Someone to whom the media will listen, anyway:
I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.
-- Gen. (ret.) Wesley K. Clark
I'm not looking for a Swiftboat-style attack on John McCain. I have no interest in trafficking in stories that allege that he was brainwashed by the Vietcong or that he turned traitor while in captivity or anything like that.
However, it has long irritated me that virtually no one in the MSM is capable of mentioning John McCain -- in any context -- without appending the words war hero. I respect the mindset that views military service as honorable and I admire his grit for surviving his years as a POW. But really, Wes Clark speaks the truth.
I thought Barack Obama put it nicely in a statement that some are sure to label as a non-apology apology (Clark is an Obama adviser):
For those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country, no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary.
Exactly. We're not questioning McCain's handling of himself during that time. But it did happen upwards of forty years ago, it's not like he's the only one who's ever gone through this, and in any case, it says nothing about his ability to be Chief Executive. The way that many pundits and even journalists refer to McCain, however, suggests that it happened last week, and that it serves as sufficient qualification for the job he now seeks.
There is also the sense in the phrase of an all-purpose Get Out Of Jail Free card. As soon as "war hero" is said, nothing more gets said about his history of shady land deals, his lack of understanding about economic or technological or environmental issues, his wish to continue the Bush policies on taxes and judicial appointments, his flip-flopping, the contradiction between his self-styled maverick image and the number of lobbyists who run his campaign, or the fact that his foreign policy views begin and end at the point of a bayonet.
So, good for Wes Clark for pointing out that what looks like a halo is really nothing more than a slightly elevated ring around the collar. And let me close by proposing that we should -- literally -- throw under the bus anyone who calls for Obama to throw Clark under the bus, or indeed, who even uses that most tiresome of political phrases.
[added] You really ought to have a look at Twin's follow-up remarks in the Comments. Thanks, Twin.
6 comments:
*The way that many pundits and even journalists refer to McCain, however, suggests that it happened last year, and that it serves as sufficient qualification for the job he now seeks.*
Bob Schieffer proved your point with his incredulous response of "really?!" when Clark made the simple observation that being shot down is no qualification to be president. Schieffer clearly could not believe his ears. Does that prove some kind of bias on his part? Of course it does.
I find it completely amazing that our Republican friends continue to believe that the media is liberal. No amount of evidence can ever persuade them otherwise. What they tell themselves is that even the liberal media is forced to agree with them and cover the "Clark attacks McCain's military service" story ad nauseam.
But, in fact, it's the media itself that makes these things into news stories. The media didn't wait for outrage from Republican quarters that it could report on. The media itself was outraged and proceeded to report on its own disgust with Clark's comments.
Even after years of seeing this kind of media-fueled faux outrage, I continue to be amazed every time it happens. I just can't believe there are that many people who are some combination of mendacious and stupid.
But that shows how naive I am.
Here's an interesting blogpost that relates tangentially to today's revolting episode. Unfortunately, Obama plays right into the ratfuckers hands by immediately condemning Clark's innocent remarks.
*I'm not looking for a Swiftboat-style attack on John McCain.*
One person who I have very little regard for is Andrew Sullivan, but for some reason I read him compulsively. (Maybe because he updates his blog so often, and links to a variety of interesting subject matter. Maybe, too, because he's become the functional equivalent of a Democrat in recent months.)
But his handling of the Clark story was revolting.
He started with the title "Swiftboating McCain," then embedded the video of Clark on Face the Nation. And then, directly below the video, he posted this text from Politico:
"Critics have accused McCain of war crimes for bombing targets in Hanoi in the 1960s. Sunday, a widely read liberal blog accused McCain of 'disloyalty' during his captivity in Vietnam for his coerced participation in propaganda films and interviews after he’d been tortured."
The clear implication of this juxtapositioning is to tie what Clark said to what these smear artists are saying. For those tens of thousands of Sullivan's readers who cannot watch video at work, the clear take-away would be that Clark himself was advancing the "disloyalty" and "war crimes" allegations.
In case there was any chance people wouldn't make the connection, Sullivan writes this, following the blockquote: "Wesley Clark is now and always has been a Clinton-type, but this is pretty revolting. This kind of personal attack was repulsive coming against Kerry from the far right."
This is all the more inexplicable since Sullivan has been a fairly enthusiastic Obama supporter.
Here's a link to that Sullivan piece.
Want to hear something ironic?
First of all, check out these wise words:
"Here is a better first step to retaking red-state voters. We talk about southern culture, blue-collar culture, NASCAR culture -- which overlaps, in complicated ways, with evangelical culture. Certainly one tenet they all share is this: When somebody punches you in the gut, you don't smile, stride halfway between his position and yours, and say that maybe the guy has a point. Behaving like that is precisely what has made the Democrats look so unsympathetically unfocused and confused to so many people. You have to convince them that you've got a fighting faith, too. Or else you can't fight."
I think we can all agree that this is one of the Democrats' big problems in recent years: Tipping our hat at the opponent while he is aiming rifle shots for our faces.
This is especially apt today, the day Barack Obama cut Clark off at the knees, accepting the McCain narrative and undercutting his own, showing exactly the kind of spinelessness described above.
So what's the ironic part?
Rick Perlstein wrote those words in an article praising Barack Obama for his ability to avoid this kind of trap.
Oh well.
Excellent comments, Twin. Thanks very much.
I was especially gratified to follow the link in the first Perlstein post to find out the truth behind the PUMAs.
What's ironic is that the person who is really being swiftboated here is Clark (and indirectly, Obama), not McCain.
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