Oops.

McCain's camp, accused in the New York Times and the Washington Post this morning of distorting Obama's canceled trip to a military hospital in German, seems to have backed off the core of the charge: That he canceled the trip because "the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras." "It does now seem that Barack Obama snubbed the troops for reasons other than a lack of photo-op potential," writes McCain blogger Michael Goldfarb this morning, contradicting his campaign's televised ads and his candidate's statements. But as the media swings around to contradict McCain's story, the campaign is trying to stay on offense, blaming the press for the confusion:

Um, Obama didn't snub the troops. This seems like an appropriate time to bust out this headline from ABC News' Jake Tapper again:

New McCain Ad Bashes Obama for Not Visiting Troops Using Footage of Obama Visiting Troops

Everything about the ad was wrong. As the Washington Post reported today in its top A-1 story today:

For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.

The reality:

A reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding Obama's decision not to visit Landstuhl, based on firsthand reporting from the trip, shows that his campaign never contemplated taking the media with him.

But this is funny:

McCain's advisers said they do not intend to back down from the charge, believing it an effective way to create a "narrative" about what they say is Obama's indifference toward the military.

It didn't take them long to back down. Front page stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times today apparently did the trick. McCain can't afford to lose his "base" over this.