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Mr. Clark I am very confused by your recent comments suggesting that McCain being a prisoner of war didn't qualify as experience when it came to being commander in chief. So I was curious to see how long Senator McCain was a prisoner of war, and did you know that Senator McCain was a POW in VIETNAM longer than Obama has been a senator? that's right see McCain was held and tortured by our enemies from 1967 to 1973 Obama has only been in the senate since he took the oath of office in 2005, even if I give Obama...

Let’s leave aside for a moment General Weasley Clark’s increasingly embarrassing attempts to defend his “Face the Nation” claim that “his hero” John McCain is actually unqualified for the presidency. When asked by a half-dozen interviewers to specify one area in which his candidate, Barack Obama, is actually MORE qualified than McCain, the Weasley One always returns to the same word – “judgment.” Obama’s qualified, in other words, because he displayed better judgment than McCain on the issue of the Iraq War. But there’s an obvious follow-up to this argument that General Clark hasn’t yet faced.. He suggests that “judgment”...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, whose stock as Sen. Barack Obama's possible vice presidential running mate had been rising, may have ruined his chances with his belittling attack on Sen. John McCain's war record. Clark, along with other Obama surrogates, followed the campaign's line of downgrading McCain's performance as a Vietnam War POW. But Clark was particularly insulting. ("I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.") He also got more attention by appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," while other surrogates addressed campaign gatherings. A footnote: Clark had...

Rove’s Third Term By PAUL KRUGMAN Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated. And Wesley Clark didn’t impugn John McCain’s military service. Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, titled his tell-all memoir “What Happened.” But a true account of modern American politics should be titled “What Didn’t Happen.” Again and again we’ve had media firestorms over supposedly revealing incidents that never actually took place. The latest fake scandal fit the usual pattern as an awkwardly phrased...

Wesley Clark claims John McCain's military service does not qualify him for the White House, but Clark spoke differently on that matter for John Kerry during a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. Video

FLASHBACK: Wesley Clark, Then and Now. Plus, dodging missiles. [videos]

One of the dumbest things about the Clark kerfuffle is that because there are so many elements of military service that people respect, the narrow critique he’s offering against McCain seems almost beside the point. I see service mainly as a testament to character and fortitude; others see it as evidence of good judgment, and others as an important lesson for a C-in-C to have (i.e. “experience”) before committing other men to war. So far as I know, McCain has never staked his own wartime ordeal to any one of these, preferring to let voters draw whatever they find most...

Clark Finds a Home Among Obama Advisors (updated)Ed LaskyOn Sunday, Wes Clark, who had been on Hillary Clinton's campaign list of advisers, seems to have adroitly switched sides to support Barack Obama and did so in a very maladroit way. He impugned the character of John McCain and his war-record on Meet The Press Sunday. He insulted McCain by saying that  "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." But this is far from the first time Clark has insulted people in a very crude way.   Last year, for example,...

Let me be clear, John McCain is not my first choice for becoming the next president; he’s not even number 2. And I have often thought that the role of live “war hero” should be reserved for people who were instrumental in winning battles and wars. So in a literal sense what Wesley Clark said is true: "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." "It doesn't take a great deal of effort to get shot down," McCain himself is fond of saying. But as Kathleen Parker eloquently puts it:...

Why was Wesley Clark shuffled off?

To start off, as many of you have already read, Obama threw Wes Clark, if not under the bus, at least into the bumper "As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark," said Obama campaign spokeman Bill Burton. Is this what the Hope 'n Change xPress will bring us throughout the campaign? Some Obama supporter comes out, says something nasty, gets the talking point out there for all to see, then Obama, who really needs to wash the blood and gore off his bus...

Dole weighs in on Clark McCain said he'd rather focus on issues facing Americans, but of course he's on much better turf discussing biography and questions about his Vietnam service. And his campaign pours it on, sending over a Bob Dole statement with some trademark zingers. "The attack by General Wesley Clark on Senator John McCain’s war record and qualifications for the presidency is beyond comprehension. Clark’s absurd remarks signal further erosion in our nation’s political discourse. He should have stayed in bed Sunday morning. It’s unfortunate that a former General who ran for the presidency on his own war...

