Now that all the facts are in, it's quite clear that the Obama campaign was telling the truth about this - that he canceled his visit to the military hospital in Germany because of Pentagon concerns about his aide being political - not because his "entourage" or photographers couldn't accompany him:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/07/29/questions_abound_about_mccai n.html?hpid=topnews

Yet the McCain campaign and even McCain himself are lying about this all over the media, even on Larry King, painting Obama as unpatriotic, uncaring about the trooops, and an elitist. So, the Swiftboating begins.

What scares me more is the way the Obama campaign seems unable to respond. I don't watch the Mainstream Media much so I don't know what kind of response his campaign may have mounted - but in my news sources, I haven't seen much beyond a yelp from Chuck Hagel. Anyone else? If Obama doesn't punch back swiftly on this thing, as Kerry didn't in 2004, he could be sunk. These impressions sink in and are hard to shake once established.

Andrew

I don't get this either. Obama has had near perfect message control and a whole string of good responses to things so far.

Why not this one?

And I heard "won't respond on McCain's time table" too.

The only reason I can think of is that Obama sees or thinks he sees a deeper play at work here and that responding in the obvious way would do harm.

It's worrysome.

It's very worrisome to me. Kerry never dug himself out from under the Swift Boat attacks. Kerry actually did quite well in the October debates with Bush, but by then it was far too late to change his image.

Andrew

I don't see this as comparable to the swift boat issue. This will cycle for another few days and will be done. I have full confidence that the Obama campaign knows what it's doing.

Most people know it's sour grapes in response to Obama's incredibly successful visit overseas. Those that change their vote would use this issue or some other issue not vote for him-they weren't going to vote for him anyway.

Ah, but the Swift Boat story in 2004 seemed pretty stupid too - to us who were paying attention. The problem is, to non-political swing voters who aren't paying much attention and will see only the soundbites on the evening news, they won't get an accurate impression. They'll get the smear impression. And those are the voters who are the most important in November.

Andrew

2004 debates... Considering I don't do politics, I'm surprised I remember anything about them, but for some reason I do... The one and only conclusions I got were:

1) G W Bush is the second-worst public speaker of all time.

2) Kerry is the worst public speaker of all time.

McCain's misinformation is getting traction because it is a simpler message, and has a shadow of truth in it.

It's true that Obama made the call to not see the troops; he was not prohibited from visiting them. And that's the main message McCain wants people to hear. In truth, we know Obama passed on the visit out of respect for the military's wishes, not out of disrespect for the troops. But that explanation takes a couple seconds to deliver, and another couple seconds to process, which apparently is too much time for the average voter to take.

Andrea Michell was there and witnessed Obama make the call he did, and is staunchly defending him. This pits McCain against at least one of the media heavyweights. If Andrea is being called a liar by McCain, then his days of being a sweetheart of the media may be ending soon.

It would be nice to see the media torpedo a swift boat for a change and Captain McCain (yep, that was his rank in the Navy) may have to go down with his ship.

"then his days of being a sweetheart of the media may be ending soon."

Too late. Captain Jack McCain's media sweetheart days ended the moment the Obamessiah was annointed.

Are you kidding? The media still love McCain. How the hell do you think this "didn't visit the troops" story got legs?? Because they reported it.

Just listen to ABC (radio) News to hear daily, "John McCain says of Barack Obama [insert today's attack almost verbatim] and Obama says in defense, [yet another defense of McCain's latest attack]. That's what the Media considers equal time: repeat an attack, then repeat the defense. The Media may not be in the tank for McCain, but they are clearly willing to cut him plenty of slack.

Andrew

Absolutely true!

McCain has made so damn many gaffes, it's not even funny.

If they reported on half the crap they do on Obama, he would be toast right now, but they like a race.

In fact, I think they believe Obama will not be favorable to them (and probably are right), so they've got more than a passing interest in giving grandpa McCain a pass.