“Why is a Senator being allowed to traipse around a war zone”
A better question is, why is he a Senator? It’s like Bill Ayers being an education expert, or Jeremiah Wright being a minister.
He was put up by the Daley machine.
The Republican candidate, a schmuck by the last name of Ryan (political poison in Illinois) acrimoniously divorced his wife and had the records sealed. The Chicago Tribune (currently circling the drain, and deservedly so) obtained and published the records, which indicated that Mrs. Ryan accused Mr. Ryan of frequenting sex clubs and trying to force her to take part. In liberal circles this would be laudable, but the Republicans took it as an opportunity to commit suicide, and imported the notoriously nutty Alan Keyes as their Plan B. Keyes graciously gave the Obama campaign, oops, I mean the news media, more ammo than they could shoot and his campaign was over before it started.
That's how Obama got elected.
Why he got elected? I have no clue.