This is what we’re stuck with:
Despite heavy criticism, Gen. Wesley Clark is standing by his statement this weekend that Sen. John MCain’s military experience doesn’t qualify him to be commander-in-chief.
“I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war,” Clark said of McCain on Sunday. “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.”
That statement from Clark has come under withering criticism from McCain’s campaign and was rejected by Sen. Barack Obama, both of whom (along with the media) distorted Clark’s words by painting them as an attack on McCain’s military service.
Clark is a retired four star general, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. If he can’t call bullshit on the lionization of Saint McCain, no one can.
Surrogates say the things candidates can’t say. That’s Clark’s job. For Obama to go out of his way to reinforce the “McCain has foreign policy experience” is political malpractice.
Obama should pick a vice president who will tell him not to do this again. That seems to be the most important criteria for VP selection at the moment.
Will
I agree.
Not sure why BHO did this. It may just be policy to avoid Sboating but Gen Clark (my choice for VEEP), made judicious comment.
what a pos clark is.he got his ass fired by gen shelton chairman of the joint chief of staff.shelton questioned clarks integrity.
Good call Will. I was a bit amazed when I heard about it. Clark’s statement was bang on. There was nothing to back away from.
What do you expect from a candidate who admires Ronald Reagan, was mentored in the Senate by Joe Lieberman, picks young Mr. “WalMart Economist” as his economic advisor, dumped his pastor of twenty years for political convenience, and voted foursquare in favor of the oppressive and demeaning new bankruptcy bill?
This is why some people say they might as well vote for McCain.
What the hell difference will it make? There’s going to be a huge depression, anyway. Might as well let a Republican president take the blame for it.
There’s not a lot to be recommended in a candidate who talks out of both sides of his mouth — which McCain AND Obama do with relish and alacrity.
They BOTH suck.
And, yes, a country that has a ‘Department of Homeland Security’ is a real, honest to God fascist state.
People say politics is the ‘art of the possible’. Is this all that’s possible?
I am at a loss. I do not see Gen. Clark’s statement as a positive for anyone.
I greatly admire Clark, and supported his campaign in 2004, but, while McCain is an obvious traitor (i.e. sold out America when tortured.. or is torture pointless? I will let the torture mongering neocons try to make sense of that nonsense), the point of “McCain’service in the Navy does not give him Presidential qualifications” is stupid!
McCain doesn’t have Presidential qualifications because he is an asshole!!! A flip flopping, Lobbyist fucking, wife “cunt” calling, misanthropic, 100 years in Iraq, I was against the new GI Bill, before I pretended to be for it, Bush bootlicking asshole!!!
That is all that is needed to send his tired old ass back to Arizona where he can disrespect his wife, and disrespect veterans to his heart content!
Obama made a good call. And I respect him more for it.
Now… what Obama does with the FISA bill… I will wait and see.
Brrrrrrrrroooooommmmmm…
That’s the sound of the Obama Bus revving its engines! What is this, 20 or 25 people thrown under it?
You Kool-Aid Kids should expect nothing less from Barry. Regardless of the (in)validity of
Gen.PLC (Private Low Class) Clark’s comments, Obama has yet again proven that he will say anything, twist any way to get elected. He is nothing but an old fashioned politician in fancy new packaging.4 I have to say I’m with you on this, Lucy. Granted, Obama might have started his run with some pretty decent ideals, but the RoveCo rat-fuckers and the Vichy Democrats are both playing him like a Strad. If he actually makes it into the Oval Office, he’ll be so flim-flammed he won’t be able to find his way to the bathroom.
More and more it seems America is irretrievably broken, and the best we can hope for is that something better will take its place after what’s by now probably an inevitable civil war.
@6 So you:
A: Agree with Gen. Clark?
B: Just a wingnut drunk moron?
Only answer possible is A, or B.
I am betting on B.
Headless and Artfart, did you go to a wingnut bar? What are you drinking?
How can you see a denunciation of Clark’s ill worded comments as a sell out?
“What do you expect from a candidate who admires Ronald Reagan”
Have you been watching nothing but FOX news? Obama said nothing like that. He was talking about the shift Reagan made in political reality. Not admiration, just acknowledgment.
If the left is going to eat itself, then we deserve the nightmare the wingnuts are going to give us.
Bye Bye Clark… Next…..Even Hillary (correction if Bill were locked up) would not have made such a stupid statement.
But Bill is back to his 1 million dollar per year tax payer paid office, with plenty of women around to serve him a cigar or two as necessary.
