Wesley Clark: Delusional or Dishonest?

[Elvado]

In 2004 while trumpeting the credentials of Senator "Swiss Cheese on My Cheesesteak", war service was a major credential.

Now McCain's service is not a credential.

Change your mind Wes, or are you simply out of what's left of it?

Given that he is from Arkansas, and a devout Clintonista, chances are he'ssimply dishonest.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Did he say service wasn't a credential? I thought he said being a POW wasn't a credential. At least that's how I heard it.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Can't it be both?

[Bando]

I love how one of McCain's "truth" guys is a Swift Boat vet. It makes this complaint all the more ironic.

Also, I love how every one of Elvado's posts on the B&G board can be broken down to "You'll never believe what Rush said today, guys!"

[Boz]

Jul 2, 2008 13:02:01 GMT -5 Bando said:

I love how one of McCain's "truth" guys is a Swift Boat vet. It makes this complaint all the more ironic.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of the SBVT, people should really learn a little bit more about Col. Bud Day. (something no one really bothered about during the 2004 campaign). There is not a more dedicated servant of this country alive today, and that includes both candidates for President.

McCain thought the 2004 ads were dishonest and dishonorable, that's true. But this is one of his best friends, a genuine hero, and a perfect spokesman for his campaign. I suppose McCain could follow the Obama stategy though, and just throw him under the bus.

People of a certain political slant have so ingrained in themselves the idea that SBVT = no credibility, that I am not surprised at some of these reactions. Whatever. You're free to think that. But that doesn't make it true. People who have bases/training centers named after them usually have some credibility and record to back that up, regardless of any political campaigns they may engage in.

People always point out the cliams that SBVT made that were proven inaccurate. But there were also some that were proven true.

Also, I love how every one of Elvado's posts on the B&G board can be broken down to "You'll never believe what Rush said today, guys!"

Funny. I looked at the board this morning and thought to myself: "Huh...I could've sworn I pointed my browser to HoyaTalk, so how did I end up at DailyKos?"

It works both ways.

[strummer8526]

"I suppose McCain could follow the Obama stategy though, and just throw him under the bus."

And this is in reference to....? Jeremiah Wright? Someone who consistently became more and more antagonistic, thus forcing Obama's hand? If Day suddenly came out tomorrow and made a spectacle of himself at the National Press Club, I don't think anyone would say McCain "threw him under the bus" if he chose to distance himself.

"People always point out the cliams that SBVT made that were proven inaccurate. But there were also some that were proven true."

And here, in a nutshell, is one of the biggest problems with our media, our campaigns, and or political discourse as a whole. Everything is a half-truth. No one in politics makes up something out of whole cloth b/c they need a way to explain it if challenged. But it also seems like nothing is ever a complete, accurate, unbiased account either. That goes for both sides of the aisle. For every accurate fact in a SBVT ad, there was an innacurate one. You can only expect voters to parse through so much BS before they just give up and assume it's all crap.

[Elvado]

Attack the messenger all you like boys. Wesley Clark is either Delusional or dishonest. You choose.

[strummer8526]

Jul 2, 2008 14:46:55 GMT -5 Elvado said:

Attack the messenger all you like boys. Wesley Clark is either Delusional or dishonest. You choose.

And this separates him from 9/10 politicians, how? 9/10...probably more like 10/10. I can't wait for Midnight Madness just because we'll know the election will be over and we can all stop pointing out each time one side lies...which is going to happen PLENTY between now and then.

[Elvado]

I agree wholeheartedly. The real question to ask these candidates is where they stand on zoning variances for an on-campus arena...

[theexorcist]

Jul 2, 2008 14:53:52 GMT -5 strummer8526 said:

Jul 2, 2008 14:46:55 GMT -5 Elvado said:

Attack the messenger all you like boys. Wesley Clark is either Delusional or dishonest. You choose.

And this separates him from 9/10 politicians, how? 9/10...probably more like 10/10. I can't wait for Midnight Madness just because we'll know the election will be over and we can all stop pointing out each time one side lies...which is going to happen PLENTY between now and then.

Sigh. Midnight madness occurs in mid-October (you know that your life and soul have been removed from your body when you use recurring business trips as your means of tracking time). There will be two weeks of time in which basketball intersects with the campaign.

[strummer8526]

Jul 2, 2008 15:04:27 GMT -5 Elvado said:

I agree wholeheartedly. The real question to ask these candidates is where they stand on zoning variances for an on-campus arena...

I'm not saying that the topic of military service is not worth candidate discussion. I'm saying that this constant attempt by partisans and ideologues to one-up each other by pointing out "changes of hearts," "flip flops," "lies," etc. gets tiresome because they all do it. Fine, Wes Clark changed his stance here. And McCain has done the same on a whole host of issues. And Obama has not always been entirely consistent. And Kerry is a flip-flopper. And it goes on and on.

