scratch that - i hate politics so much just in general.

and that is why i know everything about sports and should be elected as the university's athletic director.

And it would be funny if chops pulled down the big bucks the UW's athletic director makes ...

(I mean, I know a few people said that at the time, but I thought those people would look back on that now and realize how stupid they sounded.)

dems love to kiss the ass of republicans who served, but always allow dems who served with wayyyyyyy more balls to be dissed.

i like to hear senator obama praise clark for his service as well.

I do agree with his basic premiss: being shot down doesn't in itself make you a good presidential candidate. It just makes you unlucky.

It's time to let loose the dogs of war and cry havok as they chase down the Red Bushies in the Royalist Party.

BTW McCain is trying to say that Webb is attacking his service too now.

So he gets Clark to do this. And Webb. Barack hasn't so much as commanded a squad to clean out the latrine.

It's dishonest and cheap. But it's good politics. Says a lot about Obama though, none of it good.

"It doesn't take a lot of talent to get shot down."

Maybe it's because John McCain said that about himself.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec99/mccain_9-1.html

If anything "in artful" was spoken, it was spoken by Bob Schieffer, the host of Face the Nation, who pointedly interrupted a comment General Clark was making to interject:

"I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down."

Wes Clark made his so called controversial statement in direct reply to Schieffer:

"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President."

How is that less respectful to John McCain's service than what John McCain said himself about his own service? It isn't. This is a media created "controversy" pushed by implying out of context that General Clark offered up his comment as an assessment of John McCain's career. Clearly that is false, but it is now being milked by the McCain campaign to cast him as some type of a victim.

Meanwhile the only veteran who is having his military service smeared is General Clark. And by whom? A spokesperson for John McCain that’s who, when Orson Swindle said this earlier today on a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign::
“General Clark probably wouldn't get that much praise from this group. I can't speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar. “
Where is the media outrage over that swiftboating of a genuine American war hero, Wes Clark? Clark never said there was anything less than honorable about McCain’s performance in the military, not one negative word. He only discussed what types of qualities are most relevant to being a good president.

Yet McCain’s campaign sends someone out to literally denigrate General Clark’s own military service and the media seemingly is just fine with that.

What Wes Clark is doing is working because people are seeing through the attempt to twist and distort his words out of context.

1. Nepotistic admission to Naval Academy because his father & grandfather were 4 star Admirals.
2. Poor performance at the Naval Academy, graduating near the bottom of his class.
3. Mediocre service record, flight instructor for his squadron.
4. Transfer to combat group in Vietnam, along with a couple of million other American men.
5. Shot down after almost 40 bombing raids.
6. Endures vicious beatings and torture for 5+ years.
7. Declines offer of release, out of sense of duty.
8. Release after war, ditches wife & mother of children, when it turns out she's no longer pretty.
9. While still married to 1st wife, actively chases rich, young, pretty 2nd wife.
10. Uses 2nd wife's money to finance 1st campaign for Congress.
11. Uses benefits of incumbency to get reelected multiple times.

Items 5,6 & 7 are about the only "honorable" things on the list. Getting beaten up after being pulled from a plane crash is a rather passive activity: it's not like he had a choice in the matter. Refusing early release is admirable, but after enduring a few years of torture already, it's easy to see someone determining to "ride it out". Again, really not much of a choice there.

What's really going to hurt McCain is not his service record, but his personal life. How can you argue for reduced government, when every single paycheck you've ever received came from the Feds? How can you argue for morality when it's clear you ran from your wedding vows when they became inconvenient? (And circumstantial evidence suggests he was cheating on wife #1 with soon-to-be wife #2.) How can you be a fighter for campaign finance ethics when you were one of the Keating Five? (Keating is a personal friend of Mrs. McCain #2's family and provided jet planes for 1980's Sen. McCain.)

Calling McCain a "war hero" is a gross disservice to real heroes like Bob Dole: people who made choices to go "above & beyond" duty. McCain simply did his duty.

General Wesley Clark has more than enough standing to call out a fellow soldier on his war record. Of course it's political theater. There's a script that needs to be read and heard, folks. You didn't think James Carville was going to jump McCain's brass, did you?

I say HELL no, don't back down Wes!

This whole thing is completely ridiculous, but I have learned that the main stream media seems to think McCain, the war hero, is some kind of God. He isn't. I'm voting for McCain, but I had already decided that.

You forgot the USS Forrestal fire. He was strapped in to his A-4 and in the launch line when that broke out. He received shrapnel from a bomb explosion, and I believe he broke an ankle trying to get down from his cockpit to the deck. Also, he was trying to help another pilot out of his plane when those bomb fragments hit him.

Then there's all the carrier landings, day and night. That's risky stuff.

Not many combat veterans have a chance to actively and consciously do something heroic. In general, we tend to praise them for the suffering, misery, and general risks they take and the efforts they make, even if -- infantryemn esp -- they wind up being passive recipients of an explosion or projectile of some kind.

Some do go above and beyond and get special medals -- and most of those guys weren't even thinking when they did that.

McCain doing his duty involved a whole lot of injury and suffering and years of physical rehab aftewards. Let's avoid getting into pissing matches about McCain vs. Clark (getting shot by AK round vs. stabbed by bayonnet?) vs. say, Max Cleland, who lost his limbs in mere accidental grenade explosion in-country.

People just tend to, reflexively, like it or not, honor the price paid in uniform in combat or in-theater, no matter how conscious or helpless the whole process was.

Obama continually uses surrogates to make negative statements so he can keep his image clean. People are easily fooled by that unfortunately.

But honestly, you shouldn't go around in public saying Ferraro's comments were true. It makes you look ridiculous at best.