And another thing — just to see how untenable this balancing act that the Obama camp is trying to maintain really is, check out head Obama strategist David Axelrod trying to explain the campaign’s position by totally distorting what Clark actually said. Remember, Clark went out of his way to praise McCain’s heroic service (“I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war…. Everybody admires John McCain’s service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There’s no issue there. He’s a great man and an honorable man.”) But to listen to Axelrod, you’d think Clark had said just the opposite.
Guess what, folks. Politics ain’t beanbag, and Obama will not become president if he can’t convince a lot of people that he rather than McCain would be the superior Commander in Chief. Conceding McCain’s strongest argument, while undercutting folks on your side who tell it like it is, is not a great way to go about doing that.
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p>Link. By the way, if you missed the MoveOn reference, he’s talking about this passage from Obama’s “Patriotism” speech today:
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p>However bad an idea you may think the “General Betray-Us” thing was, I don’t understand why Obama thought it was a good idea to bring it up today.
This was a sound move strategically and something Republicans have done for a long time. Go after your opponents purported strengths.
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p>I think it makes perfect sense from the long view of this story to distance the campaign from Clark in order to protect the high road campaign. At the end of the day, the cat is out of the bag and the narrative will fester or take hold as the public decides.
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p>The one concern that makes this tricky in my view is the narrative between the two candidates. If the deciding factors on ability or skills to lead turn to legislative accomplishments only and we discredit the military service. Where does obama stand v. mccain?
I called Obama’s campaign today to voice my frustration with his throwing Clark under the bus today. Obama’s instincts on this are all wrong, which makes me VERY concerned about some of his other instincts. At any rate, the person I spoke with at the campaign didn’t even know who Bill Burton is and said she “didn’t care” who he is. It was a very heated exchange. I told her she better find out who he is because thousands of people around the nation are reading his comments on behalf of the Obama campaign and they are as pissed off as I am.
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p>I’ve commented and commented on this thing today on TPM and Kos, and my anger has left me feeling exactly the way I did when this primaries started: Obama is too conciliatory, too unwilling to actually campaign.
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p>I worry about Kerry redux quite a bit. If Obama doesn’t grow some vertebrae, we’re toast.
Even a Kerry redux can probably beat McCain – he has all of Bush’s baggage and none of his assets (let’s not forget that Bush wasn’t completely terrible on the stump years ago, even if he’s either going senile now or just lost his swagger). It’s all the more likely that Obama will win since there are clearly some things he excels at with campaigning, and many things David Axelrod excels at…
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p>So, if Obama wins… what do we have as President? Will he have the political courage to do the right things? As much as Patrick’s pissed me off from time to time, he never swerved when it came to protecting civil rights and never backed down as Governor, as he easily could have. Will he be able to listen while in office and push the policies that his base wants, which is what any good politician should do, especially when those policies are deeply needed today in this dreadful economy and time of global warming. I’m just not so sure. This all reminds me of why I didn’t vote for McCain in the primary: the most important thing we can have is someone who will be a competent president who can fix the crap Bush has put us through. I’m not so sure Obama is that person yet.
… at least she gave a reason this time.
You do it lavishly.
I thought your comment odd, until I looked at our respective ‘ratings given’ for the last couple of months.
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p>In that time, I’ve given twenty-one ‘6’s, fifteen ‘5’s, and four ‘4’s – which seemed pretty balanced, not lavishly downrating people.
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p>But, I looked at yours – and EVERY comment was a six! ALL of them! Except for seven ‘3’s – all of them given to me.
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p>Look for yourself, and decide who is lavish, exactly….
and decided to give you a lot of 3s. Otherwise, yes, I just give sixes and zeroes.
… big claims to fame was luring longtime & loyal Democrats. Are we admitting the idea of McCain accomplishing the same feat is absurd?
I voted for Hill. I wanted to vote for Edwards.
As if anyone needed testicles to be tough. Hah!
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p>In any event, James Carville’s attack-dog advice didn’t prove to be so successful in the primary just completed.
either disclaims association with the surrogates or discounts the message.
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p>Neither of these candidates is an attack dog, and that’s a good thing. Obama, in general, I think, is more vunerable to political attack – as a relative newcomer who is not well defined, and as a young black man with a name that sounds like Osama. Look at the article about, what was it, flag city Ohio – that’s a classic Jesse Helms style of attack by innuendo.
