I'm With Fred

John McCain's POW service isn't a prerequisite for the Presidency.



More from VetVoice.

Leaving A Man Behind

When Phil Gramm called the United States a "nation of whiners," despite the controversy and John McCain's claim that he would now be up for Ambassador to Belarus you absolutely knew that he would be back on the campaign trail and in McCain's inner circle in a matter of weeks. This has nothing to do with McCain, it's part of the axiom that there is nothing a true conservative can do to get thrown overboard. Gramm wasn't rejected, he was expressly defended by a host of right-wing pundits ("Technically, being that we haven't exactly seen two consecutive quarters of negative growth, those half a million workers who have lost their jobs ARE whiners!"), and after a brief cooling-off period, he returned right back where he started:

But associates say the senator still dials up former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who forfeited his title of campaign co-chairman after a controversy over his remarks that the United States is “a nation of whiners” and is merely in “a mental recession.”

Current and former advisers say they still consider Mr. Gramm, now UBS investment bank vice chairman, a top prospect for treasury secretary in a McCain administration.

Consider the contrast between the Gramm resurrection and Wesley Clark's situation. I hate to make an equivalence between Gramm's asinine remark and Clark's perfectly acceptable and rational one, but both generated controversy, such that it is, and the reaction to that controversy from both parties reveals something profound: conservatives rally around their own, while Democrats are fearful and have no problem dropping them.

General Wesley Clark is not attending the Democratic National Convention. I was told by General Clark's personal office in Little Rock that he would not be attending.

Clark was informed by Barack Obama's people that there was no reason to come.

General Clark has been given no role of any kind at the convention.

Rubbing salt in the wound even more, the "theme" of Wednesday's Democratic convention agenda is "Securing America."

(I don't think we totally know what happened behind the scenes here, Clemons' report has shifted once or twice, but clearly the Obama team didn't exactly welcome Clark to Denver, although there's still time to make room for him.)

This is the difference between a party that stands for something and one that stands for nothing. I find the "something" Republicans stand for to be abhorrent, but Gramm certainly spoke a truth as conservatives see it, and while it appalled a lot of people, the party wasn't going to excommunicate him for it. When Clark says, correctly, that getting shot down in Vietnam is not a qualification for President per se, Democrats get nervous, so worried are they of being perceived as disrespectful of the military (but not of NATO Supreme Allied Commanders, I guess), that they tell him to take a walk.

The worst part of this is that this is a nation of second chances and short-term memories. Marv Albert still commentates for the NBA, fercryinoutloud. Democrats are always playing this game eight or nine steps ahead for no reason.

If John McCain wants Phil Gramm to be the compassionate face of conservative America, I'm all for it. But this is really about a party caring for their own. Once again, Democrats have let fear rule them.

A Clark Tip?

The third night of the DNC Convention will be titled Securing America's Future.

Wesley Clark's political action committee is called Securing America's Future.

This has led to rampant speculation.

But "Securing America's Future" is one of those warmed-over, poll-tested Democratic slogans that can literally apply to anything.

So I wouldn't put too much stock in it.

If there were a Vice Presidential hopeful names John T. Securing, then it's a slam-dunk, however.

...in other mindless Veep talk, "obamabayh08.com" now redirects to the Web site of The United Negro College Fund. It's a sign!

Off His Game

An ABC reporter gave John McCain the opportunity to discuss Wes Clark's comment - the ACTUAL remarks - and McCain went apeshit.

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

“Please,” he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.

McCain allies Sen. Lindsey Graham stepped in to rescue him. Graham expressed admiration for McCain’s stance on the treatment of detainees in US custody.

(That would be the stance that he flipped on by voting against a ban on torture in the Senate just this year.)

Another few questions like this and he's going to strangle somebody. The precedent of him hauling off at people is certainly there. And this reporter is probably going to have to fly in the back of the plane from now on.

I actually think that Wes Clark completely threw McCain off with this. The Villagers are having their little hissy fit, but this has exposed that McCain believes in his own divine right to the Presidency based entirely on his suffering and his wounds (which he's ever so "reluctant" to talk about, he mentioned in the same interview. Yeah, right.) Clark touched a nerve here by questioning the assumption that McCain's biography can stand in for his judgment or policy prescriptions. He deflated McCain's entire rationale for his candidacy. And McCain can't take it so he's acting like a WATB.

