McCain camp says Obama shortchanged injured troops

The presidential candidate vowed to back changes to the disabilities law.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican John McCain’s campaign on Saturday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for canceling a visit to wounded troops in Germany, contending Obama chose foreign leaders and cheering Europeans over “injured American heroes.”

Obama’s campaign called the accusation “wildly inappropriate.” His spokesman has claimed that the visit to a military hospital in Germany was scrapped after the Pentagon raised concerns about political activity on a military base. Earlier, though, the campaign had said Obama decided the visit might be seen as inappropriate politicking. However, the Pentagon said the senator was never told not to visit.

McCain himself joined in the rebuke, saying in an interview to be aired today by ABC’s “This Week” that “if I had been told by the Pentagon that I couldn’t visit those troops, and I was there and wanted to be there, I guarantee you, there would have been a seismic event.”

McCain added, “He certainly found time to do other things.”

The McCain campaign’s criticism came as it grappled for another day with the intense media attention focused on Obama’s tour of the Middle East and Europe. The Arizona Republican had goaded Obama into visiting Iraq and Afghanistan, then watched as Obama’s meetings with the leaders of those countries and Jordan, Israel, the Palestinians, Germany, France and Great Britain dominated the political news.

In other McCain developments, the Republican presidential candidate is pledging support for a proposal to expand protections for people with disabilities under an 18-year-old landmark civil rights law.

Speaking from Arizona by satellite to a disabilities forum in Columbus, Ohio, McCain said Saturday that revisions to the Americans With Disabilities Act must leave no doubt that it was intended to protect from any discrimination that’s based on physical or mental disabilities.

The Supreme Court generally has exempted from the law’s protection people with partial physical disabilities, as well as people with physical impairments that can be treated with medication or devices such as hearing aids.

A month ago, the House passed a bill to extend protections to people who take medicine to control epilepsy, diabetes or cancer, or use prosthetic limbs. McCain, a co-sponsor of the 1990 law, said he intends to support a similar bill in the Senate.

McCain said blame for the narrowed scope of the law shouldn’t be placed on the Supreme Court, but rather on Congress. Obama, who was headed back to the United States from his international trip and didn’t attend the forum, has said he supports the bill so that it could override court decisions that narrowed the law’s scope. Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, an Obama surrogate who helped write the 1990 law, also spoke at the forum.

The forum marked the anniversary of the law, which prohibits discrimination against the disabled in employment, public accommodations, transportation and telecommunications.

The event also was aimed at giving presidential campaigns an opportunity to flesh out their positions on disability issues and at highlighting a voting bloc that is often ignored, said Rebecca Panoff, spokeswoman for the American Association of People with Disabilities, one of the advocacy groups that organized the forum.