I'm an old non-com who, as a bachelor lived in the barracks, and as such I'm well aware of the excitement that permeates any military barracks in the days leading up to a four-day, holiday weekend like Labor Day. Virtually every soldier has made big plans to escape his military existence for four precious days and spend that time with family or friends. Many will have to use the first and fourth days for travel to and from distant destinations, which means only two, crucial days of holiday pleasure for them, sandwiched between two less pleasant days of travel, especially if they must fly commercially. Take away just one of those days and many of those soldiers' plans will either have to be scrapped entirely or the time at home or whatever destination, be reduced to a single day. Plans made long in advance have to be rescheduled, a sometimes quite difficult task when it regards holiday weekend travel: flight changes may be impossible and hotels are booked solid; neither may allow changes in reservations without severe financial penalties.
So, some hotshot in the Obama campaign, feeling badly stung by the sparse turnouts for the president's visits to other locales, gets a bright idea of how to produce a really big crowd for a photo op: "Hey, let's schedule one for some military facility where the commander can be ordered to produce a big audience in a sufficiently impressive backdrop."
Yep
Well, who cares, as long as it looks good for me?
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And all so he can get this kind of reception?
http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/31/obama-speech-to-soldiers-met-with-silence/#ixzz25E3IsLTs
I honestly think no one thought that campaign stop through. Ordering people to show is an excellent way to get good numbers in the crowed... but most of them will be ticked off that you made them show.
Now, I wouldn't know what it's like to have Labor Day off in the Army, as I worked shifts the entire five years I was in when not in training. But most military arranged travel is completely non-refundable, so if you get called in to attend a mandatory anything, you're going to be pissed off.
I heard about this elsewhere, but didn't make the connnection with the holiday weekend.
Talk about stepping on your training aid....
Oh, that's okay. Most of them aren't going to vote for Obama anyway. In fact, that makes it a two-fer for him.
As I said to MH after reading this earlier, we can add this to our new (and quickly growing list) of reasons why we're glad we're now retired military.
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What astonishes me is the depth of stupidity this demonstrates. From a political image perspective. There was no way that an audience who had their vacation plans cut short (or altogether) was going to react positively towards a speaker who mandated their presence. I don't care if you're a CEO requiring an all hands staff meeting on a weekend, or a high school football coach who decides to give the kids a (mandatory) pep talk on the Fourth of July. The audience is going to be negatively inclined towards you. And only someone completely oblivious or completely narcissistic could overlook that. In this case, I suspect more of the latter and only some of the former.
Al Gore lost me completely (not that he ever had me) years ago in Memphis when he decided that the Friday of Labor Day weekend was a great time to come to Memphis. Which would have been fine, except that meant shutting down all the roads leading to the airport, which happened to be the roads leading from my work to my house, which meant I sat in traffic for an hour - after leaving work early - while he meandered to his destination.
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