McCain's Hissy Fit.

[SirNitram]

There's no other way to describe it. Let's rewind a bit to Sunday, shall we? General Wesley Clark, a man whom has both good and bad spots on his record was discussing the Presidency on "Meet The Press", one of the insufferably stupid pundit shows on Sunday.

CLARK: He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, "I don't know whether we're going to be able to get this point through or not, do you want to take the risk, what about your reputation, how do we handle this publicly? He hasn't made those calls, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: Can I just interrupt you? I have to say, Barack Obama hasn't had any of these experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

CLARK: I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.

That's pretty sad. 'But, but, McCain was in a fighter and SHOT DOWN!' is NOT a qualification for office. It's a qualification for VA care, and in McCain's situation, probably alot of much needed therapy for both his tremendous physical and mental scars.

So we had a jackass reporter who got told off. End of story, right?

Wrong.

Press release almost immediately after:

If Barack Obama's campaign wants to question John McCain's military service, that's their right. But let's please drop the pretense that Barack Obama stands for a new type of politics. The reality is he's proving to be a typical politician who is willing to say anything to get elected, including allowing his campaign surrogates to demean and attack John McCain's military service record.

John McCain is proud of his record of always putting the country first — from his time in the Navy, in Vietnam and through to today.

Obama? Where'd he come from? See, apparently talking bad about McCain means you're an Obama agent. Also, saying anything about how McCain is not obviously qualified because he got his Annapolis ass shot down makes you attacking him.

The media, McCain's base and fanboys to the point of bringing him donuts, obediently pretended Clark had indeed attacked McCain, it was an Obama plot, and began shredding their hankies and looking for fainting couches. One quote, because more hurts my brain.

"Beyond comprehension ... further erosion of our nation's political discourse," said former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., in a written statement.

Yep, you can't rebutt silly claims without it being beyond comprehension. By the way, this is Monday, when McCain hires on one of the Swift Boaters.

That night, on 'Countdown', Senator Webb said...

"I think what we really need to work on over the next four, five months, and it goes back to the speech that Sen. Obama gave [Monday] and this little fight that I've been watching and that is, we need to make sure that we take politics out of service," Webb said. "People don't serve their country for political issues."

He continued: "And John McCain's my long-time friend, if that is one area that I would ask him to calm down on, it`s that, don't be standing up and uttering your political views and implying that all the people in the military support them because they don't, any more than when the Democrats have political issues during the Vietnam War. Let's get the politics out of the military, take care of our military people, or have our political arguments in other areas."

What happened next? If you bet 'McCain came to his senses', you were sadly mistaken.

If you didn't think this was a coordinated attack on John McCain's credentials before, it's clear now that it is. Barack Obama's surrogates are telling the McCain campaign to "calm down" about attacks on his military record? Seriously? Now somehow Wes Clark's attacks are John McCain's fault? It's absurd. If Barack Obama can't control his own surrogate operation, how can he be trusted to run the country?

Webb promptly denied being in contact with Obama, attacking McCain, or any of these other looney tune charges. Check the words yourself; there's no attack. Just a general urging to stop politicizing service.

Obama, in a speech yesterday, commented that Clark's choice of words was 'Inartful', but stuck to his firm stance on such smears: 'Uh, yea, this isn't gonna help anyone. Shall we move on?'

McCain's campaign was still in a huff.

"Apparently Barack Obama now thinks that smear attacks on John McCain's military service are fair game."

Finally, we get someone who asks the damn question to McCain himself on his precious new jet where you have to 'earn' your position to talk to him.

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

“Please,â€

[rhoenix]

What utterly amazes me is that my friend's brother will loudly extoll McCain's virtues, and every single virtue he espouses is a Republican Talking Point. He doesn't like Obama because Obama is smart as well as charismatic, which means he's the Antichrist.

I just stopped talking to him after that. It is difficult to find something to say when someone figuratively takes a dump on their own shoes and loudly proclaims it to be fashionable.

[Charon]

I was utterly shocked as I read about this as it developed.

I mean, any moron with half of a brain can see that Clark was not questioning McCain's service at all, just wondering how the fuck flying a plane gives you administration potential, which is a very good question, especially when coming from a general. Did McCain at least even command a squad of fighters? Or was he just another flyboy?

What is even more surprising is that they've tried to tie this to Obama and any moron with a quarter of a brain can tell Clark has nothing to do with Obama.

I had been under the impression that Obama had actually denounced Clark, which I had been very angry about. But that was wrong and I am happy about that.

If this is going to be the standard operating procedure of the Republicans I'm not too worried. Taking quotes horribly out of context and then vaguely tying them to a candidate haven't worked so far and I think the American people will only get tired of that tactic.

