McCain’s campaign offers up a new line of defense today, to counter what is becoming repeated denigration of his military record by Obama surrogates:
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So far, McCain’s service has been attacked by–are you ready for this list?–George McGovern, Jay Rockefeller, Tom Harkin, Bill Gillespie, Gen. Tony McPeak, Ed Schultz, and now Gen. Wesley Clark. My, that doesn’t look much like an accident. It’s clear that Obama’s going to be dishing out plenty of this stuff, and that the press will give him enough of a pass that they’ll allow him to “distance himself” by only releasing a campaign statement each time this happens. McCain should be ready to fight and fight hard against this kind of thing. It’s reprehensible to start with, and perhaps more reprehensible that Obama doesn’t think it’s reprehensible enough to be worthy of a personal statement after seven such “misstatements,” or whatever euphemism he chooses to give them.
McCain would be all over such a transgression from a surrogate or outside group. In fact, he’ll be so aggressive throughout the campaign about anything he deems to insufficiently above-the-fray that he’ll end up handicapping groups doing legitimate work on his behalf. The fact that Obama gets credit for being at least and more lofty than McCain while simultaneously peddling in such low-brow stuff (including his “you know, he’s black” speech last week) is I hope maddening enough to get McCain to smack back hard, and do it consistently.
Update: Clark, unsurprisingly, thought military experience was pretty darned important in 2004:
John Kerry fought a war, and I respect him forthat. And he came home to fight a peace. And I respect him for that, too.
John Kerry’s combination of physical courage and moral values is my definition of what we need as Americans in our commander in chief.
John McCain’s response:
Not nearly barbed enough for my liking. Don’t play the “he’s distracting you with unnecessary attacks” game. Go all out, John! This calls for the righteous indignance you normally reserve for conservatives!
He was specifically asked whether Obama should speak out about this kind of attack and left it “up to Senator Obama.”
Update: Play it again, Sam.
Beers said that because McCain was in an unfortunate state of “isolation” during much of the Vietnam War, his national security experience is “sadly limited.” McCain spent five years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam.
The Beers comments came one day after Gen. Wesley Clark downplayed the significance of McCain’s military experience during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