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p>Obama wants to elevate the dialog, and McCain probably will have a natural tendency to go that route, unlike the current occupant of the White House and his running mate.
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p>Wes Clark made a credible, and elevated, assertion about McCain. Obama does not need, or want, to pile on.
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p>It will be instructive to see who the GOP picks as a running mate, and what tack they take. I suspect they will not elevate the dialog.
That’s true — but that’s very different from rejecting Clark’s comments. It would have been very easy for Team Obama to say something non-committal about Clark’s comments, while praising McCain’s heroism but arguing that Obama has better judgment. Rejecting Clark’s statement screwed everything up.
which I don’t see as a particularly inspiring strategy. What would Obama gain by somehow playing the “veteran card” or the “military command experience card”? It’s obviously not his to play anyway. Besides, isn’t Obama leading in the polls now? Why attack McCain based on his having been a POW? I think that brining up McCain’s military record in a negative way will always backfire, so I disagree that this was a “big mistake” on Obama’s part.
is that (a) Wesley Clark is right (do you disagree? If so, please explain), and (b) Obama shouldn’t be afraid of having Clark (or anyone else) speak truthfully. Isn’t the Obama candidacy in large part about trusting people with the truth? Why run away from that now?
But I don’t see any wisdom in trying to turn it into a liability. McCain’s ignorance of current events and limited vision of the world speaks for itself, and will speak even louder during the debates, I think.
There are better ways to attack McCain than the fact that he was shot down and tortured. OK, OK, I know that’s not exactly what Clark was doing, but it is sort of what he was doing: he is saying that McCain is trying to leverage his POW experience into a claim that he should be C-in-C. The Obama guys are saying: let’s get away from all that, and talk about whether what we are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq is working, why we haven’t caught Mr. Bin Laden, how our dependence on foreign oil affects our security: that sort of thing. I agree that is a more productive line of attack.
Let’s pretend that I actually agree with you and that there are other, better ways to attack McCain. That still doesn’t change the fact that it was a serious blunder. If Obama doesn’t want people talking about McCain’s POW status and how that doesn’t qualify him to be President, then he should say that… in private. By doing so in public, he had a bad media day and furthers the growing meme that Obama is weak and will throw any of his supporters under the bus at the first instance of them displeasing him. Not many people like that trait and it’s now a growing trend.
McCain is pretty much saying that his experience is the fundamental reason why he would be a good president…and Obama wouldn’t. It’s his single main line of self-introduction and rationalization.
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p>Imagine the situation were reversed: if Mike Huckabee came out and said that being an inspiring social activist who brings together new coalitions does not mean that Obama can make the changes we need in our next president. Would you expect McCain to disown that?
a) McCain is running in great part on his military experience, so it’s become an important issue in the campaign.
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p>b) He’s trying to play himself off as a military expert – which is the number one reason why he thinks we need to elect him.
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p>c) He doesn’t actually have relevant experience on matters of military leadership. He’s never been a general. So, why should we trust him on those matters anymore than we should trust Obama?
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p>d) Attacking someone’s strength can be a brilliant political move. If the primary reason to vote for a candidate is called into question, what else is there left? This is actually an important matter for Americans and Wes Clark was right to bring it up.
John McCain was a Navy man. They don’t have generals, they have admirals. McCain retired as a captain, “roughly halfway” between ensign and fleet admiral on the chart, and one promotion below rear admiral.
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p>I agree with Clark that being shot down doesn’t qualify you to be commander in chief, but I disagree with you in your claim that “He doesn’t actually have relevant experience on matters of military leadership” because he’s never been a general[sic]. I don’t think it’s a 1 or a 0; I think he got some relevant experience, and had he been promoted to admiral he’d have gotten more.
… about the whole admiral thing. He claims to have refused a promotion in favor of running for congress. Others don’t remember it that way:
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I was saying “general” in general, so to speak. I obviously know the Navy has admirals (and even knew McCain was in the navy).