So Clark’s out …Hillary is still in…. We’ll see
I suppose but doubt that Madeleine Albright, the old B that gave Nukes to the North Korean’s in the first place, who Obama dug up and put in his roundup with Dip Shit Clark, as the team to lead… 2 down now and how many to go?
It took 8 years for the US to get back under control the nukes the Clinton and AlDumbbright helped install there. Another DUHHHHHH
Who’s next in Obama’s Dumbshit roundup?
John McCain isn’t running against Wesley Clark. If he was, the criticism made about McCain’s military record MIGHT make some sense. Arguably, Clark has a more impressive military record than McCain.
But exactly how does belittling McCain’s military record help Barack Obama? Even if McCain’s military record is not as impressive as it has been made out to be, it is still 1000% better than Obama’s military record (or Romney’s military record or either of the Clintons’ military records for that matter).
Blatantly Oblivious @ 8
I disagree with
Col. Klink“Gen.” Clark AND I’m laughing that Obama is throwing yet another hanger-on under the bus. Two preachers, his indicted real estate buddy, his VP advisor, his dad…Makes you wonder if he’d “denounce” Michelle if it would get him elected:
“At no time during our marriage did Michelle express such racist and unpatriotic sentiments as she did recently. She is not the person I thought I knew. It is with much sadness that I have directed my staff to lock her away at Iron Mountain — the same place I’m hiding Jesse Jackson — until the election is over.”
I see it as a strategic move. Clark is in a position to question McSame’s military credentials and make that criticism stick. The media goes into hysterics, playing over & over for days (free press time). Obama disavows (more hysteria & free press for several MORE days) while keeping his hands looking squeaky clean. Looking like Obama is going to ‘play nice’.
Takes off much of the heat over whether Obama has any military experience. Also gets McSame heated up enough to perhaps blow a gasket while showing his noted temper.
Personally, I would like to see Clark as the VP – he has much needed experience plus quite a following of his own.
Isn’t Clark the guy who directed the mission where they fired a missle and hit an embassy be mistake?? What does that make Clark qualified for? Starting WWWIII?
FnF @ 14 “Personally, I would like to see Clark as the VP – he has much needed experience plus quite a following of his own.”
I’d say Obama should go for it. I want to see the Scanners-like reactions of all of the Far Lefties that charged Wesley Clark with war crimes in Yugoslavia.
Clark didn’t question McCain’s service or his patriotism. He simply stated what would seem to be obvious. Getting shot down and captured doesn’t make McCain better qualified to be president.
I heard someone on talk radio saying that we ought to vote for McCain because he served his country and was held in a POW camp. But the presidency isn’t a reward for meritorious service.
17 “But the presidency isn’t a reward for meritorious service.”
The last eight years have pretty bloody well demonstrated that. (And I do mean BLOODY!)
Clark wants to be BHO’s veep.
re 9: Clark said that being a prisoner of war for five years did not prepare one to be commander in chief. The Republicans are now playing their ‘outrage’ card (which they do so well). These are the same guys who torpedoed McCain’s 2000 run by accusing him of fathering black children and selling out his fellow war prisoners to the N. Vietnamese.
You can’t beat these guys by triangulating. Once again, Obama has chosen to stand for traditional, mealy-mouthed DNC politics that is weak, vacillating, and ultimately takes this in the direction that the retarded right leads it.
@ 17 & 18 (& others)
Participating in the fighting of a war DOES make you better qualified to be President… Commander-in-Chief. It doesn’t automatically qualify you, but it makes you better. To John McCain, battle and the resulting suffering are not theoretical concepts. He knows them firsthand and they inform his decisions. He knows that his sons are in the military and what they could face… and he still chooses the right course.
Perhaps if GWB had seen fighting, his decisions about Iraq would have been different. Aren’t you Lefties the ones that are always pointing out how wrong it is that someone with no battle experience is sending troops to war? Do you somehow think that an Obama administration won’t have ANY “police actions?” What about the calls for U.S. forces in Sudan? What if that becomes another Somalia?
PI @ 19
As I said in 16, BHO can have Wes Clark, the war criminal. (And that is from your friends at a Kos-like Lefty publication, folks.)
Whoever gets elected in 2008 should end these foreign adventures we tend to get ourselves involved in. We need to return to isolationism as far as military intervention goes.
“Participating in the fighting of a war DOES make you better qualified to be President…”
Absolutely no, it does not, any more than amassing a fortune makes you an ‘expert’ on economics. It is irrelevant to the question at hand.
