I think Barack Obama has just entered the worst campaign week he’s had since he tossed his hat in the ring, courtesy of Wesley “Perfumed Prince” Clark. And he entered it on a Sunday, for God’s sake.
You probably disagree, and I don’t blame you. After all, Obama is something of a perfumed prince himself where the media is concerned, and odds on Sunday were that Clark’s comments would be added to the immense pile of gaffes, flip-flops, stupid remarks, arrogant posturing, and smug comments from Obama, his campaign staff, and his surrogates that have been ignored by the press.
No, no, my dear liberal friends: Not this time.
You see, service really is the third rail. You know that, deep in the back of your political minds…if it weren’t so, you wouldn’t have been so confident of John Kerry’s chances in 2004. You remember, don’t you? Kerry’s four months in Vietnam were supposed to trump George W. Bush’s however many months in the Texas Air Guard sight unseen…all it was going to take were a few photos of Kerry in country, and bang — You had a winner.
Only not so much. Kerry’s service, while honorable in and of itself, turned out to have a few holes in it, holes that to this day, he hasn’t been able to caulk. No lawsuit, no public release of his records, end of story, won’t argue it with you any longer. Those holes were exaggerations on the candidates part that were easily refuted by men whose credibility, simply by virtue of their not exaggerating their own service trumped Kerry’s.
You guys blew a fucking election that was damn near unblowable. And here you are, four years later, applying that little Men in Black memory eraser thingamajig to your own damn electoral chances. That’s true brilliance, lefties…I’ll tell you why, after the fold.
Barack Obama, David Axelrod, and David Plouffe think they can easily disregard Michigan and Florida, because they honestly believe a combination of Obama’s black support and the candidacy of Bobb Barr (who I admire immensely, by the way, for reasons that have nothing to do with his terms in Congress) will win Georgia and enough of the South and West to make up the difference. That theory was interesting until this past Sunday, and deserving of some thought.
Not anymore. Your candidate just sent out a surrogate, albeit a fellow that used to wear four stars on his epaulets, to denigrate the service of a man who not only distinguished himself as a Naval officer, but spent five years as a prisoner of war at the mercy of foes who, if anything, surpassed the Japanese of World War II in their cruelty to prisoners.
What’s that you say? Obama didn’t send Clark out to do that?
That’s nice, guys and gals, really. Good luck selling it to my friends and neighbors here in Georgia who don’t blog or read blogs. You know, the ones who came out in droves to support initiatives against gay marriage and handed John Kerry an 18 point loss in 2004. The ones who read newspapers and keep a jaundiced eye on the news in the evening before they go to bed, early, sans Sherry or Port to help them sleep.
You’ve made some hay in the past by pointing out that more of our citizens serve in the Armed Forces than just about any other area of the country, all the while pointing out that their service is more likely due to the lean economy here in the South than to traditions or a willingness to serve. Oh, I’ll grant you that many of our youth see service as a way the hell out of the towns they grow up in, but then again, so would be, say, community organizing or service with Peace Corps. Those options are probably pretty popular in Fulton County, to tell you the truth. That’s metro Atlanta, though, it’s not the Georgia that handed John Kerry his ass a few years ago.
We serve because our fathers and grandfathers, our uncles, brothers, and friends served. We serve because it’s just as much a part of our culture as peach cobbler or sweet tea are. We serve because we grow up plinking at squirrels and playing “If it flies it dies” with evil guns, and we’re quite enamored with the idea of shooting bigger, badder guns, throwing grenades, calling in artillery, setting out Claymore mines, digging foxholes, and generally wreaking havoc under the stern eye of Uncle Sam and his designated cadre.
We appreciate (that’s a word laden with significance when applied down here) service to the extent that I’m sorely tempted to replace the word with “revere”. Old men right here in my town, a mere thirty miles from Fulton County and downtown Atlanta still call themselves (and are called by others) “Captain”, Major”, “Colonel”, and “Sar-Major”. Women organize drives for goods for service members in Iraq and Afghanistan at a pace that exhausts me to consider…had I a nickel for every Lady who has gently, but with a steely-eyed gaze solicited money, DVDs, and books from me over the past four or so years, I’d be well off.