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p>I still disagree with the premise that he has relevant experience. There’s a big difference between being a fighter pilot and having experience leading troops into battle, or command over whole swaths of the Navy. He’s trying to make us believe he’s the latter, when he’s really just the former. There’s nothing wrong with that in general, but when you’re running on your military experience, you better have a lot of freaking experience… especially in the way of leading on the battlefield or in deployments.
Clark (nor anyone I can think of for the moment) did no such thing. You could have the minimum decency to argue on what he said and not what you wished he had said.
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p>Sheesh!
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p>The political genius of Karl Rove was that you DON’T disclaim association with surrogates who are spouting off the right message (as Clark most certainly is, in attacking McCain’s strengths to turn them into weaknesses). The Bush administration never condemned or truly distanced themselves from the Swiftboaters, because by attacking John Kerry’s Commander in Chief bonafides, that seriously diminished his candidacy – it was why John Kerry made it through the primaries, we thought we needed a war hero to take on a Republican… so the Republicans sowed the seeds of doubt about his record. John McCain’s only asset at this point is the meme that he’s the guy who can protect us, so it can only help when a 4 star general plays up the fact that McCain’s never been a general or an admiral. Apparently, the strategy is sadly too good for Democrats…
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p>Oh, please. The Republicans are going to fling everything they’ve got at us, then just make up more shit if that’s not enough, and McCain won’t lift a finger to stop it. If Obama is unwilling to use credible attacks on McCain, so Americans can make a proper judgment about that man’s qualifications to be President, then maybe we will lose this election after all. And, if we don’t, God help us all with Obama’s administration. It’ll be one term, for sure, and not go anywhere near enough to stop the bleeding.
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p>Of course Obama shouldn’t pile on. He should have just shut up about it and let Wes Clark do his stuff. This stuff only works when the candidates themselves say “no comment.”
“we honor and respect John McCain’s service to this country”
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p>but instead he chose to effectively concede that McCain is more qualified to be CiC than him (and by the way, it is an anomaly is US presidential history that candidates run to be “Commander in Chief”)
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p>who knows why? to seek merits from a McCain-adoring press? another Sister Souljah moment? maybe Ralph Nader was right?
Is it your suggestion that the best thing for this country is for supporters of Obama, and perhaps the candidate himself, to emulate the politics of George Bush and Karl Rove?
My god, why would we ever dismiss good strategy? Aren’t we supposed to a) learn from our mistakes and b) not copy what works? What would you rather us do? More of the same? Because that’s what Obama has clearly indicated he wants to do, by pissing on the constitution, throwing Wes under the bus and now supporting faith-based charities.
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p>Here’s an important distinction: Rove and Bush went too far. They became a bunch of no good liars; we don’t have to do that. If they weren’t so blatant about it, and didn’t use their political muscle to get us into a war no one wanted, Bush may really have been remembered as the second coming of Jesus Reagan. They were too greedy.
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p>However, Democrats should never be afraid to fight in the trenches and get dirty, especially when the truth is on our side. Americans deserve a fair hearing on whether or not McCain’s war experience qualifies him to be the commander in chief in a time of war, since that’s essentially what he’s running on. There is absolutely, positively nothing wrong about attacking McCain’s strength when that’s what he’s chosen to run on. It’s not only brilliant strategy, but an important question for Americans to mull over.
Obama has had zero experience at anything other than being a ward boss and being in the senate a few years. I mean he wants to be president and he’s a blank slate. Cripes, I’ve dome twice in my life than Obama and I’d have zero business running for president.
Now there’s something we can all agree on! 😉
It doesn’t escape my notice that the man slapped down so hard by the Obama campaign is one of Hillary Clinton’s most visible surrogates, and a popular VP pick who the Obama campaign probably doesn’t want.
did in that statement squash the notion as Clark as a VP candidate.
http://www.vietnamveteransagai…
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2…
National Enquirer “internet” material perhaps but then again http://www.projectcensored.org touches upon only the most mainstream of blacklisted corporate media topics. It has me monitoring with disbelieving ears everything transmitted in the English language the does not also promote New World Order in the main menu selection.
Wesley Clark is 100% true in his comments that being shot down and a POW aren’t presidential qualifiers, but what he fails to mention is the rest of McCain’s military record, which is years worth of happenings. John McCain could have wallowed in despair and PTSD when he got back, but he didn’t and served another 8 years after he got back — and it was an active 8 years, too. Also, decades of service on the armed forces committee? Chairmanship of it?