You endured a horrible imprisonment for our country years ago, and we thank and honor you for it. But let's have some actual straight talk here: you've been thanked and honored for this exact thing for decades. Lionized, feted, canonized even. Maybe the problem is that you feel entitled to nothing BUT that at this point, but... if so, you shouldn't be running for President. It's not appropriate for a democracy to give anyone that office as a gift, without the proper debate.

What you want, Mr. McCain, is to be spared scrutiny. You want the office to be given to you by acclaim, and for ANY criticism of your record to be called an act of disrespect for your military service. It's a cowardly way to approach this election -- morally bankrupt and un-American.

McCain's in quite a bit of trouble. The insiders are worried, he had to overhaul his top staff again and he's caught up in lies over his past statements about not knowing anything about the economy. This Clark story may look like a win for him, but it's consumed almost a week of his campaign, which again is message-free, rootless and unfocused, without any overarching narrative or reason to be President other than "I served." He's angry when challenged about the substance behind the bio, and it comes off ugly.

The Swiftboat Backlash

I hope we're all clear about the strategy for John McCain evidenced by his sustained outrage fit over Wesley Clark's perfectly legitimate comments. I don't even understand what they're outraged about in that press release, and they probably don't either - it's outrage for the sake of outrage. I think Chris Bowers nails this one:

Another lesson worth noting from the frothing attacks Republicans are now delivering on Wesley Clark is that the McCain campaign really, really wants a prominent Democrat to demean his service record. This is a prospect they are drooling over, right along with their hopes that a prominent Democrat will attack McCain in age-based terms.

Just as the McCain campaign is aiming to create an age based backlash against Obama and Democrats among seniors, they are desperate to create a "that anti-American Obama and those hippie Democrats hate the troops" backlash, too.

Why not, they've been playing that card for this long, and it's seemed to work. Now they're hopping forward and, in the most paranoid fashion possible, accusing Obama of coordinating with Jim Webb and goading Webb into making off-the-cuff comments. Webb had to clarify his remarks today.

Senator Jim Webb's staff issued a clarification late Tuesday over comments made by the Virginia Democrat in which he urged John McCain to "calm down" with the discussion of military service in the presidential campaign.

"Senator Webb's comments were not targeted at McCain's military service," said spokeswoman Kimberly Hunter. "He has consistently called for politicians not to insert politics into military service. This is the exact same argument that he used against Lindsay Graham in their Meet the Press interview last year."

With both Webb and Clark not backing down from their statements, I think it's important to note Bowers' other point - that just because the media is outraged, and the conservative noise machine is outraged, doesn't mean the public gives a fig. See the Terri Schiavo situation for an example. There's a great deal of truth-stretching and near-delusional claims of nefarious Democratic cabals coming from the McCain camp, and furthermore their surrogates are demeaning Wes Clark's military service while supposedly defending McCain's service.

"General Clark probably wouldn't get that much praise from this group. I can't speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar."

Given that one of McCain's biggest defenders here is Swift Boat Veterans for Truth star Bud Day, who was McCain's DIVORCE LAWYER by the way, there's a lot to untangle and sort out, and I don't think the blind expression of outrage is really going to impact people one way or the other. I wish Obama backed him up more strongly (though today he explicitly denied any analogy connecting Clark's remarks to the Swift Boaters, and insisted that his comments in his patriotism speech had nothing to do with Clark and were written two months ago), but I think Clark's going to be just fine, and he'll be in a future Democratic administration in a major role. Furthermore, the way the Swift Boaters acted in 2004 just gives the sense that Republicans have no problem lying and demeaning the service of leading Democratic vets (which they do), and McCain using an associate of that effort damages the credibility of this manufactured outrage. I think most people shrug their shoulders at the whole thing, and the election will be far more likely to be decided on things like this graphic:



UPDATE: Paul Waldman is absolutely right. John McCain has leveraged his POW status forever, despite media myths that he's reluctant to talk about it. POW footage has appeared in half his campaign commercials this cycle.

