Here we go again. McCain is being real desperate. Its sad that he can't leave our service men and woman out of his attacks.

Sen. Chuck Hagel took on his old friend and fellow Vietnam veteran Sen. John McCain, criticizing McCain’s new TV ad attacking Sen. Barack Obama.

In the ad, the Republican presidential candidate complains about Obama’s recent decision not to visit U.S. troop hospital in Germany, saying, “Sen. Obama made time to go to the gym but canceled a visit with wounded troops.”

“I do not think that ad was appropriate,” Hagel said in an appearance on CBS-TVs “Face the Nation.” Obama’s staff was advised by the Pentagon about the military’s concerns with Obama bringing his political campaign to see soldiers there, his advisers have said.

Hagel jumped into a discussion of the McCain ad between CBS host Bob Schieffer and Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.), who called the ad “completely distorted.” Reed and Hagel had accompanied Obama to Afghanistan and Iraq as part of an official “congressional delegation.” Hagel said that it would have been wrong for Obama, as part of his campaign-financed political trip, to visit troops at the U.S. hospital in Germany after the official congressional trip had ended.

Hagel said that if Obama had visited the U.S. hospital at that point, he would be “using our wounded men and women as props for his campaign.” Obama “probably did the right thing,” Hagel said, adding that Obama, he and Reed visited troops “everywhere” in Iraq during their congressional trip.

The Pentagon has said it wasn’t trying to keep Obama from visiting the medical facility, where veterans of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are recovering. But Obama’s advisers have said that Pentagon made it clear to them that they did not sanction an Obama campaign stop, paid by his campaign, at the hospital.

During ABC-TV’s “This Week,” McCain criticized Obama’s decision in Germany, saying “Those troops would have loved to see (Obama).” He continued: “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 said seven times that Obama “does not understand” Iraq, the military situation or America’s stake in the area. And he declined to apologize for his recent attacks on Obama for pushing a faster withdrawal of troops from Iraq. “I am saying that he made the decision, which was political, in order to help him get the nomination of his party,” McCain said when “This Week” host George Stephanopolous pressed him about a comment last week that Obama “would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.”

McCain said he was questioning Obama’s “actions” not his patriotism. He later told CNN that he wasn’t questioning Obama’s patriotism, saying he was sure Obama is a patriotic American.

Hagel had a different take: “I think John is treading on some very thin ground here,” he said. “John’s better than that,” he added.