IRAQ visit: Appropriate visit or tacky stunt?

[Gringo]

Poll question: IRAQ visit: Appropriate visit or tacky stunt?

The carrier landing was way over the top, and an obvious election photo-op.

I personally was unable to be as critical of the Thanksgiving visit. If you pretend that this were a "normal" president, this would be a nice morale booster for our beleaguered troops.

Whaddaya think?

[theivoryqueen]

1. total photo op

devised to draw attention from Sen. Clintons' visits throughout the region. And no way did they take "5 weeks" to plan it.

[prolesunited]

5. Agreed

If they hadn't done it, the focus would have been on Hillary and the Dems during the Thanksgiving weekend. They certainly couldn't have that.

His trip was planned long after hers.

This was NOT Georgie's idea and all those reports about his involvement in planning and attentiveness to detail tells me that he was scared shitless. They MADE him do this.

[ewagner]

2. Hard call

Yes, Bush* used the trip as a cheap publicity stunt. There is no question about that. But the troops deserved to have a special visit from the Commander-in-Chief.

The difficulty here is controlling my personal hatred for Bush*s lust for photo-ops and thinking about the troops. Foir most of the troops, this will be the only time in their life where they get to shake hands with or even see the POTUS. Regardless of who it is, its a big event in their life. I don't begrudge them the opportunity but I do hate the fact that Dubya sees it as nothing more than a PR stunt.

[KensPen]

4. anything for a pretty picture....

what else do you do with an empty suit.

Bush bitched about the security in England...

BUT...

has no problems going to Iraq, as long as the picture and the press are good enough.

[Ficus]

3. don't attack him...won't need to

I'm not too worried. I remember when the aircraft carrier landing happened, and people were scared about him using that as a campaign ad. Well, how much does he want "mission accomplished" shown behind him. I don't think he really can put a good face on this.

[soupkitchen]

6. He was filming his Letterman segment: Stupid Presidential Tricks

[StuckinBuffalo]

7. I was very surprised that.................

Commander in Chief Shrub didn't attempt a HALO jump into Bagdad airport just for the photo-op. Better yet, just imagin the impact of Condi and him repelling into the dinner, special ops style, from a helicopter. LOLOLOL

[ProfessorGAC]

8. The Troops Are Still Beleagured!

Big deal! The troops get jacked up for a few hours and then back to the grind while he runs home to Crawford. The troops are still in the exact same situation as before he pulled this stunt.

Nothing is changed; nothing is better. They've got TV over there. They know how people feel. They know 80+% of the people would rather they were home than over there.

They didn't need li'l Georgie over there to pump them up. That's a bunch of propagandistic nonsense, meant to excuse the tremendous waste of money and further rationalization for secrecy by the most cloistured group in White House history.

So, i'll be personally critical for both of us.
The Professor

[gasperc]

9. Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed were there Friday and Saturday

for OVER 10 hours, how much news did anyone catch about that. It overshadowed her trip, kept her out of the new cycle

plain and simple

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Normal presidents visit injured vets, attend funerals of

war dead (or meet the caskets at Dover), telephone or visit families of the dead and injured.

This crew wanted us to buy Jessica Lynch as the only wounded vet, along with her "heroic" rescue. No flag-covered caskets are to be seen. Bush never met with any American families until AFTER meeting with British families on his recent trip to England. THAT is an outrage (not meeting with the Brits, but meeting with them when he'd never met with any American next-of-kin.)

Besides, there's the existential question: if you "visit a country" without leaving the airport, were you really "there"?

[pippin]

11. the tackiest yet

at tax payer expense.

[eissa]

12. Cheap grandstanding

He couldn't have the press covering Clinton and Reed visiting the troops. And what a coward! Hillary and Jack announced their trip way in advance. If any "terrorists" wanted a shot at them, they would have had plenty of time to plan. Yet the coward-in-chief went sneaking in the dead of night. Photo-op only and he should be called on it.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

13. Six weeks in the planning

According the White House sources, the original idea for the visit came up in mid-October, meaning that the White House spent nearly six weeks planning the visit.

Damned shame they didn't give that much thought to the foreign policy that placed soldiers there in the first place...

[guajira]

14. The Bully Couldn't Let A Woman Outdo Him! - Did Anyone See him

pull away from Laura's hand as they were de-planing from their trip to Europe?

She was walking beside him on the tarmac, and put her hand on his arm. He abruptly pulled his arm away from her, and they walked a little farther apart. Her happy smile immediately turned to a hurt smile. Faux News used this clip for awhile when referring to B*, then switched to another file clip of B* walking from the plane alone!