The McCain campaign is now launching an attack with its ‘truth squad’ about the Clark ‘controversy’ and pushing Obama to “denounce” Clark, etc. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens here. The McCain campaign’s angle here is to not to prevent attacks on the integrity of McCain’s war record (which Clark explicitly did not do) but to make it off limits for anyone to question that his war-time experience means he has the temperament and experience which make him the better qualified candidate to be president.
The McCain campaign’s claim that there’s any attack here on McCain’s war record is simply a lie — a simple attempt to fool people. This is an essential point to this entire campaign — does McCain’s military record mean that even the Democrats have to concede the point that he’s more qualified to be commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, that his foreign and national security policy judgment is superior to Obama’s? It’s simply a fact that McCain has a record of really poor judgment on a whole list of key foreign policy and national security questions.
Obama was a fool to denounce Clark’s statement that getting shot down doesn’t qualify one for the job of the President. Clark did not dishonor McCain’s service; he merely pointed out that it does not make him any more qualified to be President than Obama, who has no military service. Obama is playing directly into McCain’s hands on this one. He needs to stand by Clark or McCain is going to control the conversation on national security. That’s a very, very dangerous place to be.