ABC News' Bret Hovell Reports: John McCain, taking questions from reporters aboard his Straight Talk Express: The Airplane Edition, said it was time for the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama to cut retired Gen. Wesley Clark loose. "I think it's up to Sen. Obama now to not only repudiate him, but to cut him loose," McCain said to a small group of reporters somewhere between Indianapolis, IN, and Cartagena, Colombia. For two days, the Obama campaign has been off message, forced to manage the fallout surrounding comments Clark made about McCain's war service in a broadcast interview Sunday. The highly...

Ollie North calls Wes Clark "petty and small"

An interesting trend has developed in the Obama campaign that I feel compelled to discuss... RUF reported yesterday on the blogger who questioned McCains military service and Wesley Clark's comments as well. In the past we've reported on Obama address not one, but TWO preachers from his former Church and their radical comments that led to numerous youtube hits. Additionally we've addressed the Obama campaign responding to members of his campaign staff refusing to seat women of a Muslim faith behind him during speeches... The Obama campaign continuously responds to all of these outrageous stories with the generic 'this is...

The Talk Shows Sunday, June 29th, 2008 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa.; former Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Bob Barr, Libertarian presidential candidate.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., Dave Freudenthal, D-Wyo., and Bill Ritter, D-Colo.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; retired Gen. Wesley Clark.THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; Ralph Nader, independent presidential candidate.LATE EDITION (CNN) : U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Govs. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and Bobby Jindal, R-La.; Terry McAuliffe, campaign...

The highest voltage third rail of this presidential campaign may not be race, sex, or age, but Senator John McCain's military service. McCain's campaign Sunday issued a pair of outraged statements after retired general and Barack Obama supporter Wesley Clark said he didn't think that McCain’s service as a fighter pilot and prisoner of war was relevant to running the country. Obama has consistently praised McCain's service, and called him "a genuine American hero." But farther to the left—and among some of McCain's conservative enemies as well—harsher attacks are circulating. Critics have accused McCain of war crimes for bombing targets...

Day three of the Clark controversy, and things keep getting more and more interesting. Today, Barack Obama is apparently denying that his own speech yesterday in Ohio -- where we all assumed he was specifically repudiating Clark's comments -- was, in fact, aimed at Gen. Clark. Here is what Obama had to say today: "... I notice that I think in at least one publication it was reported that my comments yesterday about Senator McCain were in a response to General Clark. I think my staff will confirm that was in a draft of that speech that I had written...

John Kerry fought a war, and I respect him for that. And he came home to fight a peace. And I respect him for that, too. (APPLAUSE) John Kerry’s combination of physical courage and moral values is my definition of what we need as Americans in our commander in chief. And John Edwards with his leadership and extraordinary intelligence, he’s going to be a great member of that command team.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who caused a stir over the weekend when he dismissed John McCain’s military service as a qualification for the presidency, stood by his remarks on Tuesday but sought to soothe ruffled feathers after Barack Obama was forced to distance himself from his campaign surrogate. But after two days of angry responses and denunciations on both sides, Clark tried to clarify that while he respects McCain’s military service, he believes Obama has better judgment — without having served in the military — to be president, while Obama downplayed the impact of Clark’s comments.

The Putrid Perfumed Princeby David JeffersJuly 1, 2008 "What do you think of General Wesley Clark and would you support him as a presidential candidate," was the question put to him [General H. Hugh Sheldon, former Chief of the General Staff] by moderator Dick Henning, assuming that all military men stood in support of each other. General Shelton took a drink of water and Henning said, "I noticed you took a drink on that one!"   "That question makes me wish it were vodka," said Shelton. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason...

From Michael Moore's website, September 12th, 2003: Michael Moore to Wesley Clark: Run!A Citizen's Appeal to a General in a Time of War (at Home) Dear General Wesley Clark, I've been meaning to write to you for some time. Two days after the Oscars, when I felt very alone and somewhat frightened by the level of hatred toward me for daring to suggest that we were being led into war for "fictitious reasons," one person stuck his neck out and came to my defense on national television. And that person was you. http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2003-09-12 __________________________________________________________________ This next one is also on...

