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Night before Obama flies abroad, Rice bars embassies from aiding candidates

  • Jul. 21st, 2008 at 4:50 PM
Dancing Skeletons

The night before presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) left for Afghanistan, Iraq and Western Europe for a tour of US bases overseas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a cable to US missions forbidding them from holding events for presidential candidates or arrange meetings for them.

Rice issued no such cable prior to foreign excursions by presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). 

(original article here)

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[info]jasheffe wrote:
Jul. 22nd, 2008 12:15 am (UTC)
AP says different...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080721/ap_on_el_pr/embassies_candidates
"but limited the communication to embassies in countries the Republican planned to visit."

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[info]wickedthought wrote:
Jul. 22nd, 2008 12:24 am (UTC)
That's very clever. The State department says they limited communication to embassies for both candidates... but it isn't true. Not exactly.

The new edict is for both candidates, but comes now when Obama is visiting overseas and McCain is not. So, yes, the edict is for both candidates... now that McCain has already travelled overseas.
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[info]jasheffe wrote:
Jul. 22nd, 2008 12:49 am (UTC)
Countries that McCain went were sent memos. When Obama left, a blanket memo was issued. This covers any issues moving forward for both candidates should the choose to continue travel overseas at any point until the election.

I'm not really seeing any conspiracy here. Yes, the State Dept should have issued the blanket memo when McCain went overseas, but they did issue a memo to the places he went...as opposed to the "doing nothing" that the article you cited claimed. I think, if something foul existed, Obama's people would have made a statement already.
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[info]wunderworks wrote:
Jul. 22nd, 2008 04:19 pm (UTC)
The AP has also recently tried several funky ideas of copyright (more than six words from an article and you owe them money). NTM, some of their political stories have been, well, rather political.
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[info]electricpaladin wrote:
Jul. 22nd, 2008 12:50 am (UTC)
This is no surprise. This administration has proved itself repeatedly more interested in politics than little things like fairness or effectiveness.
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[info]tundra_no_caps wrote:
Jul. 22nd, 2008 03:22 am (UTC)
He's also visiting Israel BTW.
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