Ratio of total donations to Obama versus those to McCain among military personnel: 10:9
(Source: Harper’s Index)
John McCain’s disastrous flight experience and unfortunate incarceration has not kept him from being wrong on many of the major foreign policy questions of our time, and ignorant on the rest of them.
Good judgment is key, and he ain’t got it.
6 TRM
Do you expect people to respect your candidate’s service when you denigrate General Wesley Clark’s?
So here’s the deal, TRM. You’re:
– A piece of shit
General Wesley Clark:
– Was valedictorian of his class at West Point
– Was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics)
– Graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master’s degree in military science.
– Spent 34 years in the Army and the Department of Defense, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
– Commanded Operation Allied Force in the Kosovo War during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000.
You lose.
Statement from Wes Clark:
@27
And yet, John McCain is still MORE qualified than Barack Obama to lead this country.
Wesley Clark is an odious moron. A true political general officer, fired for seriously fucking up in Bosnia. The only Military qualification listed by Daddy Love is the one thing Clark failed at. The rest of the list is educational achievement, pffft.
How many of Clark’s medal are for being at the pointy end of the stick and how many are good conduct/ attendance. That’s how warriors measure each other. Yards of ribbons for non-combat items don’t count. Has Clark fired a shot in anger, ever? Besides at the Chinese embassy, of course…
29 d
shorter delbert: “stoopid edyoocayshunnal acheevement! i don’t have enny, and im just fyne!”
Clark is a retired four star general, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. If he can’t call bullshit on the lionization of Saint McCain, no one can.
————————
Actually, we should end these types of attacks and focus on the critical issues we face as a country. This takes us down a dead end of charge and counter-charge. And Obama himself has certainly been accused of getting a pass.
“experience” is the claim made by people who are wrong on the issues.
31 JC
When did Obama supposedly “get a pass?” Not when was he accused of it, but when did he get one?
No offense, Jimmy, but that’s one of those weasel lines: “Some have said that he rapes white women.”
NAMBLA @ 27
According to the Lefties you Kool-Aid Kids love so dearly, Wesley Clark is a war criminal who got fired.
NAMBLA @ 30
You’re projecting on that one, dimwit.
See: http://www.horsesass.org/?p=5106#comment-789674
and read all about how Wesley Clark was fired!
headless lucy@4: Wesley Clark admired Ron Reagan too. See my post #35
@30
So your defense of Clark is an ad hominem attack on me? I guess that means I win the argument…
@32
You’re denigrating “experience” because your candidate doesn’t have any and he’s woefully naive on the issues.
Here’s a perfect example of why the Democrats should indeed make the cowardly McCain’s “war” record an issue. For some reason, the right wing baby rapers seem to think that Democrats who serve the country are not entitled to the same respect that republicans who sing like a bird while in POW camps are.
These wingers crack me up.
This good cop bad cop routine between Obama and Clark was worked out beforehand.
The damage is done – to John Flip-Flop McSame.
Name one thing McCain has not flip flopped on.
I can’t wait till Barack states that “years of voting against the good of the nation and our troops for the benefit of the super rich does not make McCain qualified to be president”. It only makes his a Republicon.
Just remember. The MSM is doing ALL THEY CAN to keep this walking flip flopping warmonger in the race. I haven’t seen coverage of is dozens of flip flops, mis-statements, or his voting record against the troops yet. Much less his support of the worst foreign policy disaster our country has ever unleashed upon the world. The occupation of Iraq.
His campaign slogan should be:
Vote McCain! He’s dead wrong on everything!
“The Saddest Thing About Barack Obama’s Available Military Expertise…
…is that though he has Wes Clark in his corner, the only person he knows with the experience of getting a bomb on target is Bill Ayers.”
– Confederate Yankee
Heh.
Tuesday Funnies, SJ style
John McCain is the best qualified candidate for President because:
His experience lying t interrogators in Hanoi makes him uniquely prepared for the Washington press.
The injury to his arms means he will never raise his arms Nixon stule to declare victory.
As the spouse of a beer merchant, he is immune to charges of favoring the prohibitionists.
He is not Jewish, not Black, not Catholic. and not Hispanic!
BHO should be President because:
His mom was a confirmed aetheist, his Dad a failed muslim, yet Obama chose to believe that Gid screwed mary.
His two young daughters would make great press.
He will be the first President able to write paragraph since Wilson (before the stroke).