DURING THE 2004 ELECTION, Democrats and their allies on the activist Left were adamant that a candidate’s military record was strictly off-limits to criticism. John Kerry was a war hero, and to suggest different was, as columnist David Ignatius averred, defamation. It turns out these partisans meant to exempt themselves from the rule. As an example, observe the nascent smear campaign against John McCain’s military service. This past weekend, retired general and declared Barack Obama backer Wesley Clark went on CBS’s Face the Nation, where he proceeded to dismiss the import of McCain’s military background in the current race. “I...

Smearing McCain   By Jacob LaksinFrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, July 01, 2008 DURING THE 2004 ELECTION, Democrats and their allies on the activist Left were adamant that a candidate’s military record was strictly off-limits to criticism. John Kerry was a war hero, and to suggest different was, as columnist David Ignatius averred, defamation. It turns out these partisans meant to exempt themselves from the rule. As an example, observe the nascent smear campaign against John McCain’s military service. This past weekend, retired general and declared Barack Obama backer Wesley Clark went on CBS’s Face the Nation, where he proceeded to...

Sen. Barack Obama gave a speech about patriotism yesterday entitled “The America We Love.” After listening to the rhetoric coming from his campaign, I assume the big question at Obama HQ was “Who you calling ‘we?’ ” Just hours before Obama’s pledge to “never question the patriotism of others in this campaign,” Gen. Wesley Clark was on CBS, demeaning Sen. John McCain’s military service. Claiming that McCain is “untested and untried” in foreign policy, Clark - the Grady Little of modern U.S. warfare - said, “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification...

Wesley Clark isn’t worthy to wipe up the blood in John McCain’s cell. And yet this ambitious little Obama lackey has so whored himself to a shot at the vice presidency that he’s willing to mock another warrior’s service. And not just any warrior. But a genuine, bona fide American hero. You may not want to vote for John McCain, but you can’t disrespect him. At least not his military service. That’s beyond the pale. That’s not what honorable or decent people do. You don’t mock the shedding of a man’s blood. You don’t ridicule his torture at the hands...

Late last night I had a vision. No, it wasn't a vision like in one of franksolich's bizarre DREAMS. What happened is that I woke up with a start and a sudden realization that Wesley Clark is entirely a creature of the Clintons. In fact, the ONLY reason why he ran for presidential nomination in 2004 is that the Clintons wanted someone to take Howard Dean out. Clark flopped but Dean eventually took himself out with a lot of help from a White House letter released by the Clintons that showed Dean to be a complete hypocrite in opposing...

MANDOZI, Afghanistan - Army Pvt. Justin Fillmore has some family military history. Yet he didn't really know what to expect in his first overseas combat mission. He is here in Afghanistan, he says, because he wanted to give a break to other soldiers, some of them on their second, third or fourth combat deployments. "I'm young enough, I can handle it," Fillmore, 23, of Latrobe says as he sits by a Humvee, smoking a cigarette. "I'm happy it happened, that I got to go while I still had the mind-set for it."

Politics: Barack Obama revives the politics of personal destruction by sending out surrogates to attack John McCain the war hero and John McCain the man. Politics as usual, Senator?Obama talks about change and hope and masquerades as the anti-politician. But as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright noted after Obama disowned his pastor of two decades, Obama will do and say the things a politician has to do and say to win. Judging from the Sunday performance of Gen. Wesley Clark, an Obama adviser and possible VP pick, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In an interview with...

Why is the president of the United States entertaining Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheik Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at Camp David when his own State Department has singled out the Sheik’s homeland, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), for its continuing violations of human rights? Abu Dhabi is one of seven oil-rich — and anti-Israel states — in the U.A.E. Using its massive sovereign wealth fund of over $875 billion, Abu Dhabi has been gobbling up American assets, buying considerable stakes in U.S. businesses like Citigroup, the Carlyle Group, Advanced Micro Devices, and Toll Brother and is now bidding on...

