Rice limits embassies' aid for candidates

Who arranged for John McCain's visit to the Baghdad market?

It's an election year. The state department cannot endorse any candidate due to conflict of interests. Obama's trip, celebrity status and timing are his own problem. If he would have gone last year when he was not a candidate, no problem. He may not get invited to the Bilderberg Conference for the same reason.

John McCain had announced his candidacy for President prior to his trip to Baghdad. Announced March 1st 2007. Trip to Baghdad market April 1st 2007.

Where was Condi Rice when the State Department sent John McCain to Columbia last month? Don't tell me that wasn't a campaign trip. Where was Condi Rice when we sent John McCain for a walk through the Green Zone with his flak jacket and 500-man-strong security detail? First the Republicans attack Obama for not going on enough foreign trips. But when he goes, they attack him for going. Don't you wish they would make up their minds? It also seems the biggest meddler in domestic politics is the State Department, which obviously wants John McCain around for then next 4 years so that a they can have a shield for all the war crimes they've committed over the past 8 years. This is another sad demonstration of the Bush Administrations extreme politicization of administrative agencies and departments. Obama is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as is McCain. He has as much right to visit these countries as McCain does. Unlike McCain, he has acknowledged openly that he is going to these countries as a Senator, not as a President.

Are there different rules for Obama and McCain? Didn't McCain just travel overseas as part of a codel, just like Obama?

Rice must have heard how all the departments were breaking out the champagne and caviar on hearing Obama was coming and in anticipation of an intelligent foreign policy for the first time in almost 8 years.