Right On, General Clark. Do Not Back Down.
Boy, talk about your echo chamber in the media. Yesterday, General Wesley Clark went on CBS' Face the Nation, and repeated something he's said many times before. If you missed it, here's the full quote in context :
Bob Schieffer: Well you, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, "untested and untried," And I must say I, I had to read that twice, because you're talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He's been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk. It's a matter of gauging your opponents, and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. 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 Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it 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 it-'Bob Schieffer: Well-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: ' -it publicly.' He hasn't made those calls, Bob.
So, in short, General Clark respects John McCain's service, calls him a hero to millions, but notes that experience doesn't make him qualified to be Commander in Chief.
Now, VoteVets.org isn't getting into the presidential race, but I don't see what is so wrong about what General Clark said. And yet, immediately and unsurprisingly, the McCain campaign let loose with a response that expressed shock and dismay. Almost right after that, all of the media was up in arms about how 'wrong' this was. Pretty disappointingly, even progressive surrogates couldn't muster the strength to back up General Clark on TV.
Why?
This wasn't a swift boating, or any low politics. General Clark called McCain a hero to millions for his sacrifice. And, that's a pretty big statement coming from a man who, himself, left Vietnam on a stretcher. But, facts are facts:
• Senator McCain's service and experience, both as a POW and as a Senator apparently hasn't infused him with a dose of good judgment.
• Senator McCain's experience hasn't led him to realize that the war in Iraq and it's continuance has empowered and emboldened Iran, and destabilized the region.
• Senator McCain's experience hasn't caused him to recognize that we're losing ground in Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden is still out there, plotting.
• Senator McCain's experience didn't lead him to support the 21st Century GI Bill -- he opposed it. It didn't even make him feel the need to get back to Washington to vote on this -- one of the most important veterans' bills this Congress. He twice skipped votes on the GI Bill, to fundraise.
• Senator McCain's experience didn't help him empathize with troops are overstretched and overdeployed, when he voted against the bipartisan Webb-Hagel "Dwell Time Amendment," which would have given troops as much time at home as in the field.
Senator McCain is running on his experience, saying it makes him ready to lead right away. By doing so, he is asking people to look at what that experience taught him. By looking at Senator McCain's positions and votes (or lack of them), it seems that experience has not given him the right judgment on important issues of our time. And, while we should all honor Senator McCain's service, that doesn't mean we should necessarily honor it by putting him in the White House to take up George W. Bush's third term.
So, General Clark is 100 percent absolutely right, and he should not back down. I'd hope that some of the so-called progressives on television back him up on this, and not get intimidated by the media and McCain campaign press releases. These are important times, and deserve a blunt and honest debate.
In some circles, that's just called 'straight talk.'
UPDATE: Since a lot of you are sending words of support on here for General Clark, we started a petition where you can sign to thank him, and tell him to keep it up. We will take the petition to General Clark, personally. Also, it's important to sign, so we can show the media that we've got his back.
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I actually think this whole 'experience' thing is a non-issue. Quite simply, if McCain vs. Obama were only about experience it'd be McCain in a second. He has more experience as a senator and he has more experience as a military man.
But experience means nothing if your positions are wrong. It's not bad enough that McCain is running for Bush's third term - it's made worse by the fact that he had to backpedal on so many of his previous positions and pander to the right in order to get where he is today. His campaign has been broke and is bending if not breaking campaign rules. He has engaged in foolish jokes and statements like "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" and "In Iraq for 100 years" that show to the world that he is NOT the man for this job.
On the other hand, Obama has the right positions and the right perspective. He has managed a steady, solid, respectable campaign with few blunders. He has articulated positions correctly and clearly with eloquence and leadership. He has managed his money and his resources with a skill that would make a general proud.
It's not about 'experience' -- it's about performance. And right now, looking at both campaigns, Obama is the better choice. He's been better as a campaigner; I suspect he'd be far better as President as well.
I couldn't agree more. Experience doesn't help if you keep making the wrong judgments and decisions. Also, I expect some adjustments of positions, that's reality and politics. But McCain has changed his positions 180 degrees on so many positions now I don't believe the man has any core principles left that he's not willing to throw under the bus for his own political expediency.
Mike Luckovich from the Atlanta Journal Constitution has an excellent cartoon on the subject:
http://www
Of course its a non-issue.
The trouble starts when the children in the GOP, desperate to hold onto their un-American power to pay off their owners, will spin anything said, done or overheard to dupe thier simpleton base into voting for their latest flavor of Fear Monger.
I used to watch Fox-Kids and read the Wall Street Journal (now just a GOP Rag) but I can't even do that anymore.
The far-right now has far more in common with al Queada, and Al Jazeera than it does with Real America or Americans!
These un-American republicans hate free speech, habeas corpus, warrants and gun control.
But most of all, they HATE THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.
We need to scrape these neo-con maggots off the bottoms of Uncle Sam's Shoes once and for all.
