They seem to make a point of pissing off their base and their best surrogates as much as possible as of late.

Now, only we deep-in-the-weeds political fanatic types are paying all that much attention to the campaign at this point, but there are a lot of warning signs. Gen. Clark brought up a perfectly valid point trying to show how ridiculous the media fawning over McCain's military record is with respect to what it really tells us about his qualifications for the Presidency, and then Obama's campaign decides to be expedient again and decides not to back the General. Seriously, did Obama decide to hire the team that was in charge of John Kerry's responses to the right wing Swift boat charges?

Now, this is all sound and fury signifying in my mind nothing -- except that it almost assuredly means that Wes Clark won't be the VP selection. I continue to have faith that, once Labor Day hits and people are truly paying attention, discussion of Iraq, the economy, health care, the environment, and judges will ensure a large win for Obama in November. Still, he's making it hard for his hardest-core supporters to get very enthusiastic at this point.  

Just because I'm in awe of John McCain's heroism in that North Vietnamese hellhole doesn't mean I think he knows squat about foreign policy (let alone the economy).  Would it be too much to ask for Democratic political consultants to grow a pair and a backbone while they're at it?  Yeah, that was a rhetorical question.

I was astounded at the cave by Obama's campaign to the demonstrably false charge that Wes Clark had impugned McCain's military record.  I've been watching Clark at each of his many appearances, not only on Face the Nation, but on Morning Joe in the last couple of weeks.  He has a very valid point.  How does getting shot down in the 60s and being a POW render one qualified for the role of President in 2008?  Does McCain have guts?  Sure, but no one's saying he doesn't.  What does it have to do with expertise in foreign policy?  

Why the heck are Obama's people suddenly turning into wimps apologizing for the accurate statements of supporters?  I'm extremely disappointed with whomever it was in Obama's campaign who issued this apology.  Don't apologize for telling the truth.    

It seems like, in the past couple of weeks, the Obama campaign has brought in the overly cautious "political pros" and the focus of his campaign has shifted from winning to not losing (which is the one sure way to lose any contest).

After watching General Clark's carefully worded and respectful remarks I can not but think that the radical right wing Repuglican noise machine will smear anyone who has another opinion about what it takes to be our next President ... when Gen. Clark speaks I listen ... because he usually has insightful things to say ... and in this case his remarks deserve at least thoughtful consideration ... VoteVets request and their petition drive should be honored      

I've got an article up on The Hill titled The Importance of Wesley Clark which is receiving a lot of flack about this. However, I posted it the day before his comments and did not hear them and had no idea what he was going to say. I propose that we are only at the beginning of something with the Rove/Cheney condition which has changed the nature of our country and unhinged us from our Constitutional bearings and it will be institutionalized with McCain/Mitt Romney and/or Jeb Bush either in '08 or '12. Only Webb and Clark on Obama's team can defend us against this; the fate of our Republic possibly lies in their hands.

The importance of Wesley Clark at:
http://pundits.thehill.com/200...

I guarded pilots flying missions out of Korat in '67-68 and knew some of the pilots who were shot down over Hanoi as was McCain. I'm coming up with a piece at The Hill probably tomorrow (if it rains today) based on Tom Wolfe's vision in his book The Right Stuff - these men were samurai. He makes the point that a true warrior like Col. Boyd, who was avatar to this crowd, would, as Gen. Clark suggests, never trade their heroism and true valor for political purpose. It was only in the father Bush's term (and what I consider the descent from excellence to incompetence) that getting shot down became talisman to political ambition. Wesley Clark was shot to pieces in Vietnam and came home in a basket. You never hear him talk about it.

McCain experienced war and its attendant horrors first hand.  Per his campaign, that makes him more qualified than Senator Obama to be president in time of war.

McCain admits to being computer illiterate.  Per one of his campaign's young gearheads, McCain nevertheless 'gets' the digital revolution without having any actual practical knowledge of how it works.

Inversely, Senator Obama has never experienced war first hand, yet is completely computer and 'net savvy.

So ... can one, through education, spiritual instinct, empathy and sheer common sense, 'get' the horror and tragedy and uselessness of warfare in the 21st century?  And can one grasp the profound changes in the global economy and culture wrought by the digital revolution through osmosis and having young aides try to explain it to you?

and this episode shows that philosophy on both sides. Clark made a very measured and coherent statement which was not only truy, but attacked the foundations of McCain's over-inflated claims of competence in foreign affairs and his experience making him a better commander in chief. The immediate response from the Bushie-McSame apologists was to attack Obama's supposed superiority in "change" and offering a "different politics," and to kill the messenger (i.e., Clark).

I read some of the first post-interview attacks on Clark and Obama, and found them hysterical in their blowhard bellicosity. I find it troubling that the Obama campaign immediately failed to support their guy Clark (now their guy, formerly Hillary's guy). This is unfortunately similar to their telling the two Muslim girls wearing head scarves to get off the stage, removing them from the eye of the television during Obama's speech. While Obama later apologized and said it would not happen again, the craven deed was done, and it was damaging in every way. These events provide evidence the Republicans are correct in attacking Obama as "just another politician," not an inspiring agent for change after all.

If you have the courage of your convictions, you stay the course, folks, and do not try to curry favor with your opponents, who will not respond favorably to your importuning them, but will instead only hound you further, and in more vicious fashion. Is the Obama campaign so afraid of the mighty corporate media and the nasty rightie blogs that they are running scared from the get-go? Is Obama so anxious to avoid personal attacks on McCain, or anything resembling a personal attack, that he hamstrings his supporters? Bad news.