[SirNitram]

Obama's press boy disavowed the comments as being nothing to do with the campaign. Which they aren't. The Right is now trying to paint this as 'Denounce then support, all while cackling evilly pulling puppet strings.'

It's as incoherent as the entire smear campaign against him, which has been, in the 'TOO ELITIST!' screeches in the same breath as 'TOO STREET/BLACK!'. But seriously, what else has Sidney got to run on? Nothing. He can't run on issues because surprise surprise, he's got no plans for anything. He even voted against the GI Bill.

For those interested, said bill got signed into law.

EDIT: Don't recall if normal folks can edit here. But the quote is too perfectly illustrative of the entire smear against Obama effort to not use:

Is Obama "too University of Chicago or too South Side Chicago" for regular voters?

They can't decide if he's an elitist or a street punk. They try and attack both at once. It becomes just stupid.

[Derek Thunder]

It's pretty stupid, yes. However, painting a democrat as 'too elitist' was the route to victory in 2004, 1988, 1984, and 1972 to name a few key examples. "Intellectual" democrats, perceived as being far removed from the concerns of the average American are very easy to defeat.

I'm very glad that Obama has stuck by Clark, moreso because Clark was a Clinton supporter originally. I'm not sure Clark is veep material (some questionable photo-ops with a Serbian war criminal), but what he said regarding McCain and his military service is spot-on. Being held in a prisoner-of-war camp does not make someone uniquely qualified to be president, especially when they end up voting against bills banning torture when it happens to be an election year.

This is just the beginning though. The next four months will be nonstop smears from every corner of the Republican party. It will continue to get worse, no matter how much Obama tries to move towards the center. The republicans have no ideas because for the most part they've already been tried in the last 8 years, and have failed on a colossal scale (such as the privatization of FEMA into a contractor-based service). What they do have is a tried-and-true battle plan to paint their opponent as a latte-sipping book-reading quasi-homosexual "other" with the additional bonus of having a foreign-sounding name and being brown.

[Steve]

Wasn't Clark the commander who wanted to fire on Russian troops in Kosovo? In terms of his VP potential, I mean.

[SirNitram]

Wasn't Clark the commander who wanted to fire on Russian troops in Kosovo? In terms of his VP potential, I mean.

Yea. But then again, we're discussing a race where the candidate with military experience, Sidney there with the temper, physically attacked a foreign official while overseas. I might be a bit looney, but I find having an itchy cold war trigger in a VP is less damning than a POTUS who grabs a guy in a room full of people with guns during a diplomatic mission to Nicaragua. Link here.

[Cynical Cat]

IIRC, Clark didn't actually give orders to fire on Russian troops, but he did want to put his troops in a confrontational situation which might have resulted in shooting. Not good, but not quite as bad as actually firing on the Russians.

[B4UTRUST]

IMO, like we didn't see that coming, is that based on the fact that McCain was a flyboy makes him even less qualified to be PotUS. But then again I trust anyone in a flight suit about as far as I could throw em.

Distrust of flight crew aside, the Republican tactics are about as shitty as you can get. It's pathetic to say the least and if nothing else damning of the whole party that they would bother with such measures. Of course that's not to say that the Democrats are above such tactics, but the Republicans seem to jump to these smear campaigns a bit quicker. It's sad, really, that the election campaigns for the position that is known as 'leader of the free world' is nothing more then a popularity contest marked by moments of middle school playground namecalling.

And for the record, quite a few of the servicemen and women currently in are very much against the Republicans this time around due to what numbnuts has gotten us all involved with in the middle east. They're not looking forward to the idea of Bush Part 3. Usually most military votes Republican for one reason alone, and that's because Republicans historically have been seen to give us bigger pay raises and bennies then the Dems. But this time around nobody wants to trust the Republicans not to get us all killed. And dead soldiers can't spent paychecks.

[frigidmagi]

He ordered British troops in Bosnia to seize an airport that was at that moment kinda under Russian control. He told the troops to go ahead and fire if the Russians even looked like resisting. Yeltsin who was the Russian President at the time, had authorized his boys to sling tac nukes at anyone who fucked with them. I honestly would not be comfortable with him as VP, although I would prefer him to Hillary (although it seems pretty plain that the deal was Hillary drops out for money, not a VP slot).

I still think Senator Jim Webb would be a great choice. Besides the idea of Webb 2016 is a rather nice one.

He is still correct on pointing out that being in a fighter (or shot down in a fighter) does not mean you're great President material. It does mean you're a brave guy and bravery is something you usually want in a President, but bravery is a gift rather liberally salted throughout mankind. There are very few outright cowards in the species.