-——How could he go to a war zone and not meet with the troops——
I concluded he had a dilemma. He wanted the speech to be live and the time provided by the networks was 7:30, not prime time but near it. In Afghanistan it was 8 or so hours before, meaning 4 or 5 o’clock local.
The problem was dragging the troops out of their racks and into an assembly at 0 dark 30 to hear a speech read from teleprompters.
I’m certain that the handlers decided that it would be more detrimental to drag the troops out than to not have them present at all.
What we (I) do not know is if he met with some during their normal working hours.
Obama was long gone by that time. He was on the ground for only a few hours. Photo op for campaign.