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p>If you want to say that being a POW doesn’t help you be president, you’re right, but if you ignore the rest of McCain’s military and military-related career and record, you’re wrong.
a) his post-war record is suspect to both liberals and conservatives (something he’s running from on issue after issue)
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p>b) the POW stuff is the Fabreeze covering up the smell that would otherwise be McCain’s Maverickness going up in flames.
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p>Without the veil of being Mr. Maverick, which he’s completely tossed out the window purely to get another crack at being President, what else but war-hero status does John McCain have to run on? People will vote for a war hero for war hero sake if they were a general leading the troops on the field, saving us from Nazis and the Japanese, or keeping the union together, or perhaps bringing peace to a genocidal area… but for being held captive for years? No.
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p>McCain’s smokescreen is getting blown away by people like Wes Clark. Let’s hope Obama just keeps mum about those who are doing him serious, major favors… and reminding the voters just who John McCain really is (a war hero, sure, but not Presidential material).
McCain’s judgment should be the issue. For example, his early support for the invasion of Iraq versus Obama’s equally early contention that it was a bad idea.
such as McCain’s support for a surge strategy since 2003 that once implemented in 2007 saw a a drastic drop in violence and increased stability.
Two things happened at the same time, but were not causally related. One, the escalation began (it doesn’t count as a surge because the numbers aren’t forecast to go down before withdrawal). Two, Muqtada al Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire and retired back to Iran to burnish his clerical credentials.
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p>On the rare times that Sadr’s forces (and the Peshmerga in Kurdistan) have felt the need, they’ve clearly demonstrated that they are autonomous and powerful actors. If tomorrow Sadr wakes up and changes policy, either in his interests or those of his sponsor’s, we’d see how successful the surge has been.
that a drastic increase in troop levels in Baghdad and Sadr’s decision to call a cease-fire were unrelated. Despite his rhetoric, I don’t think al-Sadr is in a hurry to meet those virgins.
But the cease-fire was implemented before the escalation began.
I don’t remember the goal of the surge being to return violence to the levels of violence seen in 2005.
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p>Once more, what does such fragile peace do for the long run? Foreign Affairs journal says:
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p>Color me unimpressed with the results of the surge.
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article
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p>Well, if the White House says it… For real, though, I’m skeptical of anything the White House says about Iraq, especially since every 6 months Bush claims the US is making “progress”. I’m not skeptical of the fact that benchmark progress has been made, but I am skeptical of the degree of success the White House claims, so I’ll wait for some independent vetting to pass full judgement.
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p>And what exactly are the deadlines for these benchmarks, if not July 2007? Or are these open-ended, indefinite kinds of benchmarks? And what is the plan when all 18 are completed?
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p>Conditions may be improving but to say it is “working” the way it was supposed to seems false given that the deadline has been blown for a year and by the White House’s own admission the 18 benchmarks are still incomplete, especially given how fragile experts say the success is.
… like this, who needs failures?
McCain flew 23 combat missions, for an estimated 20 hours over enemy territory, for which he was awarded 28 medals. You’re correct in that we should be clear about the extent of his service.
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p>While he is distancing himself from the current administration, it will be difficult for him to highlight his complicity in the egregious pillaging of the American economy by the out-of-control military-industrial complex (which another actual military commander who did become president warned us about).
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p>And, until his own campaign wants to admit he was ever in the Senate, and therefore part of the “problematic Washington culture”, I guess the AFC chairmanship will not count in his favor.
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Do some fact checking. Upon retirement, he had 17 awards and decorations.
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p>source
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p>Lies.
But Time reported in 2000 that “McCain had flown only 23 combat missions when he was shot down in October 1967.”
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p>I don’t know how many hours that translates into and I don’t know if new information has superseded Time‘s report of 23 combat missions. At lest the 23 combat missions comes from a credible source.
are probably quite substantial given his work after the war. I’m sure he would have had many more combat hours had events not gone the way they did.
You’re not going to hear me minimize McCain’s service for “only” flying 23 missions. So to me it’s irrelevant if he spent 20 hours or 2,000 hours above Vietnam. The guy was held hostage and tortured; he has nothing to prove to me as far as his Vietnam service.
come on, throw me a ratings abuse bone here. I debunk his claim with cold hard facts and he “delete comment” ratings me.
