Posted on 03/03/2008 6:19:27 AM PST by jdm
Hey, remember four years ago how we needed a vet at the top of the ticket since only people who’d seen the horrors of war could appreciate the human cost of sending men into battle? Late-breaking caveat: Having seen the horrors of war isn’t quite as valuable experience-wise as picking out White House china patterns. Would a man who endorsed Waffles in 2004 explicitly on the basis of his military service really dare try this double standard vis-a-vis, of all people, John McCain? Believe it:
In the national security business, the question is, do you have — when you have served in uniform, do you really have the relevant experience for making the decisions at the top that have to be made? 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.
If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as the First Lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, her representing the us abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think she’s the most experienced and capable person in the race, not only for representing am abroad, but for dealing with the tough issues of national security.
Mind you, this is the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee he’s talking about. Consider it a Greenwaldian revision of the chickenhawk meme, one that’s been in the works ever since it dawned on the left that they wouldn’t have a vet at the top of the ticket this time while the GOP very well might: It’s not military service that’s important, it’s the right kind of military service. The Christmas in Cambodia kind.
At least Clark concedes the merits of some sort of service. Question: What’s more impressive, bearing up under routine bastinadoing by the North Vietnamese for five years — or being Bill Clinton’s secretary? You guessed wrong.
And she claimed that if Clinton’s experience as First Lady were taken seriously in relation to her White House bid, people might “finally admit that, say, being a secretary is the best way to learn your boss’s job and take it over.”…
“Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’” Steinem said, to laughter from the audience.
McCain was, in fact, a prisoner of war for around five-and-a-half years, during which time he was tortured repeatedly. Referring to his time in captivity, Steinem said with bewilderment, “I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.”…
“I am so grateful that she [Clinton] hasn’t been trained to kill anybody. And she probably didn’t even play war games as a kid. It’s a great relief from Bush in his jump suit and from Kerry saluting.”
Follow the link for insights into, um, “gynocide.” Anyone here think, incidentally, that a female soldier who survived internment in McCainian conditions would be treated worse by the media than McCain was, especially in light of the way the Jessica Lynch saga was handled? Never mind hard news treatment; how many episodes of Oprah would be devoted to it? Barbara Walters specials? Beyond that, is Steinem’s ignorance of McCain’s ordeal affected, do you think, or genuine? The character credential it provides lies not in the fact that he took a beating but in the fact that he didn’t have to but preferred it to using his father’s credentials to get out of jail free while other guys stayed behind. Death before dishonor, literally.
Ed adds: Hillary Clinton has five years on the Armed Services Committee, less than a quarter of the tenure of John McCain, who has been on the panel since 1987. Not only has she never served in the military, neither did her husband, on whose administration she supposedly soaked up all of this military readiness. In terms of strategic experience, which is what the ASC addresses, McCain runs laps around Hillary Clinton.
Furthermore, it’s not as if John McCain sat silently in the Senate on foreign policy and national security issues. As he notes sometimes ad nauseam, McCain came out early to demand a change in post-invasion strategy and tactics in Iraq. He understood that the nature of the conflict had changed to a counterinsurgency and foresaw the strategy necessary to conduct it.
What did Hillary Clinton do to show her prowess at military leadership? She called General David Petraeus a liar to his face when he reported the improvements in Iraq. To date, she has refused to apologize for it, despite Petraeus being proven correct in the sharp drop in violence and the return of normalcy to Anbar and Baghdad. That kind of treatment certainly signals something to current military commanders, but not the kind of leadership in which they can have confidence.
Exit questions from AP and Ed: This’ll make for a nice pair of headlines for Hillary tomorrow, when she’s trying to keep people focused on Big Tuesday, huh? And if they’re making such lame arguments for Hillary as C-in-C, can you imagine the silliness they will offer on behalf of Barack Obama?
When the reporter asked this of the Hillary Campaign on a recent phone conference, the silence from the Hillary camp was “painful and prolonged” or as another reporter put it “Silence so long you could of knit a sweater while waiting.”
I also need to let my daughter's surgeon's wife in on this bit of wisdom. Why spend 8 years in college when you can marry yourself into the position? And his nurse MUST be qualified by now. I'm sure she's soaked up the required techniques and knowledge by now.
The democrats cannot possibly be so stupid.
McCain is a target-rich candidate, yet they keep attacking him on points that are easily refuted. And this latest attack takes the cake. An attack on his potential as a C-in-C only draws attention to the democrat candidates complete lack of service.
So, assuming that the democrats cannot possibly be this stupid, I have to believe that this is a “test the water” move on their part. They recognize that military service is a major weak point for the democrats...they need to learn how to refute this point in the general election. They are doing it early enough so that they can fine tune their strategy.
Interestingly enough, the democrats are depending on Bush’s success against the war on terror to get their candidate in office. If there is even one domestic terror attack conducted by a Muslim extremist, small or large, everyone will be reminded of what we are up against...and military experience would become a huge issue.
Great! Let them run their mouths some more. Let the MSM continue to report it.
The more they yap and align their 70’s left-wing extremist rhetoric with the DEM’s, the worse it is for HRC and OHB.
Neither Hillary nor Barack have any military experience.
She is just an old Bill Clinton “knee-pad” girl and Clark is the personification of the “perfumed princes of the Pentagon”... a living Courtney Massingale.
The only way to make sense of this is to figure Clinton believes she will win the nomination (hook or crook) and she has already decided on Clark as a running mate. This is a dry run of the type of campaign she plans to wage against McCain. Without a general on her ticket, she would be vulnerable; with one, she thinks she won’t be.
General Hugh Shelton would say of Wesley Clark during his 2004 campaign that "the reason he (was dismissed from) Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote," though Shelton never elaborated further on what these issues were.
I'd like to hear what George McGovern and George H.W. Bush think about these absurd comments.
John McCain spent 5 1/2 years in Vietnam. Wesley Clark spent a grand total of 1 month there before being wounded. His only other combat experience was ordering the bombing of Serbian civilians on behalf of Islamic rebels. Yet he has the temerity to claim superiority on understanding “strategic issues”? How about the “issue” of an Islamic terror state in the heart of Europe. What an ass.
I said it yesterday and it still stands. McCain was an attack pilot, not a fighter pilot. Asswipe doesn’t know the difference. Also, which branch of the Military did Hill and Obama get their C-I-C training?
Not a requirement to be president. Attack them on something meaningfull, like they are a little more liberal than McCain.
Wesley Clark’s panty hose must be pinching him. He gets worked up into these little tiffs. Fact is, neither McCain, Hillary or Obama have the type of experience it takes to be CnC. That’s why presidents have experts and military personnel on their staffs. The system breaks down when they appoint prisses like Wesley.
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