As I said, there's nothing wrong with that. But what happened with Gen. Clark reveals the McCain Rules, as he and the press would have us understand them. Here's how things are supposed to work: It's fine for the McCain campaign to run ads touting his time as a POW, create web videos touting his time as a POW, have him mention his time as a POW in speeches, and have him bring it up in debates (remember "I was tied up at the time"?). In other words, it's fine to have John McCain's entire presidential run be presented through the filter of his POW experience. Should, however, someone even ask the question of whether the fact that McCain was a POW really qualifies him to be president, that would be a deeply offensive affront to all that is right and good, and must not be tolerated. Talk about having it both ways.

Also, this is completely politically incorrect, but true.

Everyone Put On The Brakes For A Minute

I know Barack Obama is a horrible, dastardly person and his move to the center has offended many of his greatest supporters. At times it's offended me; I'm a member of the social networking group inside his own website asking him to do the right thing on FISA. It has 7,500 members now, suggesting that many of his fervent supporters are more progressive than he is and will not be particularly interested in giving themselves over to the great glory of Obama and silencing their own criticisms.

I think this expectation of being "stabbed in the back" has gone into less critical territory now, however. On the faith-based initiatives front, I don't see the problem with partnering on anti-poverty programs, demanding accountability from them, and ensuring that their participation complies with all relevant Constitutional statutes. I understand the argument that there's a distinction without a difference, as the church would get money to use on secular anti-poverty programs and save their own money to discriminate in other areas. But that just warps history and suggests that no faith-based charity ever got money from the government prior to big bad George Bush. They did, and in fact it was ruled unconstitutional for them to be denied on the basis of religion.

Now, I hit Obama hard yesterday on rebuking Wesley Clark's perfectly legitimate comments, and I don't think it was some plausible deniability strategy. However, he said today that the remarks in his speech yesterday, which many thought alluded to Clark, had nothing to do with him and were written two months ago. What happened yesterday, I think, is that the Clark thing blew up and stepped on his daily message, and he wanted it to go away quickly to get back to the message of the day.

Now, like Glenn Greenwald I don't disagree that there's a bad pattern here:

That's quite a two weeks. One of the primary reasons that blogs emerged over the last seven years was as a reaction to, an attempt to battle against, exactly this narrative which the media propagated and Democratic institutions embraced -- that it is the duty of every Democrat to repudiate and attack their own base; that the truly pernicious elements are on the "Far Left", whose values must be rejected, while the Far Right is entitled to profound respect and accommodation; that "Strength" in National Security is determined by agreement with GOP policies, which is where "the Center" is found; that Seriousness is demonstrated by contempt for the liberal masses; that every Democrat must apologize for any statement over which Republicans feign offense [...]

A presidential election is a unique time when Americans are engaged in a discussion over our collective political values (at least more engaged than any other time). Why would anyone watch the Obama campaign use this opportunity to perpetuate and reinforce this narrative, and watch Obama embrace polices that are the precise antithesis of the values he espoused in the past, and not criticize or object to that? Criticisms of that sort aren't unhealthy or counter-productive. They're the opposite. Of course one ought to object if a political candidate -- even Barack Obama -- is advocating policies that trample on one's core political values or promulgating toxic narratives. That's particularly true since his doing so isn't necessary to win; it's actually more likely to have the opposite effect.

There is no question, at least to me, that having Obama beat McCain is vitally important. But so, too, is the way that victory is achieved and what Obama advocates and espouses along the way. Feeding distortions against someone like Wesley Clark in order to please Joe Klein and his fact-free media friends, or legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and protecting joint Bush/telecom lawbreaking, or basing his campaign on demonizing MoveOn.org and 1960s anti-war hippies, is quite harmful in many long-lasting ways. Electing Barack Obama is a very important political priority but it isn't the only one there is, and his election is less likely, not more likely, the more homage he pays to these these tired, status-quo-perpetuating Beltway pieties.

Absolutely. But I think a lot of things are getting swept up in this "move to the center" narrative that ought not necessarily be in there. And I think we have to be careful that our narratives don't get as rigid and impervious to contrasting information as the traditional media.

