Two for the Price of One: McCain Camp Hits Obama on Troop Visit and Calls Him a Celebrity

The John McCain campaign combined its two recent favorite lines of attack Thursday, hitting Barack Obama for not visiting wounded troops in Germany and calling him a celebrity in the same statement.

“Last week, Senator Obama skipped a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because the Pentagon would not allow campaign staff or media to accompany him into the hospital. I served as director of trauma surgery at that hospital for nearly four years and saw the effect that a visit from a celebrity like Senator Obama could have on morale,” Dr. Danny Jazarevic, the chief of trauma care at Landstuhl medical base, wrote in a statement sent out by the McCain campaign.

“During that time, I do not recall a single member of Congress canceling a visit with the troops despite being just a few hours away, but Senator Obama seems to have been more concerned with how the visit would affect him than how it would affect the soldiers recovering from wounds received in the service of their country.”

Each day since Obama’s speech in Berlin last week, the McCain camp has issued a statement on Democratic presidential nominee not visiting wounded troops, but the Obama campaign, and many others, have pushed back against the attack. The group FactCheck.org has called the attack simply “false.”

“In fact, Obama visited wounded troops earlier — without cameras or press — both in the U.S. and Iraq,” the group wrote.

The McCain camp has also taken every opportunity available this week to call Obama a “celebrity” linking him with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in a campaign ad and in interviews with top surrogates.

Obama hit back against that line of attack Thursday by asking McCain, “is that the best you can come up with?”

Responding to Obama at a town hall in Wisconsin, McCain said, “all I can say is that we are proud of that commercial.”