Sorry, this is exactly the type of comment that has really made me think that the liberal blogosphere has lost its mind.
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p>Yes, Clark was not demeaning McCain’s military record with these comments, and it’s mildly annoying that the (currently bored) media is manufacturing a story to blab about for a couple days. But guess what: WHO CARES. This is meaningless compared to the faltering economy, rising gas prices, crumbling infrastructure, the continuing war in Iraq, etc. etc. Things are pretty screwed up right now, and the McCain team has found a great way to divert attention from the real problems — a wise strategy when the public has turned against his party’s so-called ideas.
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p>And yet many on the liberal side want Obama to be diverted by all this BS. Sorry, complaining about Obama not standing up for a surrogate on a useless, meaningless, issue, and thus helping to keep light on this foolishness does nobody any good. Obama’s response was perfect: say what he’s said all along about McCain having a honorable past but advocating future Bush-continuing policies that are flat-out bad for America. There’s no reason to be caught up in this.
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p>Please, don’t help to fan the flames. This incident has nothing to do with Obama somehow admitting that because McCain was a POW he is would be the superior C-in-C (I mean, are you serious? You really get this out of this ridiculousness?). It has to do with the McCain team finding any way they can to divert the media away from the real issues as long as they can.
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p>It’s all part of the unfortunate tendency in the liberal blogosphere to see everything as a serious “problem” that must be addressed. Give it a rest. Some things really don’t require outrage.
the problem is Obama attacking Clark, leaving one more super VP choice shot down. Carville killed Richardson’s chance with his Judas comments, and Clintonites have written off McCaskill, Napolitano, and Sebelius as token women.
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p>So the one top candidate left that hadn’t been taken out by the Clinton campaign, and Obama’s campaign goes out of their way to attack him? Attacking Clark over this has to be the worst move the Obama campaign has made strategically.
if the candidate doesn’t choose him.
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p>Which, clearly, he does not.
Because regardless of how it gets spun, his ignorant remark is doubly unforgivable, himself having worn the uniform.
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p>And not only did he put a five-pound turd in Obama’s pocket, but he gaffed himself out of any hope of a veep nod.
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p>Nice play, Weasley.
You don’t just attack your political opponents’ weaknesses, you attack their strengths. This is by far a good move on Wes Clark’s part and it’s only too bad Obama isn’t being a lot more coy about it, along the same lines Bush treated the swiftboat vets. If anyone feels guilty about playing dirty, just remember at least Wes Clark has a point, whereas the national Republicans just make crap up.
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p>All that said, Wes Clark could be – by far – more important to our success this cycle off the ticket than he could on it. Keeping him off the ticket allows him to fire away without being an official part of Team Obama. We can reward Clark for his good work with a nice and important cabinet position after all the politicking is over and we’re in office. I’m sure Clark would excel in that role, which would also pad his resume for his future ambitions.
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p>On a tangently related topic, David, are you really surprised by any of this out of Obama’s camp? Isn’t it exactly what I’ve been talking about re: Obama since the very beginning? My only hope with the Obama presidency is his coattails and that he signs all the bills the Democrats send him in the legislature. I have absolutely no hope he’ll pass policy that requires the least bit of testicular fortitude.
but he made a mistake by carrying it too far when he stated:
“Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,”
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p>The general public will consider that inflammatory, and it was really unnecessary to make his basic point.
I didn’t know that the Wes Clark comment was in repetition of what the questioner had asked.
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p>So Wes Clark is completely off the hook in my opinion (unless, …).
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p>So why did Obama indirectly disavow his comments? If just PC, pooh on Obama. However, if he has ordered his campaigners to stay away from the subject of McCain’s service (as any rebuttal, no matter how valid, can be used to discredit Obama in this non-complex voting world), then he is right to say what he said to distance himself from Clark’s remarks.
you invoked the escape clause. Obama may have done that, but the fact is the gist of what Clark said is something he’s been saying for at least a month now. Obama knew he’d be saying that – that’s why you drag him out there in the first place.