All that is to say, if there is one geographical region of the country you’re counting on to help you erase your piss-poor performance in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Appalachia, this one would be it. And in my estimation, you just blew it. Look, I’m a new Democrat, but I’m quite an old observer of electoral politics in my region, and, perhaps most relevant of all, I’m a party line voter where the presidency is concerned. I’ve had every intention of voting for Obama since he won the primary, and I understand exactly why I should vote for him, but this Clark / Beers / Aravosis blabbermouthing regarding McCain’s service has me itching to pull the lever for Bob Barr.
I won’t, of course, but I can guaran-byGod-tee you that a lot of other folks around here will, or alternatively, pull the lever for McCain in outrage at the Perfumed Prince’s verbal diarrhea, reinforced by the Democratic candidate’s already more than a little radical history. And ladies and gentlemen of the left, you’ve done it to yourselves.
Big round of applause for you. You’ve earned it.
Update: Jennifer Rubin nails it:
…once again a surrogate shows that the Obama camp attracts the very worst of the Left–sneering, disrespectful, and ignorant of the value of military service. The inference is becoming inescapable that this swarm of anti-McCain venom is countenanced by the Obama camp. They simply can’t be this awful at corralling their troops, can they?
Filed under: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, John McCain, Military, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs
I too, am a new democrat. This is the first election I’ve watched closely. The gaffs are stunning indeed. Honestly, I think Obama is oddly -too smart- to win the election.
He says things that people like you and I understand to mean one thing (what he intends to convey) but a large swath of the country understand him to mean something else (often the exact opposite).
And ultimately that’s what McCain’s camp responds to, the second understanding. Which forces Obama to restate what he said but in a different way – and then accusations to flip-flopping or backpeddling drown out the message.
Mark, you may find Joe’s take on that to be interesting as well as quite humorous.
http://cadillactight.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/worms/
Oh, come on, Joe. Gen. Clark did not “denigrate” John McCain’s service. I understand that that’s the spin that the McCain team put on it, and you may (or may not) be right that large portions of the electorate will buy that.
Do you?
If so, could you please point to it in the transcript?
http://securingamerica.com/node/2993
Here is the relevant portion as I see it:
Bob Schieffer: Well you, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, “untested and untried,” And I must say I, I had to read that twice, because you’re talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He’s been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. 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 Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, ‘I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it-’
Bob Schieffer: Well-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: ‘ -it publicly.’ He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.
Bob Schieffer: Well, well, General, maybe-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So-
Bob Schieffer: Could I just interrupt you. If-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Sure.
Bob Schieffer: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President.
Bob Schieffer: Really?!
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But Barack is not, he is not running on the fact that he has made these national security pronouncements. He’s running on his other strengths. He’s running on the strengths of character, on the strengths of his communication skills, on the strengths of his judgment. And those are qualities that we seek in our national leadership.
Gen. Clark didn’t “denigrate the service” of John McCain. He made some factual observations about Sen. McCain’s relative lack of executive experience. If the Senator and his supporters think that they are entitled to run for president without having to answer perfectly legitimate questions about his qualifications, like what exactly is the extent of his executive experience, they’re badly mistaken.
John McCain has every right to be proud of his service in Vietnam and his conduct during his long and difficult imprisonment. But Sen. McCain has no right to presume, like a true “perfumed prince,” that he may not be asked any questions about it while running for the highest office in the land. It certainly looks like he’s got both a titanic ego and an unbridled sense of entitlement when, after someone says (in response to the patently ridiculous observation that Sen. Obama “hasn’t ridden in a fighter plane and gottten shot down”) that Sen. McCain’s getting shot down actually does not qualify him to be president, and in response he and his campaign and supporters overreact hysterically, whining and screeching like little girls who were just handed a frog. Then when Sen. Jim Webb urges them, with a chuckle, to “calm down” on this the campaign sends out another high-pitched shriek of indignation before fainting onto their couch for the night.