His last name naturally gives rise to a chant .. O bam O bama, bama bama bama. Try it with drums.
—————————————–
anyone her einterested is a plate of issues?
There are reports that McCain wasn’t actually tortured but rather suffered his injuries when he crashed his jet. By the way – we paid for that incompetence. The reports are that he volunteered to stay in prison until all his fellows were released. How do we know that? Word is he stayed there as part of a deal he made to avoid harsh treatment while giving information that helped the enemy. And his command experience in Nam was none. In fact, he was so incompetent they tried to keep him out of the air. The General was right. Getting shot down and captured by the enemy doesn’t make you qualified to lead.
ByeByeGOP–
You seem like a bitter bastard.
What branch of the military did you serve in?
And when??
The so-called liberal media has long been punked by McSameOld – by the whole right wing for that matter.
It’s long overdue that Dem Politicians do the same.
Weasley Clark is grasping at air in a pathetic attempt to poke holes in McCain’s strongest attribute. Nice try, but McCain is much more vulnerable on the economy which makes this all the more inexplicable.
Wesley Clark is a nut job who almost started WWIII in Bosnia with the Russians.
McCain’s war record? Who the fuck cares? People know what to care about.
I spell “the same as Bush” L-O-S-E-R.
43 BBG
As I understood the story, McCain was nearly beaten to death, before he was captured by the NVA, by North Vietnamese civilian villagers who were mightily pissed off at being considered only as targets for bombs and napalm and who didn’t much like watching their children die in front of them.
Now McCain wants to keep doing the same thing in Iraq (admittedly minus the napalm), because it worked so well in Vietnam to get everyone on our side.
Not withstanding the fact that Obama has Gen. Wes Clark in his corner, the only man Obama knows who put a bomb on target is Bill Ayers.
50 j
Aw, isn’t that cute…Still on your talking points from April. You’d best get with some new program, son. Ask Hillary how much Bill Ayers hurt Da Man.
Two thirds of Americans are worried about McSame being Bush II and he’s down 15 points. And you think this lame shit is your answer?
More proof that Republicans are just a weird little shrinking minority.
images.dailykos.com/images/user/426/080701Candidates4_Y7B5V1.gif
What we do know from the polls is that for now, the idea that Bush is an albatross and an anchor around McCain’s neck is very real to Americans.
The questionnaire that McCain flunks:
Does global war by unilateral armed forces make sense as an antidote to terror?
Does preventive war work?
Are the costs of “global leadership” based primarily on military force sustainable?
Will events in Asia rather than the Middle East more strongly determine the course of the 21st century?
McCain is wrong on every one of these. Or he would be once someone explains to him what “Asia” is.
More proof that Republicans are just a weird little shrinking minority.
——————-
Curtis,
Maybe. But I see Microsoft is still spreading their love around:
http://www.campaignmoney.com/p.....p?cycle=08
including (especially) Dave Reichert and (gasp) Mitch McConnell.
What, no mention of his involvement at Waco? I forgot the phrase those right wingers were calling it, but something about not being able to use the military against the citizens of the country.
Since the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark has not answered any in-depth questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he made and orders he gave as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander.
Ouch.
Duh. Ayers is also a hero to the clinton following.
Have you noticed how fast obama is moving to the right to appeal to the voters that make a difference?
Just in the last couple days a celebrated military man was thrown under the bus.
The wheels on the bus go thump [thrown body] thump [thrown body] thump [thrown body]
This posting seems pretty silly now….
NAMBLA@49 farted:
Please post this URL with his exact words – moron!
Now McCain wants to keep doing the same thing in Iraq (admittedly minus the napalm), because it worked so well in Vietnam to get everyone on our side.
———————
Curtis-
He wants to keep doing what in Iraq – kill civilians including children?
By Clark’s yardstick neither John Kennedy nor John Kerry make the cut either. Just Clark’s way of saying HE should be President. However, a pattern is emerging in that Obama is using surrogates to smear McCain and that allows him to say he had nothing to do with it. Typical Democrat smear politician. Probably got that advice from MoveOn(dot)treason.
Mcgrump was in combat all of 20 hours before he was shot down.
He crashed 4 planes previously.
Admirals’ kids can do that, all others get tossed from service.
He’s never supported help to or for the regular grunts or vets.
He made more speeches supporting North Vietnam than Jane Fonda.
He’s a clusterfuck waiting to happen.
I noticed Daddy NAMBLA Love didn’t find the right post.