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p>Plus, I don’t care what people think, you just don’t throw your supporters under the bus at the first sign of trouble. That’s only a last resort – ie when Wright refused to shut up and decided he liked the limelight more than his decades-long parish member who was running for President (in effect, he threw Obama under the bus first). You don’t toss someone aside when they’re doing your bidding on your behalf (and almost surely at your request), because you don’t like the way the sentence came out.
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p>Sure, it would have been nice if Clark had said it in a more-difficult-to-soundbite way, but the fact is that if Obama didn’t condemn it, Clark could have had a field day with it and we would have finally gotten it through the American skull that McCain’s war experience doesn’t make him fit to be our wartime commander and chief. He has no more relevant experience in that regard than Obama, so why vote for McCain in the first place?
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p>Instead, Obama basically said “yes, getting shot down from a plane does make one qualified to run for President,” by condemning Clark. This will hurt Obama far more in the long run, all the while probably meaning Clark will have to stay on the sidelines from here on out when he could have been our best weapon against what would otherwise be a McCain strong point.
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p>I just love though that we voted for Obama because, again, he was the more ‘electable’ one. What are the two biggest complaints of progressives about our POTUS candidates? They think going to the right in a general will help them win and they’re all together too wimpy. What’s the biggest criticisms of Obama the Democratic Nominee so far? He’s going warp speed into right wing territory and he’s altogether too wimpy. Awesome! Luckily, we’re facing an abysmal opponent in a time in history when it couldn’t possibly be more ripe for a Democrat to win the White House… otherwise, we’d be screwed.
Clark’s attack on McCain sticks and Obama washes his hands of it. Thats the way the game is played. Get used to it.
He didn’t back away from the comments and was pretty solid with Abrams, but that being said. We probably won’t see much of Clark anymore. Via TPM:
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Specifically, people like Tony at RichardHowe.com and Rick Klein at ABC News. They have lost track of what happened in reality.
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p>Wes Clark did not attack McCain’s service in Vietnam.
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p>He never attacked it.
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p>He just said that bravery is not the kind of executive experience that gives a President good judgment for deciding when to go to war.
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p>Everybody respects fire fighters’ and police’ bravery, but a fire fighter or cop might not necessarily be a good mayor or city manager because of that bravery.
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p>Notice how Bob Schieffer wanted to talk about McCain being shot down in Vietnam, not McCain’s actual judgment and vote in favor of invading Iraq.
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p>It’s time to bring Bob Schieffer and Rick Klein and all the others back to reality.
The “details” of exactly what Clark was questioning don’t matter. You would think he and Obama’s people would understand this by now. When somebody says something about someone, the details of the comment are often lost and a general “feeling” comes across. Ask Geraldine Ferraro. Facts are irrelevent and perception becomes reality. I think BO had to disavow the comments outright. Clark’s remarks in a vacuum, that being a fighter pilot and/or a POW does not qualify you to be President is completely true. But all many Americans heard was a prominent Democrat, many consider to be a VP possibility, is criticizing JM’s military service (including 5 years of torture while a POW).
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p>It is unfair but it was not the first time nor will it be the last time.
Do you still approve of Bush? Do you think he’s doing well? I’m asking since you are a McCain supporter. If you approve of Bush then supporting McCain is a no brainer. But if you do not approve of Bush then why do you support McCain? Other than McCain saying I’m different, what differences do they have? I understand that McCain say he’s different a lot but what policies are different to entice you to vote for him.
My first choice was Romney. I have been very down on this linkage idea between Bush and JM. I know it is the very heart of BO’s strategy, but it is misleading at best and an outright lie at most. Virtually every significant Republican running for office has a commonality that could be used to link them together, but they are different, as is every Democrat.
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p>When you asked if I approve of Bush now and the answer is no, but the disapproval in many cases is very subtle. I may agree with his idea but disagree on his tactic. He’s picked great judges for the courts. Black home ownership is at an all-time high. Somethings look bad on the surface, but I honestly think many issues are beyond the scope of regular people. Surely many people (Democrats) were against the recent Telcom wiretapping issue, but BO voted in support of the President. Was Bush (and Obama) right, or were they both wrong? Bush has always worn symbolic “flag-pins” as a symbol of be proud of the country and Obama said he didn’t need a mere symbol like this to prove his Patriotism. Now he seems to be proudly wearing flag-pins. Was Bush right all along…
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p>I’m busy now but I could go searching for the differences. I would blurt them out but normally people here smack me for not being able to back up what I say with links… blah blah blah.
