According to Politico.com’s Jonathan Martin, the staff of Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany had already made arrangements to accommodate Obama’s traveling press pack and campaign staff while he visited wounded troops, but it looks like all was for naught when Obama found out that no press would be allowed in to hang on his every word.

“Sen. Obama is welcome to visit Landstuhl or any military hospital in his official capacity as a United States senator,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told Martin.  “But there is a DOD policy which governs campaigning and electioneering at military facilities that would have to be respected if he were to visit. That distinction was relayed and made clear to campaign, and they made a decision on their own based on that guidance.”

The decision to cancel the hospital visit was apparently made by Obama while en route from Tel Aviv to Berlin.

Of course, the campaign tried to spin it by saying that they were worried that Obama’s mere presence (with or without angel chorus) might be perceived as electioneering and tried to blame the Pentagon for Obama’s snub of the wounded troops.

Regardless of how things are spun, they don’t reflect well on Obama.  If the real reason for the snub was the lack of cameras, then it merely reinforces the notion that Barack Obama is little more than a pre-packaged Madison Avenue product.  If, somehow, that wasn’t the real reason, one must question both Obama’s judgment and the knowledge and experience of the people around him.  As a United States Senator — albeit a junior one with little-to-no experience — he is fully entitled to privately visit the troops with members of his non-campaign staff.

If Obama can screw up something as simple as a visit to our wounded soldiers, how can we trust him to capably handle the office of Commander-in-Chief?  And if the problem isn’t competence, but a sly political calculation based on not getting attention, how can we trust that he is mature, honest and sincere enough to be President of the United States?  With Barack Obama, what you see is not always what you get.