Suck it up, Senator McCain. If you want this job you’re going to have to prove you deserve it.
That Jennifer Rubin screed is embarrassingly unhinged.
Here’s what Rand Beers actually said:
“Sadly, Sen. McCain was not available during those times, and I say that with all due respect to him,” said informal Obama adviser Rand Beers. “I think that the notion that the members of the Senate who were in the ground forces or who were ashore in Vietnam have a very different view of Vietnam and the cost that you described than John McCain does because he was in isolation essentially for many of those years and did not experience the turmoil here or the challenges that were involved for those of us who served in Vietnam during the Vietnam war.”
“So I think,” he continued, “to some extent his national security experience in that regard is sadly limited and I think it is reflected in some of the ways that he thinks about how U.S. forces might be committed to conflicts around the world.”
So, by suggesting that John McCain might have been shaped by his own personal experiences and have some gaps in his experience due to his time in captivity during the 1960’s, Rubin believes that Beers is somehow “attacking McCain’s military service,” “slamming McCain,” “sneering, disrespectful, and ignorant of the value of military service,” spewing “anti-McCain venom,” and is “defam[ing] heroic service.”
Rubin is insane.
This stuff is dangerously close to hero worship.
Gen. Wesley Clark certainly doesn’t need any lectures in patriotism from Jennifer Rubin, or from any of us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark
Actually, Clark is a hypocrite:
So in 2004, Kerry’s four months of Vietnam service was Clark’s definition of what we need as CinC. In 2008, McCain’s entire career in uniform doesn’t qualify him. Quite a stretch there, wouldn’t you say? And how does this huge flip-flop not denigrate McCain’s service? Kerry’s was somehow better?
As for Clark needing lectures in patriotism, I never suggested he did…nor, I think, did Jen. What he needs are lessons in manners, respect, consistency…and oh yes, politics. He’s a terrible politician and a terrible surrogate for Obama.
A little humility wouldn’t hurt the guy either. His ego cost him his last command and ended his first career…it’s a good thing talking heads don’t particularly care about it, or it might cost him this one as well.
Edited to add:
That’s rich, considering Obama’s supporters are starting to change their middle names to his :-)
There’s definitely some hypocrisy going on there. (Which is not limited to Clark, or to the Democrats).
But I don’t see how this switch denigrates McCain’s service. Clark is saying that McCain’s service was important and admirable. It just doesn’t have much direct relevance to the job of POTUS.
I don’t think that he was saying, in 2004, that fact that John Kerry had seen combat alone was reason enough to prefer him for president. I think he was saying that Kerry’s entire career: Navy combat veteran, peace activist, prosecutor and lawyer, and lengthy Senate career, taken as a whole, demonstrates that sort of experience that he wanted in a candidate. It doesn’t make any sense to suggest that Kerry’s military service alone should be considered, separately from the rest of his career. Just as it doesn’t make any sense to say that about John McCain.
“As for Clark needing lectures in patriotism, I never suggested he did…nor, I think, did Jen.”
Well, Jennifer Rubin included General Clark in her list of eight people whose statements she said “shows that the Obama camp attracts the very worst of the Left–sneering, disrespectful, and ignorant of the value of military service.”
I’m not sure where Jennifer Rubin got her degree, or when she did her Ranger training, or how many times she has directed her men in a counterattack after being shot four times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Silver_Star_Citation.gif
Or how many years she devoted to military service, or how many combatant commands she’s held, how many mountainsides she’s rappelled down to retrieve comrades, or when she served as NATO Supreme Commander, or how many wars she’s won without sustaining a single combat death.
But I suspect Gen. Clark has more well-earned respect for the value of military service than Ms. Rubin has. At least judging by that one sneering, disrespectful and ignorant post of hers.
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