I also agree with Markos and I didn't donate to Obama in June for this reason, too. But I think there's a happy medium here. Not EVERYTHING Obama is doing is designed to stab bloggers in the back.

UPDATE: I also agree with Arianna that moving to the center for the sake of pleasing elites is a loser's game, and the benefit is outweighed by the costs. You would think that a campaign that believes itself to be transformative wouldn't be so ashamed of the more transformative side of his own party. It does hurt his brand. But taking everything to the extreme and imputing the worst possible motives dilutes it even further, and what's more it's intellectually dishonest.

UPDATE II: I hate to keep going with this, but here's what Obama just said:

Obama Just Said Re: Clark That Gen Clark didn't have the intent of the SBVT and he rejects that analogy.

...also, Pastor Dan has more on the faith-based initiatives and worries that it'll become a patronage factory for the left, which is a legitimate concern. I think if they're serious about measuring effectiveness that I don't much care who benefits. In an email he notes that the "fungible" argument may be bogus because many of the largest orgs. like Catholic Charities have separate organizations for their charity efforts.

What About Lieberman's Remark?

The unquestionably worst thing about the Wes Clark incident is how it has obscured the rather remarkable statement uttered by a different guest on the very same episode of Face The Nation yesterday, Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman, appearing on Face the Nation today, made the case for McCain with a blunt reminder.

"Our enemies will test the new president early," said Lieberman. "Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."

The White House, by the way, endorsed this today. Being the kinder, gentler party of the two, I don't think a single important Democrat went after Joe Lieberman for these comments. But they are procedurally similar to Charlie Black's statement that a terror attack would unquestionably help Republicans. This is the comment that the Beltway press navel-gazed last week, only to come to the conclusion that it was probably true. Therefore, when Lieberman says something like "Presidents get tested early by Al Qaeda" (as if Al Qaeda ties all of their potential attacks to the American political calendar) there's no doubt how the media receives that, how it colors their reporting, and how it's fed to the public - there will be more terrorist attacks, and we can't have on-the-job training, and so we must stick with the same failed policies, etc.

Sen. Barack Obama and his surrogates continued to criticize Charles R. Black Jr., a top adviser to Sen. John McCain, on Tuesday for saying a terrorist attack before the November election would help the presumptive Republican nominee. But behind their protests lay a question that has dogged Democrats since Sept. 11, 2001: Was Black speaking the truth? [...]

McCain has distanced himself from Black's comments, saying, "If he said that -- and I don't know the context -- I strenuously disagree."

But radio host Rush Limbaugh said aloud what other Republicans have been saying privately for months. Black's comments were "obvious," Limbaugh said yesterday on his program as he criticized McCain for distancing himself from them.

Limbaugh said in no uncertain terms that Obama would be weak in the face of terrorism. "We know damn well it's Obama who would seek to appease our enemies. We know damn well it's McCain who won't put up with another attack," Limbaugh said.

A propagandist like Rush Limbaugh is allowed to present the dominant opinion in one of the nation's paper of record on this question of whether terrorism helps Democrats. If you wonder why media stars flub Obama and Osama over and over, this is the reason. They're subliminally meant to conflate them.

Importantly, the substance of the argument here is never discussed - it's always about who among the political parties terrorism or a more dangerous world benefits, not which political party can bring about less terrorism or a less dangerous world. Because given the primary evidence, there is no possible way that answer can be Republicans.

Late last year, top Bush administration officials decided to take a step they had long resisted. They drafted a secret plan to make it easier for the Pentagon’s Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda [...]

But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was “mounting frustration” in the Pentagon at the continued delay.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.

The Keystone Kops would actually be an IMPROVEMENT from these clowns. The most basic initiative in this so-called war on terror, to any reasonable individual, would be to seek out those who actually committed the act. Seven years later - seven years - they have been allowed to escape, rebuild, launch attacks, nearly take over large towns in Pakistan and most of the Afghan countryside, and generally return their operation to roughly the same level of force as it was before the 9-11 attacks. There has been no comprehensive strategy in seven years to counteract this.