John McCain is a fighter -- at least when it comes to defending his military record. Today, a "Truth Squad" for the presumptive Republican nominee forcefully rejected General Wesley Clark's comments that McCain lacks foreign policy experience, and suggested Barack Obama do the same. Led by John Warner, a Virginia Republican who serves with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the squad blasted Clark and sought to reenforce the military reputation of McCain, a former Vietnam POW who once headed the largest Navy aviation squadron. "I find General Clark's comments to be unworthy, unseemly, for someone of his stature....

Barack Obama just delivered a speech on patriotism in Independence, Mo., hometown of what was once America's most powerful haberdasher, and offered a mild rebuke to Wesley Clark, who took on John McCain's military record the other day in rather scorching terms. And just to make it clear, an Obama spokesman sent out this brief statement as Obama was speaking: "As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and, of course, he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark." Obama's speech focused on his own sense of patriotism, quoting Mark Twain (it's good to quote...

This quote was from Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, an organization that gave $600,000 in cash and supplies in "humanitarian aide" to an insurgent-controlled Fallujah several years ago in our current war (the Marines won anyway, which is perhaps why Code Pink is leading the assault against the Marines in Berkeley). That is just one toxic outburst is a collection of indefensible comments from the radical fringe of the Democratic Party laughably called "progressives" in a series of personal attacks levied at Presidential candidate John McCain and chronicled by Ben Smith in a Politico article. Prominent progressive blogger John...

Of all the issues to go after John McCain on, how high up on the list would you place his military service? The Obama campaign and the fever swamps of the moonbat blogosphere seem to think it is a winning idea. (CLARK VIDEO AT LINK) This is just so stupid it is breathtaking. Is there room under Obama’s bus for one more person? Is this the different kind of politics Obama has been promising? Here’s Bruce at QandO with a reminder for Obama, Obama: “We’ve got to get beyond the small politics … the slash and burn politics that have...

Andrea Mitchell claims Wesley Clark's cracks about John McCain's heroism were a gaffe. Bloopers that will cost him any chance of being picked for the Obama veep slot. But surely the seasoned MSM hand knows better to imagine that Clark was freelancing. His were anything but impromptu remarks, made, say, late at night to a foreign reporter in a hotel cocktail lounge in some far-flung land. To the contrary, Clark took his shots in the brightest of limelights—those of a Sunday morning talk show—speaking with the venerable Bob Schieffer. Clark was explicity there as an Obama campaign surrogate. Moreover, Clark...

WASHINGTON: With Senator Barack Obama planning to visit the Middle East and Europe in an apparent effort to burnish his foreign policy credentials, the credentials of his likely presidential rival, Senator John McCain, came under sharp attack Sunday from a man considered a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate. The retired general Wesley Clark said McCain had not "held executive responsibility" and had not commanded troops in wartime. McCain's experience in Vietnam, where he was a prisoner of war for five years, has seemed at times almost to grant him invulnerability to criticism of his security background. But on Sunday he...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama is considering former top military leaders among his possible running mates, according to a senator who met Tuesday with the Democratic presidential candidate's vice presidential vetting team. North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad told The Associated Press said the team asked him about potential candidates from three broad categories _ current top elected officials, former top elected officials and former top military leaders. Conrad would not disclose which names they discussed, and the Obama campaign has been keeping the process a closely guarded secret. "We talked about many names," Conrad said, including "some that are out...

Retired General Wesley Clark, one of Sen. Hillary Clinton's most ardent supporters, has sent a letter to his own supporters from his 2004 presidential bid. In his letter, Clark urges his people to get behind Sen. Barack Obama to help him win the White House in November. Could it be a signal of what's to come Saturday afternoon when Clinton holds a rally at the National Building Museum? Calling it a "critical mission," Clark asked voters to do everything they can to help elect Obama. "Hillary Clinton ran an amazing race. She inspired millions. Our party is a better party...