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p>But I will say that George Bush has made some big mistakes and gambles. If they had gone the right way he would have gone in history as a great President. It’s very hard if not difficult for a sitting President during a war to be popular, especially in the day with so little patience for casualties. If battles like Iwo Jima were happening with our current citizens we would have negotiated with Japan to end the war.
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p>So, for all the pundits and partisans out there who believe in BO’s message of running a different campaign than those in the past. Well for starters maybe he can run against JM instead of Bush. Bush isn’t running. Then he can get away form the soundbites (like 100 years) which he is so critical of. Lastly, he can engage in numerous open debates with JM and let the differences between the 2 people who are running (BO and JM) become perfectly clear to voters and we can all move on.
You lose.
I think Wes made a mistake in not going further in his comments about John McCain record. I don’t think anyone has really disagreed though with the premise that being shot down and becoming a POW is a prerequisite for being President or some how makes you more qualified. To the contrary if you want to throw a swift boat move on John you would suggest he was a terrible pilot for getting flamed in the first place but that would be an over statement just as the Swift boat attacks on John Kerry were way over the top. I would also like to remind people about the Karl Rove hatchet job done on Senator Max Cleland of Georgia calling him a phony American after he gave both of his legs and an arm to the Vietnam conflict. This is Ann Coulter’s smear attack of Max
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p>Boy I wished we listened harder to Max on this issue maybe 04 would have been different. To suggest that we need to play the Karl Rove Game is getting trapped into the elections of 2000 and 2004. Barack has an opportunity to take a new direction but to dismiss the sound bites going on that are now just a murmur would be to play this game with your head in the sand. The Attacks on Barack are coming and they will include his inability to ID with the Military and question his leadership. So maybe it is time for Clark and the others who know first hand that the last 8 years of Military intervention has been a poor solution to leading the world and our country we have conceded the moral High Ground and we risk losing the war through attrition.
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p>I think we are destining our selves and my generation to reliving Vietnam again and again until like the greatest generation time puts it into our past.
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p>But this article I think does sum up the frustration out there with so many Americans. Issues that are not 30 second sound bites or easy to articulate yet I think Andrew did a great job in framing them and would suggest you read it. Any one read the New Yorker This month and the Seymour Hirsch Article which should have been titled “Iran here we come” or “Bomb Bomb Iran”. Is a Fall Bush Chaney surprise really going to surprise anyone?
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p>So on the whole I have to agree Obama shut up Wes Clark tone it down there is a nicer way to make a point with out the attack dog attitude.
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p>I still think the Obama/ Clark ticket will win in November and will provide leadership in changing the direction of the disaster of George Bush. We need Change and FAST.
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p>http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
One: It’s not extraordinary for political campaigns to want to control the story and the message.
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p>The other: It’s caution–and the boldness of our enemies–that have brought our country to its terrible predicament.
Both candidates are senators. Neither has managed as an executive. The last senator elected to the presidency was John Kennedy. State governors are the closest job experience to the presidency. Do you really need experience for the president or a president with a rational thought process? Experience means that you’ve done the job before and will likely run the same processes if a similar situation arises. It doesn’t ensure the process is correct. If a completely different situation arises does the experienced president just run around in circles? (We’ve had a few of those.) Give me someone that will think out a situation after dealing with the advisors and come up with reasoned solutions.
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p>People look at Abraham Lincoln as a great president. If you look at his history, his experience as a leader and executive were almost non-existent.
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p>I’ll go for the thinker any day. Who do you consider the thinker?
Is Grandma Next Under The Bus?
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p>As I put it then – “The underside of Obama’s bus could become a crowded place.” Move over for Wes!
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p>I think it will become even more crowded as time goes on. Obama panics. Over and over. And the longer he’s on the stage, the more apparent it is that there’s no THERE there.
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p>Deval Patrick launched a political careeer on the premise that a tabula rasa, upon which you can project your dreams, is the beau ideal of progressive politics. Gauzy talk, dim results.
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p>It appear that he and Obama share more than a phrase-maker.
But a sad state of affairs when this is nevertheless prefereable to a Republican.