Anatomy of an Attack: How McCain Hit Obama

July 27, 2008 — -- For days, Sen. John McCain's, R-Ariz., top advisers quietly -- and at times, not so quietly -- seethed as Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., basked in the limelight during his week-long overseas trip.

Even as they seethed, they were watching Obama's every move carefully, looking for a slip of the tongue, for some error by Obama that would provide them an opening to attack the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

That opening turned out to be Obama's decision to cancel a visit to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, where he would have met with wounded American troops.

On Friday, among the blizzard of daily e-mails the ever-vigilant McCain press office sends, was one under the headline "In Case You Missed It: Hannity on Barack Obama's Cancelled Military Visits."

It quoted the conservative Fox News commentator Sean Hannity saying, "If you want my take on this, if you want to remember one thing about this trip, is that Barack Obama chose to work out rather than see the wounded troops because he couldn't bring Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams with him."

The next day, the campaign released a statement from retired Army Lt. Col. Joe Repya blasting Obama.

"Barack Obama had scheduled a visit with wounded American troops who have served with honor and distinction in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he broke that commitment, instead flitting from one European capital to the next," Repya wrote.

In literature, this is known as foreshadowing.

A few hours later, the McCain campaign dropped the bomb in the form of a new television ad entitled "Troops." It featured an extraordinarily harsh attack line: "And now, he made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras. John McCain is always there for our troops. McCain. Country first."

The Obama campaign was quick to cry foul.

"John McCain is an honorable man who is running an increasingly dishonorable campaign," said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor. "Sen. Obama was honored to meet with our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan this week and has visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed numerous times. This politicization of our soldiers is exactly what Sen. Obama sought to avoid, and it's not worthy of Sen. McCain or the 'civil' campaign he claimed he would run."