Here’s what happens when perfectly respectable retired military men decide to get involved in partisan political campaigns where you have to be prepared to say anything even when its demonstrably asinine, thereby jettisoning all credibility they might have enjoyed by virtue of their military careers.  From today’s Corner, courtesy of Byron York, comments by Wesley Clark and William Ownes about how it is that John McCain is not as qualified to be Commander in Chief as Hillary Clinton is: On a just-finished conference call in which retired military leaders endorsed Hillary Clinton to be commander in chief, retired General Wesley Clark said John McCain’s military...

On a just-finished conference call in which retired military leaders endorsed Hillary Clinton to be commander in chief, retired General Wesley Clark said John McCain's military experience is not the right kind of experience to command the nation's armed forces:

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...

John McCain's presidential campaign sent out an e-mail today announcing the formation of the McCain Truth Squad to fight back attacks such as Wesley Clark's yesterday on Face the Nation.The Politico posted the e-mail:All: Please join us for a conference call launching the McCain Truth Squad -- a new group aimed at countering the recent attacks on John McCain’s military record. On the call will be Truth Squad leaders, including fellow POWs Col. Bud Day, USAF (Ret.) (Medal of Honor) and Lt.Col. Orson Swindle, USMC (Ret.), as well as Carl Smith, retired Navy pilot who served with Sen. McCain.Looks like...

Wesley Clark exploits his fellow Vietnam veteran’s bad combat luck to disparage his service record Sent to http://securingamerica.com/feedback Dear General Clark, I am copying you on this piece, which I am posting to several blogs to which I write, because I don’t need to say behind someone’s back what I won’t say to his face. Furthermore, I added the word “sickening” in the subject line for those blogs. Per “Clark hits McCain’s military credentials” at http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080629/pl_politico/11425, you said “I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and...

I wondered how the Democrats were going to cut McCain down to size when it came to national security because it is obviously Obama's biggest and most glaring weakness. It isn't that Obama only has a little experience in foreign and defense affairs - he has none. Zero. Nada. Zilch. The American people thought a president could get away with being ignorant about foreign affairs with Clinton and later a Texas governor with zero foreign policy credentials because the cold war was over and it appeared that we would have little need for a president who could handle a military...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Retired US General Wesley Clark on Sunday said Republican White House hopeful John McCain lacked executive experience to be president, in rare criticism of the Vietnam veteran's military service. Clark told CBS television that McCain was a hero for enduring years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam "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." Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander, said McCain's combat experience as a fighter pilot did not make him...

Gen. Wesley Clark, acting as a surrogate for Barack Obama’s campaign, invoked John McCain’s military service against him in one of the more personal attacks on the Republican presidential nominee this election cycle. Clark said that McCain lacked the executive experience necessary to be president, calling him “untested and untried” on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” And in saying so, he took a few swipes at McCain’s military service. After saying, "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 the armed forces, as...

NEW YORK (AP) - Retired general Wesley Clark says he's moving to MSNBC after two years as an analyst at Fox News Channel. Clark, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2004 and hasn't stated his intentions for the 2008 campaign, will be called on for both his military and political experience, the network said. Others with MSNBC analyst contracts include Pat Buchanan, retired general Barry McCaffrey and Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. Clark said nothing political should be read into the switch. Democrats have increasingly made Fox News the target of attacks, and major presidential candidates have refused to participate...

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he is doing a great job at the head of our military establishment. Does that surprise you? Do you agree? Meanwhile, several retired generals have come forth with calls for Rumsfeld to resign or be fired. He discounts this as “sour grapes” and claims that active military leaders support him. But does he, or anyone, expect those working for him, and owing allegiance to the establishment, to sound off against the big boss?

Wesley Clark is on MSNBC, spinning for Kerry. He was asked, by Matthews, if Kerry was wrong to bring up Dick Cheney's daughter. Speaking of her sexual preference. (This is a sign that the MSM knows that Kerry looks bad, to the public, for doing it. They are trying to help him cover his mistake). Wesley Clark stated that Cheney's daughter is a public figure...so it was ok. Perhaps the Weasel Clark won't mind if people start picking apart those he is associated with. But that is not really needed. Clark's own history shows him to be a horrible leader....