Of course, honesty and dishonesty aside, one party has had the presidency for the last 7 years and full opportunity to use that position. I wouldn't exactly say we've been led to a national high point.

[The Stig]

Did Clark actually say that McCain was unqualified, or just that military service on its own doesn't qualify you for the Presidency?

If he said the latter, he's right. In general, Presidents who have been elected solely on the basis of their military service have been pretty bad at the job. Washington and Eisenhower are the only exceptions I can think of. John McCain's actions as a POW showed a lot of courage and don't deserve any criticism whatsoever, but on their own they don't qualify him for the Presidency.

That said, saying something like "military service alone doesn't qualify you for the Presidency" is pretty stupid when you're talking about John McCain, and even stupider when it comes from the mouth of Wesley Clark. After all, McCain has plenty of political experience to go along with his military service, meaning he's more than qualified for the job. And if Clark had ever gotten the job he would have been one of the least qualified Presidents ever.

So in isolation, Clark's comment is correct; but when you put it in context it's stupid and hypocritical.

[strummer8526]

Jul 2, 2008 16:46:25 GMT -5 The Stig said:

Did Clark actually say that McCain was unqualified, or just that military service on its own doesn't qualify you for the Presidency?

If he said the latter, he's right. In general, Presidents who have been elected solely on the basis of their military service have been pretty bad at the job. Washington and Eisenhower are the only exceptions I can think of. John McCain's actions as a POW showed a lot of courage and don't deserve any criticism whatsoever, but on their own they don't qualify him for the Presidency.

That said, saying something like "military service alone doesn't qualify you for the Presidency" is pretty stupid when you're talking about John McCain, and even stupider when it comes from the mouth of Wesley Clark. After all, McCain has plenty of political experience to go along with his military service, meaning he's more than qualified for the job. And if Clark had ever gotten the job he would have been one of the least qualified Presidents ever.

So in isolation, Clark's comment is correct; but when you put it in context it's stupid and hypocritical.

Very well said, and completely right. The unfortunate thing about the comments is that even those like us who ultimately agree with his basic point are still then left thinking about "qualifications" and "experience." And then you can think of a million things McCain has done that Obama hasn't. The comments on their own (that serving in non-executive military roles doesn't make you inherently more qualified to be President) are correct, and so he doesn't deserve the absurd right-wing backlash. If anything, they ultimately hurt Obama politically because of the conversation that follows when someone says "So what?" to Clark's statement.

[jerseyhoya34]

I am not a fan of Wes Clark and wish he didn't raise the point that he did. It was just as dumb now as the Bush-SBVT effort was. Beyond the Winter Soldier angle that the SBVT attacks brought up, the SBVT attacked Kerry on the basis that he didn't earn his service medals. Passing out Band-Aids and fake medals at the Convention in a time of war was particularly crude. And, nobody should have wanted to be associated with that component of it.

Wes Clark's point was more subdued but was better left unsaid. However, strummer et al. are right on. McCain's campaign came back with a wild-eyed response and surrogates also denigrated Clark's service. That's not a winning strategy.

Another angle that has not been mentioned is that the 2004 McCain and 2000 McCain warned against making military service a credential and even said that it wasn't a credential for the Presidency. McCain's campaign now knows that it can't play up his service as a credential because it would be another clear flip-flop, so the easiest route is to attack the messenger.

[Boz]

Feel free to call this BS if you want. To be honest, I'm not really sure I'm buying it, but my guess is that if you asked a McCain senior campaign advisor, their (very simplified) perspective on the strategy would be this:

1. Highlight McCain's military experience and POW experience to showcase his character, patriotism and service to his country.

2. Highlight his Senate career to show his leadership, bi-partisanism and experience for the job.

Again, I'm not saying you have to buy it, but I think that's the aim. Do I think they mind if those tracks cross lines on a regular basis? Certainly not. I'm just pointing out that -- from their point of view -- the military career is not what he is running on, it's a character demonstration.

Obama is doing much of the same thing now with his values ad.

Actually the biggest problem I had with what Clark said was that McCain had no executive experience, which is not true at all. He was never a flag officer, but commanding an air group is certainly executive experience and Clark knows that. That issue, plus he and Schieffer saying that he "rode" in a jet.

Finally, my point of view is that I think Col. Day is an admirable and honorable person. The questioning of the medals was a mistake and was not honorable. The Christmas in Cambodia issue seems to be legitimate (certainly no one seemed to have a problem with questioning Hillary's Bosnia account, since it was inaccurate to say the least; same goes for Kerry). The questioning and criticisms of Kerry's positions after returning from Vietnam was more than fair game.

Whatever your opinion, I think that we can all agree on one thing:

Whoever wins this election, if they don't show up to Verizon in a WAG t-shirt for the Georgetown-Syracuse game, they should be impeached. Immediately.

