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I think this is a very simple issue and it's only become a story because 2008 is the year of the fake outrage.
Wes Clark meant (whether he said it the right way or not I don't know) that McCain's Vietnam experience, while representative of good character, has nothing to do with the ability to make decisions like whether we should go to Iraq. McCain's only executive army experience is leading a peacetime unit. As a result, it's wrong for people to assume that John McCain being in the military or being a POW qualifies him to be the Commander-in-Chief in terms of making executive strategic decisions. It's irrelevant that Barack Obama was not in the military because Obama is not running on executive military experience, he's running on judgment. He demonstrated that judgment by opposing the Iraq war and other issues that have come up in recent years which show he has the judgment to be Commander in Chief despite his dearth of experience. McCain, according to Clark (and me), has failed the judgment test by supporting the Iraq war and continuing to deny that it was a mistake while supporting an indefinite commitment to staying there. Therefore, because McCain's experience is a character asset not a Commander-in-Chief asset and Barack Obama has shown better judgment than John McCain, Wes Clark believes that Barack Obama would be a superior President on military issues among other things. He is in no way denying John McCain's military record, he's only attempting to show that McCain's military record should be taken for what it's worth, not extrapolated to other areas that he doesn't believe are necessarily correlated.
Of course when Wes Clark makes this statement, it's a big deal. Never mind that it's coming out of the mouth of a distinguished military figure. Yet when the Bush administration, filled with people who haven't been in combat a day in their life, insults our soldiers on a daily basis by failing to give them the help they need whether through equipment, healthcare, or something else, it rarely hits the front page.
Wes Clark meant (whether he said it the right way or not I don't know) that McCain's Vietnam experience, while representative of good character, has nothing to do with the ability to make decisions like whether we should go to Iraq. McCain's only executive army experience is leading a peacetime unit. As a result, it's wrong for people to assume that John McCain being in the military or being a POW qualifies him to be the Commander-in-Chief in terms of making executive strategic decisions. It's irrelevant that Barack Obama was not in the military because Obama is not running on executive military experience, he's running on judgment. He demonstrated that judgment by opposing the Iraq war and other issues that have come up in recent years which show he has the judgment to be Commander in Chief despite his dearth of experience. McCain, according to Clark (and me), has failed the judgment test by supporting the Iraq war and continuing to deny that it was a mistake while supporting an indefinite commitment to staying there. Therefore, because McCain's experience is a character asset not a Commander-in-Chief asset and Barack Obama has shown better judgment than John McCain, Wes Clark believes that Barack Obama would be a superior President on military issues among other things. He is in no way denying John McCain's military record, he's only attempting to show that McCain's military record should be taken for what it's worth, not extrapolated to other areas that he doesn't believe are necessarily correlated.
Of course when Wes Clark makes this statement, it's a big deal. Never mind that it's coming out of the mouth of a distinguished military figure. Yet when the Bush administration, filled with people who haven't been in combat a day in their life, insults our soldiers on a daily basis by failing to give them the help they need whether through equipment, healthcare, or something else, it rarely hits the front page.
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