Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says it’s “impossible” for the GOP to regain the Senate this year.
The same social networking tools Obama has used to such advantage can enable his supporters to react quickly and publicly when he does something they don’t like. A social networking group on MyBarackObama.com devoted to opposing Obama’s decision to support the FISA capitulation now has more than 4,000 members.
It’s not surprising. But it is an example of the fatuous McCain worship that is the bread and butter of the Washington press corps that Wes Clark’s comments this weekend on Face the Nation are being called ‘swift-boating’. It’s almost comical, but not much less than Bob Schieffer’s incredulous responses to the fact that Clark had the temerity to argue that McCain’s experience as a Navy pilot and a POW don’t necessarily mean he’d be a good president.
We have this in today’s Sunday Show round up. But I want to show you the Clark interview at length to show what he actually said.
The McCain campaign is now launching an attack with its ‘truth squad’ about the Clark ‘controversy’ and pushing Obama to “denounce” Clark, etc. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens here. The McCain campaign’s angle here is to not to prevent attacks on the integrity of McCain’s war record (which Clark explicitly did not do) but to make it off limits for anyone to question that his war-time experience means he has the temperament and experience which make him the better qualified candidate to be president.
The McCain campaign’s claim that there’s any attack here on McCain’s war record is simply a lie — a simple attempt to fool people. This is an essential point to this entire campaign — does McCain’s military record mean that even the Democrats have to concede the point that he’s more qualified to be commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, that his foreign and national security policy judgment is superior to Obama’s? It’s simply a fact that McCain has a record of really poor judgment on a whole list of key foreign policy and national security questions.
This is one of those moments in the campaign where the nonsense from the chief DC press sachems is so palpable and overwhelming that everyone who cares about this contest needs to jump into the breach and demand that they answer why no one can question whether McCain’s war record makes him more qualified to be president and whether he has good foreign policy and national security judgment.
Here’s the video …
Can someone find the outrage?
(ed.note: Please be on the lookout for reporters who refer to this as ‘swift-boating’ and let us know who and when.)
Obama campaign on Clark …
“As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Late Update: McCain just made his comments on this, sort of implicitly buying into the lie that Clark was attacking his military service.
Did Wes Clark call into question John McCain’s war record? Did he say any element of it wasn’t true, honorable, anything? Here’s ABC News political director Rick Klein guest blogging at Jake Tapper’s ABC blog …
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark went where no Democrat really truly wants to go on Sunday — calling into question, in surprisingly sharp language, Sen. John McCain’s military record.
We were just chatting here at the office about what’s behind the Obama campaign’s rapid rejection of Wes Clark’s statements. The read from those in touch with the Obama campaign seemed to be that they don’t want to get into a conversation that focuses attention on McCain’s war record and/or experience.
If that’s the case, it’s more troubling than it appears on the surface. I can think of a lot of other reasons why they might not want to get into this. Maybe they think it conflicts with the ‘new politics’ message they’re trying to push. Or perhaps they think the wind’s at their back or they don’t want the subject to be changed.
But if it really is a fear of getting things focused on McCain’s war record or experience it really is the kind of mistake Democrats habitually make. Take a look. McCain’s entire campaign is about his time as a POW and the claim that his war service makes him uniquely qualified to be the country’s commander-in-chief. They’re pushing the fact that he’s been on the national stage for four decades, whereas Obama’s only been there for four years. That is almost the entirety of his campaign. So it’s out there. It’s already a key focus of this campaign.
John McCain’s claim to experience, based in large part on his military service, is a key issue in this campaign. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.
To make his case today about why Gen. Clark’s comments were out of bounds, the McCain campaign chose an actual member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth bamboozlement squad. Speaking for the McCain campaign, Col. Bud Day actually defended the SBVT’s campaign as “the truth.”
Among the targets in Obama’s patriotism speech today: MoveOn and elements of the ’60s counterculture.
CNN’s Rick Sanchez: Clark, “dissing, some might say swift-boating, John McCain’s military record” …