Here's a Second Salvo in the Dirty Campaingning War.

Senator McCain has raised a great flap over Barack Obama canceling his visit to the military hospital in Landstuhl Germany, during Obama’s recent European trip.  In a commercial the McCain campaign said that Obama cancelled the visit because he was not permitted to bring cameras and that he cancelled his visit but still found time to play basketball.  The implication, of course, is that Obama cared more about his image and a little recreation than he cared about wounded troops.  Both of the statements, in the commercial, are bald faced lies.  Here are the facts.

Obama had no intention of taking reporters or cameras on the visit.  He was going with a couple of his campaign advisors.  One of the advisors was a retired army general, who advises the campaign on military affairs.  The Obama campaign learned that the visit would be treated by the army as a campaign event, instead of what it was intended to be a visit from a sitting senator to wounded troops.  The Obama campaign realized that if it was treated as a campaign event, he would open himself to the criticism of using wounded troops to promote his political image.  He did not want that to happen.    

Furthermore, Obama did not go to the gym and did not play basketball instead of going to visit the troops.  In order to tell this lie, the McCain campaign took a picture of Obama shooting a basketball in a gym in Kuwait, when he visited a base there before he went to Germany and placed it in the commercial with the voice over saying he went to the gym instead of visiting the troops.  The juxtaposition of the picture and the voice over left the impression that Obama was playing basketball instead of visiting the troops.    

Now I realize that politics is a dirty business and lies are thrown back and forth like rice at a wedding.  I suspect that the Obama campaign will soon enough get into the gutter with McCain.  Nevertheless, it should be noted that the first tow salvos (see my last post) of dirty campaigning were fired by the McCain campaign.  Since McCain has made a point of saying over and over that he would never challenge his opponents patriotism and that he wants to raise the level of political campaigning, I would guess that he is getting just a bit desperate.