Some Media Step Up (with Updates)

In addition to the media reporters and outlets mentioned in the Update to the previous post (primarily MSNBC and the Washington Post), the Washington Post front page Wednesday declares: "McCain Charge Against Obama Lacks Evidence." It begins:

"For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true."

"Despite serious and repeated queries about the charge over several days, McCain and his allies continued yesterday to question Obama's patriotism by focusing attention on the canceled hospital visit." the story continues. "McCain's advisers said they do not intend to back down from the charge, believing it an effective way to create a "narrative" about what they say is Obama's indifference toward the military."

The McShame campaign continues to insist that Obama cancelled the visit because media cameras weren't allowed, but when asked for the evidence, they were unable to provide any. (They cited "news reports," but the ones they offered supported their allegations, according to the Post.

A reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding Obama's decision not to visit Landstuhl, based on firsthand reporting from the trip, shows that his campaign never contemplated taking the media with him." the Post wrote, which is exactly what Andrea Mitchell and other reporters who were on the scene have reported.

Which tells us this about the McCain campaign: they are ignoring the truth, and repeating the lie. They are liars, and that's the basis of their campaign.

As to Obama's indifference to the troops, it has been well-reported that Obama visited wounded troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan (witnessed by two other U.S. Senators, who said so on CBS Sunday), and several times has visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed in Washington, most recently last month (verified by media reporters, who Obama asked to remain outside.) Even in Germany, where his campaign got signals from the Pentagon that the visit might be seen as political and Obama didn't go, Obama spoke to soldiers at the hospital over the phone.

What about McCain and his indifference to the troops? McCain's voting record is poorly rated by two veterans organizations for his "support." He voted against armored tactical vehicles for troops in Iraq, against several measures to make medical care for troops easier to obtain and more affordable, and so on.

And McCain didn't visit wounded troops in Germany on his last trip to Europe, even though it was an official taxpayer-funded trip and therefore would have posed no problem, unlike Obama's, which at that point was financed by his campaign.

As for other charges in the ad: Obama didn't chair subcommittee hearings on Afghanistan because the full Foreign Relations committee held them--but McCain, the ranking Republican on that committee, didn't even attend any of them. Obama voted to fund the troops except on one procedural vote to pressure the Bushites to set a timeline for withdrawl. He has a much higher rating than McCain for supporting the troops as given by two prominent veterans organizations.

And in the McShame campaign's most blatant show of contempt for American voters, the ad utters the false charge that Obama didn't visit the troops but used the time to play basketball, with footage showing Obama playing basketball with American troops in Kuwait--footage taken by a military cameraman.

This is the worst sort of swift-boating, and it tells you something about McCain: he'll lie to win a political campaign.

Update: Responding to the Post front page story, Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine, who was also on the Obama trip to Europe, writes: This front-page account in the Washington Post is absolutely consistent with what I know, based on my reporting, about Obama's cancelled visit to Landstuhl. So how many more times are the McCain campaign and the Republicans going to repeat what is a thoroughly baseless charge?"

The PBS News Hour did a segment on it Wednesday evening, also confirming that the McCain ad is baseless. And First Read catches McCain and the Republican National Committee repeating two more lies--as refuted by factcheck.org--about Obama voting to raise taxes.