Posted on 07/26/2008 11:14:59 AM PDT by kristinn
At a morning press conference after a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Barack Obama got caught up in the web of lies his campaign has spun about the cancellation of his planned visit to wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on Friday.
Obama stated: "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we left it off the schedule."
Not true, Washington Post reported this morning: When Obama arrived in Germany on Thursday, a printed schedule said he would fly to the military hospital Friday. Asked at the time about the schedule, an Obama adviser said it was incorrect, that the stop had been considered but ultimately rejected.
The American news media would have let the cancellation go unmentioned were it not for Free Republic picking up on the blurb on Der Spiegel Thursday morning. As the story spread in the blogosphere the American media picked it up and the Obama campaign issued their first lie about the cancellation courtesy of spokesman Robert Gibbs:
"During his trip as part of the CODEL to Afghanistan and Iraq, Sen. Obama visited the combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad and had a number of other visits with the troops. 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.”
That lie was exposed by Obama himself today at the press conference:
"I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisors, a former military officer. And we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person, and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn’t on the Senate staff."
Later on Thursday, the retired general Obama referenced, Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, who joined the Obama trip in Amman Jordan on O-Force One with the rest of the campaign staff and media, issued a second lying statement:
"We learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event. Sen. Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perveived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go."
Gration lied by omission by not informing the press that he was the issue and instead blamed the Pentagon.
Friday morning, as O-Force One headed to Paris instead of Ramstein Air Force Base, the Obama campaign held three separate press briefings within forty-five minutes in an effort to spin their way out of the damaging snub of the wounded warriors at Landstuhl. A transcript of the briefing was posted at Fox News.
Again, spokesman Gibbs put the blame on the Pentagon:
"...it was pretty clear from the people at the Pentagon that the trip would be seen as a campaign stop."
Obama, in his press conference today tried to take himself out of the loop on the discussions about the visit to Landstuhl:
"The staff was working this so I don’t know each and every detail but here is what I understand happened,"
Here's what Gibbs said on Friday in the briefing:
"...This is all local time in Germany we made the decision in the air to not go. In the air from Tel Aviv, we talked about this on the ground, it was a very quick decision and as far, and I will double check this, I believe the call was made once we landed that we were not going to go."
And..."Sen. Obama decided having made that decision he was far more willing to take the criticism from some political people or political opponents in a political atmosphere than to put our troops in the middle of our campaitn (sic) back-and-forth."
Gration was on the plane with Obama. Gibbs makes clear that Obama was in on the decision and had analyzed the consequences.
Obama had no problem landing his campaign plane at Ramstein and neither did the Pentagon. Everyone knew the rules about no campaign staff or media accompanying Obama to nearby Landstuhl.
Yet, when the Pentagon enforced the rules by denying Gration access to Landstuhl with Obama, that's when Obama decided to cancel. The spin that Obama was concerned about the visit being seen as political is a lie.
Between the retired general's bruised ego and having to face the troops alone, Obama decided it was better to be seen snubbing the troops and to lie repeatedly about it to boot.
He even lied about the circumstances of his making phone calls to the wounded at Landstuhl on Friday:
"what we decided was that we not make a visit and instead I would call some of the troops that were there. So that essentially would be the extent of the story."
Not once in all the lying spinning statements by the Obama campaign did they say that Obama would be making phone calls to make up for the cancellation. The decision to make the phone calls was made after the obama had hit the fan.
This is all very strange, very un-presidential and very unbecoming of a man who wants to be commander-in-chief.
Update: Fox News' Bill Hemmer asked Obama if he thought it was a mistake to cancel the Landstuhl visit. Obama said, "No."
Good Job Kristinn
He’s worse than the Clinton’s!
“........It’s not the crime. It’s the cover-up.........”
Obama could sacrifice his first born, BBQ her and the press would swoon about what a great cook he is.
Since the Black Messiah is, obviously, the God-like candidate of the media, someone with gonads has got to expose this disastrous, hate-America liar.
When I read his words I hear “Tea for Two” playing in the background.
I can not think of a person on the face of the earth that would be worse than BO.
The decision that Sen. Obama made with that information was that we would not put our wounded men and women in that position of being involved in a campaign stop and therefore he made the decision not to make the stop.
Those maroons must think I am an idiot. ....we would not put our wounded men and women in that position of being involved in a campaign stop...
Mankind has nothing to fear with the demise of the Drive-By Media.
They even said B. Hussein Obama had "avoided major pitfalls" while on the foreign trip. See? The local media says he is the BEST. So it must be so.
Very good summary. It’s valuable to compile a timeline on such events before the leftists agree on which lie they’re going to use and issue marching orders to the media.
Congratulations on a decade (in 5 days) for being in the Right forum.
Excellent work, Kristinn. I appreciate you staying on top of this incident.
Good post devolve!
I’m looking for a certain background, it’s a job, lol.
That Marxist Puke couldn't care less about honoring our troops!
“There is no vice... so contemptible; he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual...” Thomas Jefferson
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