The 2008 Presidential Campaign (was Obama Phenomenon 2)

Post by **halplm** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:14 pm

Obama in Afghanistan:

http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html ... d=playlist

Not much with the troops there.

Post by **ToshoftheWuffingas** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:15 pm

I presumed from that report hal that it was the military controlling the press in a war zone, not Obama.

Post by **Athrabeth** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:18 pm

Hal, go to You Tube, type in "Obama Afghanistan Visit" and you'll see the results for yourself.

Post by **solicitr** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:19 pm

Such a tempest!

1) Hal, the breakfast video indeed shows Obama eating in the mess with the troops at the start of his second day. The only cameramen were military PAO, not surprising and no big deal.

2) This still doesn't disprove (or prove) whether or not Obama snubbed the troops at Bagram.

Tosh, please be judicious about words like 'slander.'

Post by **halplm** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:19 pm

The military controls part of it, but I believe I linked earlier to where Obama was controlling parts of it as well.

So that video does seem to be afghanistan, which makes the blogger's letter seem as far off as it sounded.

Most of the rest of the videos, though (including the basketball one I believe) are from kuwait.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:24 pm

Hal - you did see the video from Youtube that Athrabeth posted.

One has to ask why the video from Fox News would not show the many handshakes with the US troops in Afghanistan that the other video feed showed? Maybe they did not have it? Or maybe ........? Who knows?

Maybe there is something to this idea of media bias after all?

This calls to mind the old phrase "who you gonna believe - me or your lying eyes?"

Post by **Athrabeth** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:47 pm

hal wrote:The military controls part of it, but I believe I linked earlier to where Obama was controlling parts of it as well.

I'm sorry hal, but I can't find that link (at least not in the last few pages of the thread). Can you repost it?

BTW, the NBC report went into quite a bit of detail about the "how's and why's" of the press restrictions, and the Fox report also mentioned that the military was controlling the coverage because of security precautions.

Post by **solicitr** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:49 pm

No, Hal, it just means that "Captain J" didn't have breakfast at Camp Eggers. He related what he saw (if he did) at Bagram Air Base the day before. In other words, the two are not inconsistent.

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:54 pm

So you can believe an ubstantiated report from a person supposedly named "Captain J" or you can believe what you saw with your own eyes as the way Senator Obama responds to our troops.

Again its the old phrase "who you gonna believe - me or your own lying eyes?"

The real insanity here is that the question has to be asked.

Post by **vison** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:01 am

Shall we use the words "tempest in a tea pot"? The thing is, those who want to believe that Mr. Obama rudely snubbed the brave soldiers will believe that, A: he snubbed the brave soldiers and/(possibly)or, B: he hates the military.

Those who want to believe he didn't snub the soldiers and that he doesn't hate the miltary? They won't believe he did or does.

I don't get Fox news up here in Canuckistan, and I've been told I'm lucky. And my computer's sound is gone, so if I watch video clips I see only images and have to make up the dialogue. That's fun. I can have both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama saying a lot of really surprising stuff.

I think that rational people will agree that it is unlikely in the extreme that Mr. Obama is stupid enough to have snubbed any soldier anywhere. It is further quite understandable that he was not entirely free (for security reasons) to do as he wished or did not wish.

Why is it necessary or even desirable to make one candidate look like Satan Incarnate in order to make the other one look like The Second Coming? Why can't both men be seen as reasonably competent? One of them is going to be POTUS. If it's not "your guy" are we going to be subjected to another 4 or 8 years of hateful, spiteful snarkiness?

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:02 am

And this is from the post of the supposed "Cpt. J"

As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to ' The War Zone ' .

Was there for an hour under the protection of the US military who controlled his visit because he was in a war zone.

Do you think that a rational person might just conclude that
a- he was not even given the opportunity to meet with troops given the short duration of his stay at that spot
b- Obama was ushered in and out by his military escorts and was simply following their lead

A rational person might conclude that.

But a politically biased person with an axe to grind takes these events and turns them into a anti-Obama rant about how he disrespects the troops.