And the easiest way to do that is to simply vote for Barak Obama in Nov...let'
Of course General Clark is 100% correct about John McCain's lacking the qualifications for the Office of the Presidency of the United States. Wesley Clark has, by far, the best Military mind in the United States, if not in the whole world. Just look at the Yugoslavian operation in the 1990's that General Clark
orchestrated and was in charge of. The entire operation was completed in a matter of less than two weeks, with hardly any U.S. money spent in the process and the mission accomplished. Unlike Bush
and Cheney's farce in Iraq, which has only managed to destabilize the entire middle East and to per-
manantly destroy the sovereign country of Iraq, cost 100s of thousands of lives , a trillion U.S. dollars
and accomplished absolutely nothing but to bolster the financial portfolio of Halliburton, Inc. By the way, Bosnia-Herzagovina, Croatia and Serajevo,the 3 independent nations formed from Yugoslavia as a result of the United States' Yugoslavian operation of the 1990's which Wesley Clark orchestrated as NATO Supreme European Commander are still functioning very well independently to this day. Far
more than can be said for McBush's Iraqi folly.
you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about - we ruthlessly bombed a country and its civilians for 78 days for no good reason, and clark ,albright and clinton's war was as illegal as iraq was when you really get down to it - most "liberals" have short memories though
That, plus they view any criticism of McCain as unfair and are constantly standing up for him.
What a waste of time the media spends. Clark is exactly right, John McCain being shot down and tortured isn't a credential for running the office of the Presidency. The media just doesn't have anything else better to talk about. The media is nothing more than big kid with a jar and their primary duty is to pit the ant against the wasp. The media do nothing bust instigate fights as a sort of entertainment. He said she said and how do you respond to that?
At least McCain didn't go AWOL. But being held captive for 6 yrs. or more, just months into his Vietnam campaign/service, and being involuntarily AWOL from action after all those years, isn't combat experience, IMHO. And LOL for exaggerating his war experience/service. He was blindfolded during the whole battles theater. General Clark is right! McCain's war/combat experience is overblown. Yes, he was a captive/prisoner of war, but his war experience is mediocre, with respect.
General Clark said what I have wanted to hear for some time.
Why is getting shot down and being a POW got anything to do with being a president?
I'm sorry he suffered but this man is not fit to be dogcatcher.
We, the american ctizentry, was told that a select few had information that Saddam had WMD. Was JM one of them? If so, there was another Senator that voted against the war because he stated the evidence was not there. Where was JM experience? Also, why was JM 'DUPED' by that propoganda skit of Colin Powell?
Yeah and I guess that BO has alot of executive experience to brag about. JM showed charachter by staying a prisoner of war to look after his men (he was offered the chance to be released by his captors, but his men were not). BO throws any supporter under the bus(see Rev Wright, Clark, move.on, his grandmother to name a few) at the first whiff that they are too liberal or not PC enough for him to get elected. Read below for a little enlightenment from the kool-aid.
http://www
The point, for those who find it too difficult to follow along, is that neither one of them has any real executive experience. Neither did Hillary. In fact, most of the candidates in both primaries had no actual executive experience. Of course, Jefferson and Lincoln, etc., also had no executive experience. U.S. Grant had executive experience before he became president but somehow it didn't prevent him from being a completely ineffective president.
McCain may have demonstrated some small measure of character by wanting to take his turn when being returned instead of going to the head of the line as the son of an admiral, but that's all it was. The other p.o.w.'s were NOT "his men". And, BTW, the fact that he was offered an early return was just an example of the way in which McCain was treated in Hanoi after he had agreed to do whatever they wanted and after they realized they had a high-profile prisoner from a military family of top-ranking officers.
As for throwing people under the bus, the lunatic fringe echo chamber makes it a necessity. Witness your own post and the kool-aid being served at your corner of the echo chamber.
Who finds it difficult to follow along? So neither of them have executive experience. I guess that I wouldn't be critical of the lack of an attribute that I do not possess either. And if Clark wants to have a pissing match about experience, the last time that I checked, JM has been in the senate quite a bit longer than BO. It is condescending people like you that make democrats like me seriously consider voting against Obama. BTW, what is up with BO these days anyway, now even his ads are misleading. He is running an ad in my state that says he was raised in Kansas when in fact he was raised in Hawaii (I know that his mother was from Kansas and he was born there, but he was raised in Hawaii). And another ad says the he got three bills passed except that the ad fails to mention that two of those bills were from the IL STATE senate and that the other bill he didn't even vote for.
We currently have a president with a lot of 'executive experience'. Let's see, he blew through the bin Laden family investment in his first business, the Dry Hole Drilling Company, then sold the business to his next company who hired him for his 'experience', where he made a couple of million bucks in an insider trading deal a few days before they declared bankruptcy. He took that 'executive experience' to the Texas Rangers where he made most of the rest of his fortune from taxpayer money used to build a new stadium.
That was such good 'experience' that the people of Texas voted for him to be their governor. He didn't really do anything in that job except to compete with his brother in Florida to see who could execute more deathrow inmates, which is where he had his first real success. He won that competition, so it was time to run for president, which is where all that 'executive experience' has really paid off.
So, yeah, we need a president with 'executive experience'. There's nothing more important.
