I wrote earlier today about a decision by "the Pentagon" (which is actually a building, not a person) to prevent Senator Barack Obama from visiting a military base in Germany. As expected, the McCain campaign attacked Obama for not visiting the base that "the Pentagon" told him he couldn't visit. The traditional media dutifully ate up McCain's attack. (The political reporters are all worried that McCain is mad at them for giving better coverage to Obama so for the next few weeks, they'll accept every criticism of Obama, no matter how unfounded.)
On the other hand,Brandon Friedman from VoteVets, who knows a thing or two about how the military operates, didn't buy McCain's attacks. Instead, he exposed McCain's double standard, linking to an April 2008 CNN report where McCain adviser Steve Schmidt said of visits to military installations, "We follow the rules." With that, Brandon let them have it:
I understand that the McCain campaign is disorganized and pathologically clueless when it comes to utilizing the media, but they're clearly being dishonest in this case. McCain is demonstrably criticizing Obama for following a Pentagon rule to which the McCain campaign itself has been subjected recently. That's a fact. So this seems to be a simple cheap shot at Obama, in the hopes that the media won't be internet savvy enough (i.e., able to use Google) to figure out the whole story.It might behoove the media types to do their own google searches before buying into McCain's attacks. Actually, it might behoove the media types to fact check everything McCain says these days. Because, McCain and his campaign staffers are playing the political reporters for fools and just making things up.
"We follow the rules," Steve Schmidt from the McCain campaign said.
Exactly. And they have no problem attacking Obama for doing the same. That's the very definition of "double standard."
Regardless, the Pentagon will now be under more pressure to keep the playing field even--and to keep the policy consistent on both sides.
