McGovern is out of line.

...if you watched the video. The people in the audience at the McGovern Day dinner in South Dakota gave him raucous applause.  

I fully encourage Democrats to make John McCain's service to the country a front-and-center issue.

Of course those people applauded, Lowell.  That's the base.  They always cheer when you toss red meat at them.

But John McCain gave a lot to his country, and served honorably.  Talking about his poor record at the USNA is fair game.  But this quote: "John, you were shot down early in the war and spent most of the time in prison. I flew 35 combat missions with a 10-man crew and brought them home safely every time", is just inappropriate.  It's not like he CHOSE to spend years in the Hanoi Hilton.  He was shot down.  And I bet McCain saw a LOT worse than McGovern.

Real veterans don't demean the service of other veterans.  If this is going to be the Democratic attack plan, we're in big trouble.  The majority of the American people are likely going to have the same reaction as myself: there's something not right about demeaning the man's service.

Democrats love it, Republicans are crying "foul."  But first, listen to the entire speech in context, see how McGovern is responding to John McCain's attack on HIM as being a "softie" who knows nothing about national security -- typical right-wing attacks on Democrats as "weak," except this time a Democrat has hit back hard.  That's not "demeaning," that's defending yourself for a change.  

But I think there are better ways to hit back.  One doesn't have to attack McCain's service to be tough.

He honored McCain's service. Did you watch the video?

"John, you were shot down early in the war and spent most of the time in prison. I flew 35 combat missions with a 10-man crew and brought them home safely every time."

Even McGovern admits that it is a dig.  And I don't approve.  It's demeaning to insinuate that somehow flying 35 combat missions is better than the time McCain spent in prison.  This is pretty much an attack, Lowell, and it's certainly not a message of hope.  Now, true, it was in retalliation to something McCain said.  But instead of turning around and slapping McCain back, how about you turn the tables on him?  McGovern could've said the same thing about his record without attacking McCain's.

This is NOT a way for Democrats to win.  I truly hope this doesn't become our attack strategy, because it's doomed to fail.  We should be spending our time attacking McCain for being Bush III, not for his heroic efforts in Vietnam.  I think we're so desperate for Democrats to act tough that sometimes we go a bit too far.

Not all Democrats love it. Many do not. Certainly, hardcore partisan Democrats love it. But the same type of people on the Republican side were the ones passing out Purple Heart bandaids in 2004.

when your side spent a year demeaning and belittling John Kerry's Vietnam war experience. But then again, hypocrisy never seems to offend the hard right partisans.

No, I think we'll stick to John McCain's horrible ideas to continue the disastrous Bush-Cheney policies, and also the man's complete reversal of most of his previously held beliefs for the sake of expediency -- and then we'll win the Presidency going away.

Thanks for the advice, though.

Part one, fine. But the second part where he's dissing McCain for having been shot down and held as a POW is disgusting.

It's basically a roulette wheel. How good is that anti-aircraft gun crew beneath you? What mission were you given and what well-defended areas were you tasked to fly into?

There's nothing good or rational about talking smack about a fellow pilot for having been shot down. You might as well attack JFK for having lost PT-109.

George McGovern should just shut up.  Barack Obama does not need this kind of thing in the news going into the general election.

I think he's pointing out something that is relevant to McCain's perspective - and the fact that he can't really tout national defense experience because he was a POW.

McCain served honorably and had the fortitude to make through years as a POW - but try matching his experience to McGovern's or Webb's for that matter - and you get a wholly different set of experiences and perspective.

"I am not going to criticize your war record and your knowledge of national security but I don't want you criticizing mine either."

"It's true that you were a pilot in Vietnam, that you were shot down and spent most of the war in prison and we all sympathize with that and honor you for your courage."

Not only was Webb Navy Secretary, but his first book was actually on Micronesia and America's strategic interests in that region.  He's traveled, researched, and written extensively in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia.  He speaks Vietnamese and follows Vietnamese issues closely.  He was a congressional staffer and and the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.  If you read his novels you can see that each was very carefully researched.  He has always gone to the places he writes about and immersed himself in their culture and history.  Such places include the Philippines, Guam, Japan, and Vietnam.  He hasn't gone to these places as a part of a congressional delegation, but as an ordinary American journalist/writer who wants to understand the lives of ordinary people there in addition to their political realities.  

It was this background which contributed to making Webb a real catch as a Senatorial candidate.  He's got a lot of real world, grunt's eye level experience of foreign lands.  

"George McGovern should just shut up?"  That's the LAST thing he should do.  This guy is a hero and has earned the right to say exactly what's on his mind.  

McCain's perspective on what war is is vastly different from McGovern - or anyone who served on the ground in combat.
Right?

I heard a wag call John mccain the "Indochinese candidate"

Mccain and the republicans better get used to it. Its no worse than some of the sludge the right wing attank dobermans put o8ut

See here:

...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 having served as a fighter pilot - and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam - that doesn't prepare you to be commander-in-chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn't give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.

That's very similar to what George McGovern was saying, as far as I can tell.

Also note: "Speaking just after Clark, retired Admiral William Owens, former vice chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, said, 'I would just say that I agree with Wes on that.'"

... but there is some truth to the claim. McCain's time as a POW no more makes him an expert on national defense than serving time in jail makes you an expert on law enforcement. It may give McCain some special insight into what soldiers face, and it gives some credibility on the use of torture (back when McCain was against it, anyway), but it doesn't make him a brilliant foreign policy analyst. If that last debate was any indication (and I hope it wasn't), nothing is off the table this election.