In my view, Clark did not attack McCain's war service, indeed he was careful to emphasize his admiration for McCain's service. What he did do was show its irrelevance, and try to turn the campaign from being about national security (where the Republicans want it to be) to changing the direction of the country (where Obama wants it to be).

Maybe it is time for blogs to start pushing the true stories about McCain's fly-boy excesses, losing aircraft, causing a fire aboard his ship, generally being a self-centered bad-actor all through his earlier life, and, to get personal, how about his offering one more hypcoritical Republican family values divorce by which he snagged himself a rich, politically-connected trophy wife?

 

and the practice has now matriculated to the general media.

that Clark ran his presidential campaign in 2004 based on military experience and  then now says it's not a qualification. hm.  

or you're not trying or you're not very bright. Because, if you read what Clark actually said, it'll become abundantly clear what his point was. Hmm.  

and comparing it to McCain that you spent coming up with this comment you would have seen the vast, yawning chasm of experience between Clark and McCain.

As Clark quite correctly pointed out, McCain's never been in charge of much of anything.  He's never had any significant command responsibilities.  His entire life story is of individual actions and reaction to forces around him.  He is running on experience, but the sum and substance of his experience is that he was an almost-failed member of his class at the Academy, he had a bad-boy reputation in the military until the day he was shot down, he faced his imprisonment with courage and determination, he got involved in politics, he left wife number one and married a very rich woman, he ran for public office and won, he was up to his eyeballs in the Keating S$L debacle, and he's nursed a maverick reputation for the past 30 years.  Entertaining, sometimes impressive, sometimes troublesome - but NONE of it consists of this vast and overarching foreign policy experience OR command experience which he wants to claim for himself.

Compare to Clark:

Number one in his class at West Point, Rhodes Scholar, wounded and decorated for valor in Vietnam, fast track to increasingly complex commands until reaching the post of Supreme Allied Nato Commander, resolved a very difficult situation in Bosnia, upon retirement founded his own company and became a millionaire in a very short amount of time, and author of two books.  Clark has enormous foreign policy and command experience.  He's a brilliant, high-achieving, and courageous person who, if he HAD run for the Presidency, would have cleaned McCain's clock in debates.  Clark would tell you that it's not the fact of his service in Vietnam that qualified him for the Presidency, but all the other aspects of his service - the command responsibilities, the strategic and tactical knowledge and decision-making, and his record as a founder of a successful business.  

So explain to those of us who admire Clark just what about McCain's record amounts to the kind of experience and background Clark has.  

He that is without the sin of political theater among you ...  

Let's be overly cautious here in attacking Senator McCain's I-was-once-a-junior-officer-so-I'm-qualified-to-be-a-wartime-president credential.

Remember the ludicrous spectacle of "Lieutenant Kerry reporting for duty" at the '04 Democratic convention?

Conversely, holding the most senior military rank does not necessarily equate to being a great or even good president.  Yeah, there's Washington and Eisenhower, but there's also Grant.  Jackson?  Taylor?  Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Bush senior all were wartime -- Cold War for Carter -- junior or field grade officers, but not generals.

That's a relatively long list of presidents with wartime military experience, ranging from the most junior to the most senior officer rank.  It's certainly long enough to conclude there is no discernible correlation whatsoever between military service and becoming a decent president.

and every great historical President has a General standing next to execute his vision and karma. See the last three historical saecula; Jefferson/Washington, Lincoln/Grant, Roosevelt/Eisenhower, (Obama/Clark).

and proud to have done so.

McCain is a tough guy to go after on National Security because, while he supported the war in Iraq, he also was the biggest critic of Rumseld/Wolfowitz/Feith/Casey for post war planning and execution failures.  So McCain can always say he tried to get Bush to wake up and change strategy after we kicked the door in.  He also fought against taxpayer rip-offs such as the Air Force Boeing tanker lease deal and wasteful earmarks in Defense spending bills.

Obama should keep on the 'good judgment' track he used against Hillary in the primaries.  Don't go after McCain's resume, you can't beat him there.  Go after him for going into Iraq, and for wanting to say for a longer period of time (100 years quote), and for not insisting on more diplomatic pressure for determining the long-term political settlement in Iraq.  Try to be the calm, rational, pragmatist like JFK, when a lot of people are concerned McCain is too hawkish (i.e. Iran?).  Then be a leader by defining a vision for what the U.S. will do (a) in post-Bush and post-Iraq in terms of foreign policy, and (b) reforming our Cold War era U.S. government agencies to meet the new global challenges we're facing.

I was getting tired exercising and turned to fox to get my blood pressure back up.  Sure enough there was laura ingram foaming at the mouth about how poor mccain had been attacked.  I wish I could have asked her how upset she was when Kerry was swiftboated but don't have the phone number.  At any rate it would be great to me if we could get Colin Powell on Obama's side.  I would love for Obama to say "I will follow the Powell Doctrine." with Powell right there to advise him. If bush had followed the doctrine, we would not be in this mess.  I hope to see some commercials with mccain laughing and singing about bombing Iran.  That shows what a delusional nutcase he is. I am one of those folks who believe you take war seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

I refer to the Fox phone number, of course, so you can always strike while the iron is hot (anyone here remember heating the iron before pressing your clothing?). I keep the number for the news room at WTOP right by my telephone and call whenever I hear something outrageous being broadcast. It happens at least three or four times a month, and it's very satisfying (to me). It helps first to get your thoughts composed, condensed, and emphatic; I usually include a reminder that "in the interests of good journalism," they should take my advice, provide a correction or someone from the progressive or Democratic side  for balance (and not run the counterpoint at 2 AM but as quickly as possible and at a comparable time). Over time, I do believe there's been some improvement. Just keep at it, drip, drip, drip.