Obama’s fact-finding trip has been all over the media. McCain has criticized Obama for being only on his first trip to Afghanistan and his second to Iraq. He charges that Obama can’t know what he’s talking about regarding these countries if he hasn’t visited them.
Why would any politician have to visit a country to know what’s going on there? I’m sure congressmen have access to many contacts in these countries through several different means of communication. I also strongly suspect that these expensive “fact-finding” trips are paid for by taxpayers. Way back when, politicians holding office hardly ever left the US – even the presidents stayed put. Now it seems politicians use their travels simply to draw attention to themselves. If this is not the case, according to Senator McCain, the vast majority of the general public are completely ignorant of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan simply because they have not toured those countries.