I can't tell you how shameful I feel at times about how men of those generations and those who gave such service have been marginalized in our country. Mostly I have always attributed this marginalization to those in their youths in the 1960's who now seem to be very much in power in the country today with little regard to our nations history from either a military or foriegn policy perspective. And yet it appears as though it is these two taking the shots at one another and forgettting exactly just what generation it is they come from. Behaving like the Bill Clintons and the George Bush's kind of leader is very unbecoming of both of these men.

Not 1968 or 1988.

... with little regard to our nations history from either a military or foriegn policy perspective. ...

It's old school thinking that got us into Iraq.  And it's old school thinking that is sinking this country.   Evolve or die -- and the jury is definitely out on which way this country's headed.

It is very easy to dismiss remembering and learning or gathering an undertanding of our history as thinking "old school". We see this in our school systems today where we fail to teach and touch on eras that may seem to some as controversial, exactly how liberal is a liberal education becoming these days anyway?
Its funny I hear people everyday talk about how the Democratic Convention and the if the SuperDelegates go for Clinton could result in another what? Another repeat of a 60's convention. Get the point. We should be embracing all of our history, the good and the bad, and move or "evolve" as you say but to not understand or at least seek to understand the tenents of our history is dangerous to our very future.
There is certainly no reason why the lessons of such great Virginians as Washington,Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Wilson could not be applied to modern implications. Remember the phrase "entaglements" from old-that could easy be transformed in modern times as our dependence on foriegn oil which binds us to foriegn interests, especially Iraq and the Middle East. I did not imply history was a hammer, simply that it should be a tool.

Who said anything about 'forgetting' the past?

It's those burdened with simplistic views of the past who are the impediments obstructing this country moving forward into 2008 and beyond.

Those who embrace a simplistic view of our history are, almost by definition, conservatives.

Many of us who are intent on trying to successfully turn our country toward the future have come to realize we can't get there without acknowledging, embracing even, a more nuanced American story.

If anything, the inclination among American historians for many years now is not so much revisionism, but revisiting the past to reveal a complexity that's something more than presidents and generals and the inexorable victory of American will.

The more we look at our past, the more it appears that history follows a momentum of its own.  History is seldom directed by a flick of the reins from the White House.

Truth is, the Bush puppeteers -- Cheney and Rumsfeld -- were atavistic cold warriors whose two dimensional militaristic ideology was rooted in implacable opposition to communism.  They transferred that black-and-white way of looking at things to a diverse Muslim world of some 55 countries.  Speaking of hammers, as that almost zen koan has it, if your only tool is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.  

This seems to be a very "simplistic" view to take given your views. I think those of us who look at FDR and Wilson as being great Presidents would completely disagree with such a narrow view regarding the White House. Given that premise, maybe we should just dial down alot of the enthusiasm regarding the 2008 Election- I mean if the will result in but a irrelevent "flick of the reins" on history. In that view then the very premise that BUsh and his puppets are to blame for anything from an historical perspective is misplaced, is it not?

is a bill of goods we've sold ourselves and one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in.

But let's not get into the 'great man' school of history if, for no other reason, it's been generally discredited by serious historians.

My inclination is to more of a postmodern, deconstructivist view of the presidency.

Whichever way you want to look at it -- form follows function or, as is the contemporary American inclination, function follows form -- an Oval Office occupied by a half-white, half-black American comfortable in his own skin is worth a thousand Hillary Clintons when it comes to dealing with a complex and diverse world.

My inclination is you mean those from the left who all to often seek to revise a history to suit some politcial purpose. Unfortunately many, far too many, of the men and women who lived during great generations are leaving us and it was not until Tom Brokov's, hardly a "serious historian" by your view I imagine triggered a wave of renewed appreciation for a generation who sacrificed greatly. What are we sacrificing today during this "mess we're in"? Higher interet rates, higher fuel prices, higher taxes? Seems a small price to pay for the American experience given what the rest of the world in experiencing at the same time with regard to the latter.
Serious historians on campus these days fail to address those sacrifices, you know like women working in the machine shops and factories and the sacrifices of everyday Americans during conflict inlarge part because to do so would provide a barometer from which to measure today. Sorry but choosing to march for a cause is hardly a sacrifice nor is disrupting a Congressional hearing and yet by today standards and your serious historians these folks could be portrayed as somehow pioneers of a political cause in the continuation of an era where its about what we can demonstrate to divide us and not what we can bring to the table that unites us.
Your point regarding "fucntion follows form" is astute and to the point and is a direct reflection on just how far we have wandered off the American road.

As a Vietnam veteran, it's gratifying to read posts here which responsibly question the relevance of military experience for office-seekers, especially for the presidency. When politicians (and their supporters) wrap themselves in the honor of serving their country in wartime, even in the most horrendous situations, it's no disrespect to ask what they learned, even what they could have learned, from their experiences, given the often limited exposure to events and decisions at the time.
McCain's defenders in particular should realize that his six years as a POW no more qualify him on matters of national security than living for some years in a foreign country makes a qualified Secretary of State. This is not to say that such service and experiences are irrelevant, but they are legitmately open to critical evaluation. In McCain's case, McGovern's comments were entirely within the bounds of reason and appropriate discussion.