We saw the video of Obama in Afghanistan meeting with the troops, shakingtheir hands, laughing with them, and even posing with them for individual pictures.

We saw how Senator Obama responds to US troops. We saw it with our own two eyes.
==================
this was cross posted with the post from Vison.

Post by **halplm** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:16 am

yes, that's true, but there was the response that he stayed there overnight, and not the "one hour" in "Captain J's" letter.

I fully expect there is some truth to it, but as I said earlier, it sounds too perfect.

I am curious abou the FOX report not having the same video, although maybe they do elsewhere, I haven't checked. They screwed me up this morning too, so I'm a bit flummoxed by them. I think I'll go back to ignoring they exist...

Athrabeth, it took me a while to find it, but here:
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/136003.html

It was not so much about controlling media access, but it was staging things to seem as if the press was there, when it was not. So I withdraw my "controlling" comment.

edit, xposted with several

SF, we saw what Obama wanted us to see, nothing more, nothing less. There's no better way to get a politician to act nice that to put him in front of a camera.

Post by **River** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:45 am

There's another possibility: maybe Obama's security team includes a look-alike and that's who Cpt. J. saw at Bagram. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I can't imagine Obama's security being anything other than tight while he's traveling in a war zone. I'm sure McCain's security is just as tight on similar trips.

Or maybe he just had to be hurried through for some reason.

Or maybe he really was just being a jack***.

Or maybe Cpt. J's the jack***.

Or maybe Cpt. J. is fictional.

This whole affair is very illuminating as to how information flows from war zones to the public. No one really seems to know what's going on. We're just picking up the pieces. There's things the civilian side media can't know because the military won't allow it. There's things the soldiers who blog don't know because they just can't - they're in too close to see the big picture and I'm sure that there's plenty of information that's kept from them on a daily basis. They know what they see, but some things are too big to resolve with one pair of eyes. And then, since this is a presidential campaign, there's that angle as well. So how do you tease it apart? I'm not sure it's even possible.

Now can we screw our collective heads back on, please?

Post by **vison** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:51 am

halplm wrote:SF, we saw what Obama wanted us to see, nothing more, nothing less.

Not quite, halplm. We saw what the media chose to show us: and some outlets are more pro-Obama than others. Some are more anti-Obama than others, obviously. Mr. Obama cannot control what is chosen to be broadcast or published. Nor can Mr. McCain.

There's no better way to get a politician to act nice that to put him in front of a camera.

They are ALWAYS in front of a camera, nowadays. Unless they are in their own bedrooms, under the covers, with the lights out, they are on camera.

And who knows. . . . .

Post by **solicitr** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:00 am

Ok, slightly different tack: is it merely a 'gaffe', a dumb 'gotcha', when a candidate (in this case Obama) makes a material misstatement about his own professional career? Hillary Clinton got pounded over the 'sniper-fire' story, and the press, probably rightly, let Obama off the hook when he claimed his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz - but today he claimed to be a member of the Senate Banking Committe, which isn't ordinarily the sort of thing one is mistaken about.

Post by **halplm** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:00 am

No, that's the thing. In Iraq and Afghanistan, he is not on camera all the time. Otherwise, we would have a lot more footage.

I could be wrong, but I believe we've seen ALL the footage that has been released... there wasn't really enough for them to pick and choose...

Post by **sauronsfinger** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:12 am

As I said this morning - we all make mistakes. John McCain makes them and will make them agian. Barack Obama makes them and will make them again.

Foreign policy is the stated field of expertise of John McCain - and area in which he has made several key errors of fact.

I do not think Obama ever claimed his expertise was in Senate organization. His campaign hardly hinges on it.

Post by **halplm** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:23 am

There's mistakes involving this group or that group... and then there's lying about your resume.

Post by **Jnyusa** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:33 am

[removed]

Post by **halplm** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:40 am

It's not his bill, it's a bill related, in part, maybe sort off, to a bill he introduced a year ago.

So, it's not his committee, not his bill, he's not on the committee, he didn't vote on the bill, and in fact had nothing to do with it getting out of committee.

That's padding your resume.