Home Alone

Seen front and center in the ramp-up to Obama's "major foreign policy speech" in Berlin, Germany? A big blue and white banner held aloft reading "NO YOU CAN'T." Talk about audacity. Heard in Berlin, Pa., Berlin, Wisc., and Berlin, N.H. -- a McCain radio campaign blasting Obama for voting against a 2007 bill to fund troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Seen at an Ohio German-American restaurant today? The candidate who stayed home to campaign. (Oh, and he was at a Bethlehem, Pa., grocery store, too!)

Also worth noting: As both parties ramp up for voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, veterans hospitals are turning away those who'd like to make sure vets have the vote. They say their main mission is the rehabilitation of our servicemen, but their refusal has the effect of disenfranchising those who've laid their lives on the line. Obama and Clinton have objected to the ban, which is blamed by federal officials on the Hatch Act.

One can only assume the Democrats hope our veterans want to react against the current administration and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their reactions may well depend on who comes in to speak to them and what messages they hear. Keeping those isolated in hospitals from voting, however, is hardly democratic -- and cutting them off from free debate is even worse.