war zone visits, the only exception being of Obama's visit to a military hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
So that still leaves the question, what brought on the cancellation. The only thing that sticks out is the Pentagon's informing Gen. Gration that he would have to stay in the passenger lounge wth the other Obama staffers and the press. Was that too much for that retired general's ego to accept? And did Obama cancel the trip in order to assuage Gration's ego?
And, even more important, is Obama lying to the American people about it?
There are almost no Conservative professors as the left wing uses political test after political test to persuade them not to enter academia, to deny them tenure and advancement.
This is the great failing of the Conservative movement, to enter and maintain a balance of ideas in these institutions. To compete idea for idea in Hollywood, and in the News business. But, the flow of ideology from our colleges and universities is lefty, and often openly socialist without regard to their own best interests.
Anyway, these are just descriptions of the general flows. There is not all or nothing anywhere and there are several fine institutions who emphasize values and self-reliance and they are about if you look. But, the vast majority get fed a steady stream of leftist pap from every media, educational, and close opinion source and thus they believe and repeat it.
The true wonder is that, with all of this apparatus, the big and little lies, the grooming of kids from earliest moments, they keep hitting the rock of Conservative insistence on resisting this urge to follow Europe into oblivion.
I’m embarrassed to admit that in college, I hid my political persuasion in the classroom for fear of getting a lower grade.
In English Class we had a devout Marxist. Anyone who took other than a liberal view on the Viet Nam War and Nixon etc would get a much lower grade.
Eventually, the University kicked him out when even he was too radical.
I agree. There are still a few still on here who feel otherwise. I say give the man a chance. The deck is stacked against him, and we dislike seeing that done. We are generally for the underdog.
Say what you will about Mac...one thing for sure, he's a scrapper. You won't see him backing down from anyone....less so an Obama when other's walk off with their tail between their legs...
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