Happy 4th.

[hoyatables]

Jul 2, 2008 15:04:27 GMT -5 Elvado said:

I agree wholeheartedly. The real question to ask these candidates is where they stand on zoning variances for an on-campus arena...

No variance is required. Georgetown could build the on-campus area under the special exception standards through its campus plan . . . ;D

[RusskyHoya]

Jul 3, 2008 7:16:43 GMT -5 Boz said:

Actually the biggest problem I had with what Clark said was that McCain had no executive experience, which is not true at all. He was never a flag officer, but commanding an air group is certainly executive experience and Clark knows that. That issue, plus he and Schieffer saying that he "rode" in a jet.

I think there is an argument to be made, although Clark is a pretty terrible communicator and messenger (which explains why his campaign never went anywhere), that McCain's executive experience in this sense is not at all similar to the job of president. Commanding VA-174 is certainly a demanding job, but it's a post McCain held for one year while he was a Commander, the naval equivalent of a Lieutenant Colonel. At that level, it's still a job involving a lot of day-to-day operational oversight. His next (and last) posting was being the naval attache to the U.S. Senate.

Command experience at the O-5 level is certainly valuable, but it differs considerably from the policy-centric nature of higher commands and the U.S. presidency itself. In that sense, flag officer command experience is much better preparation. In Clark's case, he was in charge of the National Training Center, 1stCav, SOUTHCOM, and was SACEUR, as well as the Strageic Policy and Planning guy on the staff of the Joint Chiefs. So in a lot of ways this would be a very self-serving definition of "relevant experience for the job" for Clark to use, since he has so much more of it, but it does have many things to recommend it (being president really is much more like being a general/a policy guy than being a squadron commander).

To randomly throw out one last thing, I'll mention that McCain actually did have the opportunity to become a Rear Admiral, although he was unlikely to go much further than that. He turned it down in order to run for Congress.

[theexorcist]

McCain isn't running against Clark. He's running against Obama, who has some experience as a state senator and less than a term of experience as a US senator. If this debate keeps on going, it's a McCain rout, since being shot down and being a POW (and being a heavily-respected member of the Senate for many years) trumps being a law professor.

But, as many have mentioned in many forums, none of this matters. If gas stays over $4 a gallon, there's bigger problems than fighting dinky little battles like this.

[RusskyHoya]

Jul 3, 2008 9:54:58 GMT -5 theexorcist said:

McCain isn't running against Clark. He's running against Obama, who has some experience as a state senator and less than a term of experience as a US senator. If this debate keeps on going, it's a McCain rout, since being shot down and being a POW (and being a heavily-respected member of the Senate for many years) trumps being a law professor.

But, as many have mentioned in many forums, none of this matters. If gas stays over $4 a gallon, there's bigger problems than fighting dinky little battles like this.

All very true. In terms of resume, McCain is indisputably better qualified.

[TBird41]

Jul 3, 2008 9:04:15 GMT -5 RusskyHoya said:

Jul 3, 2008 7:16:43 GMT -5 Boz said:

Actually the biggest problem I had with what Clark said was that McCain had no executive experience, which is not true at all. He was never a flag officer, but commanding an air group is certainly executive experience and Clark knows that. That issue, plus he and Schieffer saying that he "rode" in a jet.

I think there is an argument to be made, although Clark is a pretty terrible communicator and messenger (which explains why his campaign never went anywhere), that McCain's executive experience in this sense is not at all similar to the job of president. Commanding VA-174 is certainly a demanding job, but it's a post McCain held for one year while he was a Commander, the naval equivalent of a Lieutenant Colonel. At that level, it's still a job involving a lot of day-to-day operational oversight. His next (and last) posting was being the naval attache to the U.S. Senate.

Command experience at the O-5 level is certainly valuable, but it differs considerably from the policy-centric nature of higher commands and the U.S. presidency itself. In that sense, flag officer command experience is much better preparation. In Clark's case, he was in charge of the National Training Center, 1stCav, SOUTHCOM, and was SACEUR, as well as the Strageic Policy and Planning guy on the staff of the Joint Chiefs. So in a lot of ways this would be a very self-serving definition of "relevant experience for the job" for Clark to use, since he has so much more of it, but it does have many things to recommend it (being president really is much more like being a general/a policy guy than being a squadron commander).

To randomly throw out one last thing, I'll mention that McCain actually did have the opportunity to become a Rear Admiral, although he was unlikely to go much further than that. He turned it down in order to run for Congress.

And how did all that command experience help Clark when he tried to run for President?

Oh wait.....

Exorcist has it right though--this isn't about comparing the military records of Clark & McCain, because McCain isn't running against Clark. McCain has a heck of a lot more experience than Obama and there's no way around that. Whether or not that matters is another question, though.