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Monday, June 30, 2008

Obama Slams Clark for Slamming McCain

posted by on June 30 at 11:40 AM

Here are the offending comments:

In particular, Wesley Clark said yesterday:

I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

Barack Obama said today:

For those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country — no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary… And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides.

So were Clark’s comments all part of a planned “Swiftboating” of McCain? Who knows. But the result, even if it might have felt momentarily good to the eye-for-an-eye wing of the Democratic party, has been to up McCain’s victimhood quotient—always a powerful thing in politics (see Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for recent examples).

Because in politics, as in many other realms, victimhood doesn’t have to be real. It only has to be perceived.

It’s hard to equate Clark’s opinion about McCain’s service with the completely untrue things that have been said (and whispered) about Barack Obama’s background, but the McCain camp is going to try, subtly, to do just that. As Jonathan Martin says:

In a contest where Obama is already trying to frame himself as victim, it makes political sense for McCain’s campaign to make (stretch?) the case that the Democrat isn’t the only one being smeared.

RSS icon Comments

1

fuck this noise, barack. just don't say anything beyond "general clark is a private citizen not associated with my campaign in any way, and his comments are his own & don't reflect my opinions."

instead you have to go running scared, "rejecting & denouncing" what is a factual statement.

here's another: mccain's POW experience left him with untreated psychological issues.

Posted by max solomon | June 30, 2008 11:49 AM
2

Obama is such a smooth motherfucker. I love it.

Posted by laterite | June 30, 2008 11:50 AM
3

Being physically and psychologically tortured should actually DISQUALIFY somebody for the job of President, most powerful man on earth status.


HAS ENYBODY FUCKING STOPPED TO THINK ABOUT THIS FACT

Posted by Non | June 30, 2008 11:52 AM
4

Obama and Clark are playing "good cop, bad cop." That's all this is. It keeps the focus on McCain, keeps McCain on the defensive, and forces McCain to justify his own PR.

Posted by ivan | June 30, 2008 12:04 PM
5

"Obama is such a smooth motherfucker"

This is Change?

Posted by Bald Face Lie | June 30, 2008 12:08 PM
6

I think what Obama is doing (backing away from Clark) is smart politics but to be fair, it was CBS's Bob Schieffer who really put the quote into Clark's mouth.

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.

Posted by Newscat | June 30, 2008 12:24 PM
7

@5, you're a 9/11 truther, so the chances that you're not just acting the troll are pretty slim, but I'll answer your question anyway. I never said this represented "change". In fact, Obama is playing politics as usual to the nth degree, but is so brilliantly marketed that people think it's different than anything that has come before. And that is sheer genius. I hope he goes all the way.

Posted by laterite | June 30, 2008 12:27 PM
8

Wesley Clark is political shit.

Mc Cain is a real War, REAL WAR, hero, like it or not.

And, for the benefit of the latest generation hardly weaned from mommies titties, prison camp and torture are not considered victim hood as you have used the phrase is such tawdry fashion.

Shame.

Mc Cain is horrid on every issue I can think about, but his record of service in war is impeccable.

Posted by Henry Johnson | June 30, 2008 12:33 PM
9

yea bombing the vietnamese - big hero

we could have lost our freedom without him.

and O is same old

Posted by ouch | June 30, 2008 12:42 PM
10

@1 and others...

actually, what obama and/or his surrogates should have said was:

"I'm sorry, when did gen. clark criticize sen. mccain's war record? i didn't hear that. what did he say that attacks anyone's war record?"

make the friggin press answer their own dumbass questions sometime.

no one smeared anyone's war record. there's nothing to 'denounce.' cripes.

Posted by chops | June 30, 2008 12:49 PM
11

This seems like a setup. Obama wants liberals to attack McCain for him so he can look like he's above it.

Posted by Trevor | June 30, 2008 1:09 PM
12

I suspect a set up too, but it's this:

Clark lobs a softball to Obama, Obama smacks it out oof the park looking all patriotic and tough, "Standing up" for a veteran who was tortured etc.

All part of Obama's well oiled political calculations to move to the center on FISA, Nafta, preconditions for talking with head of Iran, killing child rapists, etc. etc.

Gotta admire his political skills. Oh and dissimg Muslims?

Totally a Sister Souljah thing.

Getting attacked by Moslems and Move.on -- priceless for winning all those expand the map states.

Um, just puts the anti HRC feelings in context...guess what, HRC is not a witch cuz Obama is a big time triangulator, too.

Ain't everybody living in Capitol Hill, The Haight, the Village, etc.

Posted by PC | June 30, 2008 1:23 PM
13

Wesley Clark was publicly voicing a sentiment shared by other Vietnam War veterans on Capitol Hill. Matt Bai in the New York Times wrote about this a few months ago. A sample quote:

There is a feeling among some of McCain’s fellow veterans that his break with them on Iraq can be traced, at least partly, to his markedly different experience in Vietnam. McCain’s comrades in the Senate will not talk about this publicly. They are wary of seeming to denigrate McCain’s service, marked by his legendary endurance in a Hanoi prison camp, when in fact they remain, to this day, in awe of it. And yet in private discussions with friends and colleagues, some of them have pointed out that McCain, who was shot down and captured in 1967, spent the worst and most costly years of the war sealed away, both from the rice paddies of Indochina and from the outside world. During those years, McCain did not share the disillusioning and morally jarring experiences of soldiers like Kerry, Webb and Hagel, who found themselves unable to recognize their enemy in the confusion of the jungle; he never underwent the conversion that caused Kerry, for one, to toss away some of his war decorations during a protest at the Capitol. Whatever anger McCain felt remained focused on his captors, not on his own superiors back in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/magazine/18mccain-t.html

Posted by Bub | June 30, 2008 1:39 PM
14

@9, @13, touché... Sen. McCain's valuation of "loyalty" over & above "thoughtful consideration" of an issue (eg orders to go & blow up people & infrastructure 11 time zones from home simply because one is told to do so) sounds like the blueprint that brought about "The Charge of the Light Brigade"... which may look good on paper, but may not play well for those with "boots on the ground" (or, in McCain's case "underwear in the air"). ^..^

Posted by herbert browne | June 30, 2008 1:57 PM
15

Wesley Clark was inelegant in he said what he was saying but essentially he was right. John McCain has never had to give an order to a subordinate or a squad that might cause them, or others, their lives.

Posted by elswinger | June 30, 2008 2:09 PM
16

It's called a preemptive strike.

Something the America-hating GOP is just going to have to get used to - because this year the Dems are out for blood - and LOTS of it ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | June 30, 2008 2:28 PM
17

so, does this effectively end Clark's chances for VP? Not that he had any, but, you know...

Posted by Mike in MO | June 30, 2008 7:57 PM

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