Obama Goes AWOL

Obama is refusing to appear in a Town Hall debate with McCain before a crowd of military service members and their families. The debate was organized by Disabled American Veterans, Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Military Spouse Corporate Career Network, among others. This man is devoid of substance and character.
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This from the NYT:

A coalition of military groups is planning a nationally televised town-hall-style meeting with the presidential candidates near Fort Hood, Tex., the largest active-duty military installation in the country. But so far, only Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, has agreed to attend.

CBS has agreed to broadcast the meeting live from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, Aug. 11. The candidates would face questions directly from an audience of 6,000 people, made up of veterans, service members and military families from the base.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has not agreed to participate.

“Senator Obama strongly supports America’s veterans and military families and has worked hard on their behalf in the Senate,” said Phillip Carter, director of Mr. Obama’s veterans effort and an Iraq war veteran. “While we unfortunately had a previously scheduled commitment on the date proposed, Senator Obama looks forward to continuing the dialogue he’s been having throughout the country with veterans on how we can better serve our men and women in uniform as they serve us.”

Carissa Picard, managing director of the Fort Hood Presidential Town Hall Consortium, said she had suggested Aug. 11 and asked the campaign to suggest other dates if that was not convenient, but after several conversations she had not been able to work anything out.

“I’m having extreme difficulty getting the Obama campaign to commit to this event, and we do not understand why,” said Ms. Picard, whose husband is deployed in Iraq. “We made it very clear to them that if they would commit to the event, we would work with them on dates.”

The organizers released details about the event in hopes that it would pressure the Obama campaign to agree to the event.

“This was a decision that was made with tremendous difficulty, to publicize it,” Ms. Picard said. “We were at a point where we had no other option. We got the impression that they could talk us to November.”

The meeting would be at the Expo Center in Belton, Tex., about 25 miles from Fort Hood.

. . . “McCain and Obama are asking to be the next commander in chief,” Ms. Picard said. “What’s a more compelling audience than this, the people that you have asked to maintain our security? It would be tremendous for the morale of this community.” . . .

Read the entire article.

Stand Obama in front of a teleprompter, and his speeches are near divine. Stand him up before adoring crowds and his sound bytes are taken as the purest exposition of truth. With a press corps in the tank and questions, even the rare hard one, not asked with the follow up they deserve, he does passably well in highly structured debates. He has yet to be challenged and forced to go beneath his facile responses. He has wholly ducked John McCain's call for a series of ten debates around the country in an open format. And now he refuses to appear before our most patriotic citizens. Obama is not but smoke and mirrors, and his refusal to appear before our military in a debate with McCain speaks volumes about his lack of character and substance.

(Picture of Obama with seal from the extraterrestrials at the Moxargon Group. Do pay them a visit.)