<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Jul 25 2008, 01:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 25 2008, 03:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Jul 25 2008, 01:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>A disgraceful PR stunt, using the troops as a platform for his ego and campaign.</div> When the **** isn't this the case? </div> To be honest, I'm really thinking that the FEC has to get involved and they're likely to rule Obama's overseas fact-finding trip was illegal election activity. </div> How come? (I'm curious more than anything). </div> He went on a senatorial fact-finding trip at the taxpayers' expense. It sure looked like a campaign trip and ploy. No senator in my lifetime has ever gone and done the things he did overseas; not because they are somehow lesser individuals, but because it's just not done. For reasons of legality. Pelosi went overseas and met with leaders of nations, but she had already won her office and wasn't in the midst of a campaign. Even she took a lot of heat for it. Obama took along hundreds of campaign people (not including the press) and they were even filming his speech in Germany to use in a campaign commercial. <--- That would be an actual smoking gun, I'd think. Regardless, McCain urged him to do it and it obviously backfired. We'll have to see if the FEC is truly non-partisan and takes a look into the activities that should not have gone on.
My posts about FEC violations were not inspired by anything I've seen on TV or read in the press - other than just soaking it all in and the impression I was left with. I was googling to see if I might be wrong about the trip being a fact finding trip, which would absolutely absolve him of any likely violations. I'm not wrong. However, there's this on the first page of news results for "obama fact finding" - http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/257813 Opinion: Fact Finding or Fraudulent Use of Taxpayers Money? Sen. Obama has gone on a globe trotting fact finding tour. Fact finding tours are one of the perks CONgress gave themselves for summer recess and to showboat their concerns for...something, anything which would get them out of Washington D.C. A fact finding trip? I think not! Campaign signs on the police barricades at the Western Wall in Jerusalem would seem to me to point toward a very different agenda for the Barry O. As a fact finding junket trip it's up to every American to pay for the trip for Barry O. (The New American Aristocracy world travel perk) But if this is in fact just another sort of grandstanding for his campaign, which of course we all know it is, then it is up to the Obama campaign to pay for the trip. Obama is a very ballsy type of guy, flaunting his obvious campaign trip as a fact finding tour, mingling with world leaders - (getting in the way of the current Liberal Administrations relations with foreign dignitaries.) And just generally making a fool of himself on the world stage with his inability to stand behind a podium without a teleprompter telling him precisely what to say. Extemporaneous expostulations are not his bag it seems. If he's not worse than the current White House Liberal, he is at least as bad. And then of course he isn't just running for President of the United States, he apparently wants to be World President. A quote from a Fox News source shows the thought of being a world citizen. “I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before, although tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world,” Obama said from his perch next to the Victory Column in Berlin. How exceedingly distasteful Barry O is while he does the glaringly obvious attempt to show his credibility as a statesman for the consumption of the American Public. In hopes of course, the Obamanites at home will be captivated and enthralled by his World Class Stature, and his gravitas, of which he has none. Obama needs to confess this apparent crime of political pandering on a world stage at the expense of the American public, and then allow his campaign to pay back that American Public for the cost of his posturing on the world stage. Or show that the campaign has paid for every single mile travelled on his tour. If there is one person out there who really believes this trip was nothing more than a fact finding trip - bad enough in its own right, instead of a political stunt for his campaign -- I strongly recommend you stop drinking the Kool-Aid now, and call your local mental health facility because you are in dire need of professional help.
And this: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/uselection,0...r-pr-tour,36473 Obama’s overseas adventure: fact-finding trip or PR tour? Senator Barack Obama’s much-hyped overseas tour is taking him across the Middle East and, later this week, into Europe, where up to one million people are expected to attend a speech in Berlin before he drops in at the Elysee Palace and at 10 Downing Street. The Obama camp has been persistent in its claim that the tour is much more than a publicity stunt. "This trip is not at all a political trip or a rally of any sort," said Obama aide Robert Gibbs. "It is a series of substantive meetings with our friends and our allies to talk about the challenges we face and the national security demands for the 21st century." But the McCain campaign spokesperson Jil Hazelbaker was sceptical: "Let's drop the pretence that this is a fact-finding trip and call it what it is: the first-of-its-kind campaign rally overseas." Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post, believes the excitement generated by Obama’s tour bodes well for the future of American politics. "It matters how America is perceived abroad, and not just because it's nice to be popular," she says. "When America and American values are admired in other countries, American politicians have more influence on foreign affairs." Admiration from abroad is something the US sorely needs, says Karen Tumulty in Time magazine. In a series of recent polls "71 per cent of respondents said they believe the US is less respected in the world than it used to be… a majority said they view this loss of international respect as a major problem." As a result, images of Obama standing "shoulder-to-shoulder among those he would be dealing with as this country's President" will help persuade voters that he’s the one to repair America’s damaged reputation. Team Obama should use the stopovers in Europe to their advantage, says Bob Kall on the Huffington Post. "The images of those huge masses of people will be very powerful, showing independent voters what they'll be able to look forward to - a president the world will love… If Obama's team is smart… they will stop down in England, France, Germany, giving advance notice where he goes so the crowds can form." Tread carefully, says the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin. The adoring crowds of Europe may present a tempting photo opportunity, but a recent poll showed that only 37 per cent of Americans thoughts of Obama as "very patriotic". "That's why", says Goodwin, "Obama can't bash American policies or even President Bush while he's abroad. He'd get flowers from the anti-Americans, but reinforce doubts at home." Ben Smith on Politico goes even further, saying Obama has to present himself to the media back home as the "American abroad" with the emphasis "squarely on 'American'". The trip, says Smith, gives Obama the chance to rebuff "the familiar Republican assault - that he is, in some sense, not 'one of us'," by showing up in Europe and showing that he is not one of them.
Another shady practice, if not another smoking gun: http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.c...-speech-to.html Obama Campaign Uses Berlin Speech To Fundraise, Then Denies It Immediately after the supposed "non-political" speech that Barack Obama gave in Berlin today, his campaign sent out a fundraising email which solicits donations, via a DONATE button in the email that brings you to the Obama campaign contribution page, then denies that it was a fundraising email. Jake Tapper reports the content of the email as follows: "As you may have heard, Barack has been in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia this week," reads the email, with a big red "DONATE" sign. "Today, he spoke in Berlin, Germany. In a city where a wall once divided the free from the oppressed, he talked about tearing down the walls that divide all peoples so we can address our common problems -- the threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, global warming and genocide, AIDS and poverty. Watch Barack's historic speech and share it with your friends." The Obama campaign has denied that this trip was a political campaign trip, previously calling it a "fact finding" mission, yet the canceled a trip to visit wounded military members in Germany saying that it would be "inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign." To solicit donations using a speech that the Obama campaign claims was not a campaign speech used for political purposes, as a contribution hook, is clearly contrary to the previous claim that this speech in Berlin was of a political nature. After Tapper reported the email fundraising letter using Obama's political speech to encourage donations, the campaign then emailed to take issue with the piece, claiming that calling an email that solicits donations a "fundraising" email was misleading.