I agree with you that executive experience is not that important. My point is this: If you don't have it, don't criticize somebody else for not having it either. Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
I am in disagreement with just about everyone on this subject. Sure, McCain deserves respect for the trial he survived and the torture he endured. He served his country. However, the idea that he's a hero needs to be examined with a little more accuracy.
If we're going to use the word to describe anyone who was a p.o.w., then he was a hero. If we're going to use the word to describe anyone who was injured in a war, he was a hero. If we're going to describe anyone who was injured in a war, tortured as a p.o.w., signed anything put in front of him while doing propaganda video and giving military information to the enemy, he was a hero.
In my opinion, his military service and his time as a p.o.w. should certainly be given a measure of respect, since most people can be quickly broken by torture to the point at which they'll do or say pretty much whatever they're told to do or say; but to call him a hero blithely denigrates and ignores the memory of those who were valiant enough, or just bullheaded enough, to spit in the faces of their torturers and refuse to submit. THEY are the REAL heroes, the ONLY real p.o.w. heroes. They died for their faithful service to their country, and it's a damn shame that we honor as a hero one who gave so much less.
You are simply not informed. Read the following as appeared in the Chicago Tribune.
"McCain isn't a hero because he was tortured. He's a hero because he declined an offer by his captors to be released, refusing to leave his fellow Americans behind.
It may not take much effort to get shot down, but it must take a considerable act of will to consign oneself to more deprivation and torture. It must take a level of courage unknown to most to place concern for others above one's own interest.
Surely self-sacrifice, courage and loyalty figure somewhere in the calculus for selecting a president.
We can make no similar analysis of Obama, since he hasn't fought in any wars in his lifetime. But we have been given a glimpse at how Obama responds to external pressures and where he draws the line on loyalty and self-sacrifice. When it comes to family and friends, it seems Obama is first a survivalis
As for the amusing "thrown under the bus" comments, McCain does exactly the same thing with an insidious twist ,but with no media slam whatsoever. When the media so much as HINTS that he's got a problem with someone who is supporting him, he immediately plants tire tracks on somebody's head. If the problematic individual is on his staff, he'll respond by rolling over someone else (of less importance, but with the same issues) - at which point he announces that the problem has been solved.
McCain is an old pro at this particular angle of cynicism. He's gotten himself in enough trouble in his political career that he usually, though not always, finds somebody he can run over for public enjoyment right away, in order to direct any unwanted attention elsewhere.
The obvious reality is that it simply is not possible to run for any high political office - and most especially the presidency - without tossing all kinds of people under that bus. EVERY politician does it. In fact every president, including Washington, has done it.
Anyone see Andrea Mitchell "interview" Gen. Clarke on MSNBC. Another case of the media doing McCain's dirty work. She put him on the spot and wouldn't let up, while on at least three occasions, she referred glowingly to McCain. (as if he needs it) What is with that? It is amazing the way so many in the media have no problem trashing Clarke, a war hero himself, while McCain gets the royal treatment. It is out of bounds to question McCain. There is a long list of McCain inconsistencies, which get no mention. His surrogates say and do what they want. The "Straight Talk Express" (HA HA) gets a free ride.
BTW, McCain's new plane was unveiled and one of his workers joked with the press that they would have to earn their way to the front, in order to get the best access. Funny joke...huh
Yeah... I noticed too... Something going on.... Be strong...
But We must keep on fighting in all Media newspapers
We have many to talk apropos Experience until they stop playing that card...
Sorry, but I don't buy it about MSNBC. They are sensationalist nothing more. They take a story and make hoopla out of nothing regardless of the candidate. Do remember that for the O fanatics KO is on MSNBC, so how does that figure into your media doing mc A $ $ 's dirty work? Sorry, but anyone who watches MSNBC regularly knows the it is O country, plain and simple.
The most important thing in determining if someone is qualified to be President, isn't their military service or their public service but rather the American voter.
I admire General Clark, he said what has been on my mind and I'm willing to bet a lot of people think the same thing but are afraid to say so.
Reminds me of the quote by Samuel Johnson, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
General Clark should be Obama's VP, he's tough YEAH!!!!!!
Unfortunately, he is probably done. The Republicans scream like little children when they don't like the way things are going. They play their silly "patriot " games. It seems to work and the media is complicit. Meanwhile, Black says a terrorist act would be good for McCain, Huckabee jokes about Obama getting shot and McCain gets caught in multiple lies, stating he never said he was not an expert on the economy and laughed at someone calling Hillary a "bitch" during the primaries. (where are all the women who scream about misogyny?)
THANK YOU! What seems to hold Clark back as a politician is he is too honest, and too real for the Democratic Party. He is the man to put the Nationalist rhetoric back in the bottle and tell the truth about what is going on with our over-budgeted defense department. He kicks McCain where it counts on his so-called 'Patriotism. Support our troops and listen the the GENERAL Mr.Obama. Do not run from him! That is cowardly!
Obama, are you listening? Wes Clark would make a fine VP and would balance that BS spewed by the right that McCain would be better with national security matters...
Thank you General , and well said. The truth must be said at all cost.You are my true hero.
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