Posted on 07/05/2008 3:34:10 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
WASHINGTON - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an advisor to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, says being shot down in an airplane doesn't qualify one to be president, a reference to Sen. John McCain's experience in Vietnam. He is absolutely correct. But it also doesn't make him any less qualified.
In fact, it gives McCain a perspective on war and its horrors that his opponent, who quickly disavowed Clark's unapologetic comment, certainly doesn't have. And from that standpoint it puts the presumptive Republican nominee even further up on the Oval Office qualifications meter.
It is doubtful many voters would base their vote for McCain solely on the fact that after losing out to a surface-to-air missile he spent five years in a Vietnamese detention center under conditions that makes Guantanamo look first class. But that character-shaping ordeal will be one of the factors under consideration when Americans inclined to look at the entire picture cast their ballots come November.
Without his 26 years of experience in the U.S. Senate, McCain most likely would not be where he is now with a chance to become the 44th president of the United States. Clark's remark about McCain in a television interview, while not politically correct, was understandable. The general had White House aspirations himself, but the fact the former infantryman had none of the other experience quickly shorted out those ambitions, not to say that his military record isn't exemplary.
Clark's critique also seems to reveal a smidgen of the foot soldier's natural resentment of the flyboys zooming overhead in relative comfort while their counterparts on the ground are facing the enemy head to head 24 hours a day. Grunts on the ground often are resentful of every one who doesn't have to slog through mud, jungle or desert carrying 60 pounds of gear and smothering protective wear and that even includes artillerymen. Navy men, of whom McCain is one, who eat well in clean surroundings are particularly scorned.
What Clark missed is that McCain wouldn't be the first man forced to ditch his airplane during combat to rise to the presidency. George H.W. Bush had the same experience in World War II. Fortunately, he wasn't picked up by the enemy and brutally incarcerated. On the other hand, that episode was one of the things that made him attractive to voters who elected him as the last of the "good war" presidents. Those military years clearly served him well in managing Operation Desert Storm where he resisted an extension of the conflict that would have damaged a fragile alliance in the region and forced a debilitating occupation of Iraq.
Obama's quick denouncement of the general's statement is to his credit. At the same time he has been forced unfairly to defend his own patriotism in a campaign marred before it has officially begun with charges and counter charges that are exacerbated by the excesses of the Internet where misinformation and unsubstantiated rumors and just plain made up stuff have become an increasing threat to any semblance of political decency. Obama is especially vulnerable because of his mixed race, his Muslim sounding middle name, Hussein, and his failure early on to wear an American flag in his lapel. How ridiculous.
Both candidates, mainly through surrogates, have been guilty of the Clark-like denouncement of the other. The Obama forces, for instance, produced a television ad that featured a woman and a baby boy that openly and shamelessly contended that McCain would not get her child for Iraq in a reference to his support for the war if "it takes 100 years." Enough already.
The one thing McCain has that his opponent doesn't is experience on every front, economic, foreign, and military. Obama has none except for a short stint in the Illinois legislature and even less in the U.S. Senate where his campaigning has made him only an infrequent participant. The contrast between the two in charisma, age and rhetoric couldn't be sharper, with Obama taking that contest hands down. But in the long run that may not be enough as voters start to wonder about his ability to accomplish what he promises without some serious on-the-job training.
The Illinois senator's campaign thus has been an effort to minimize the McCain experience factor. In so doing, however, there is always a chance someone will go too far.
Clark certainly did.
What's he going to run for if he actually becomes president?
McCain never said it did.
McCain's service has not been worn on his sleeve like Kerry did.
This issue will be a problem for Obama, it points out his lack of service and experience.
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