And I'm supposed to believe that's the party who ought to benefit from a future terror attack?

But we're too focused on whether or not a distinguished retired general hurt John McCain's feelings to grapple with this. And Democratic fecklessness in the face of the hissy fit just ensures that such a conversation never takes place. Joe Lieberman, who will speak at the 2008 RNC, probably in a starring, prime-time role, will never face pressure for the comment he made. Wes Clark, who worked to elect his opponent and is as credible a national security voice as there is in the Party, gets the legs cut out from him by its leaders.

I'm going to need a new laptop. This one's acting all screwy from the 18,000 I've banged my head against it today.

The Sad State Of Hissy Fit Politics

I know it's almost become a cliche to say that the worst thing about such and such Republican brouhaha is the hypocrisy, but it is. Four years ago every conservative in America claimed that, since John Kerry made his war service the "centerpiece" of his campaign that it was completely justified to attack it. He actually didn't, and while his service was a component of the campaign it didn't compel the conservative noise machine to lie about it. But that was their argument.

Fast forward four years, McCain actually is making his POW status a centerpiece of his campaign, and now it's completely beyond the pale for any Democrat to even so much as whisper about John McCain's war record. Never mind that Wes Clark was completely factual, anything he said would have been construed as an "attack." They flip on this every four years with Timex-like precision.

Continues to boggle my mind what a difference 4 years can make to the conservatives.
1996: Bob Dole is a war hero! Clinton is a draft dodger! WORSHIP THE WAR HERO!

2000: Forget the war! Ignore the potential Vietnam-era AWOL-ness of our candidate, and his complete lack of foreign policy knowledge! He's got integrity!

2004: So what your candidate actually fought and was injured in the same war during which our candidate was so very much NOT AWOL! We mock his service and question the legitimacy of his injuries! Have a purple band-aid to wear at our convention!

2008: Only a certified war hero can lead this country! WORSHIP THE WAR HERO!

All Clark did was question the premise of McCain's campaign that his war service alone makes him somehow more qualified to serve as President. And make no mistake, John McCain has explicitly said the exact same thing.

McCain Said Military Service "Absolutely" Didn't Make Someone Better Equipped To Be President. During an interview with National Journal, John McCain was asked if "military service inherently makes somebody better equipped to be commander-in-chief." McCain said, "Absolutely not. History shows that some of our greatest leaders have had little or no military experience- Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Harry Truman was in the artillery in World War I, which was magnificent. Ronald Reagan did most of his active duty in the studio lots in California. It might be a nice thing, but I absolutely don't believe that it's necessary. [National Journal, 2/15/03; emphasis added]

McCain: "I've Never Believed That Lack Of Military Service Disqualifies One From Occupying" The Oval Office. In an address to the American Legion in 1999, John McCain said, "I believe that military service is the most honorable endeavor an American may undertake. But I've never believed that lack of military service disqualifies one from occupying positions of political leadership or as Commander and Chief. In America, the people are sovereign, and they decide who is and is not qualified to lead us." [McCain Speech to the American Legion, 9/7/99]

The fact that they used one of the Swift Boat Liars to defend McCain on this thing just brings it all full circle.

The only thing we can count on here is that Clark himself won't back off his comments.

There are many important issues in this Presidential election, clearly one of the most important issues is national security and keeping the American people safe. In my opinion, protecting the American people is the most important duty of our next President. I have made comments in the past about John McCain's service and I want to reiterate them in order be crystal clear. As I have said before I honor John McCain's service as a prisoner of war and a Vietnam Veteran. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. I would never dishonor the service of someone who chose to wear the uniform for our nation.

John McCain is running his campaign on his experience and how his experience would benefit him and our nation as President. That experience shows courage and commitment to our country - but it doesn't include executive experience wrestling with national policy or go-to-war decisions. And in this area his judgment has been flawed - he not only supported going into a war we didn't have to fight in Iraq, but has time and again undervalued other, non-military elements of national power that must be used effectively to protect America But as an American and former military officer I will not back down if I believe someone doesn't have sound judgment when it comes to our nation's most critical issues.

Democrats are idiots not to get behind this guy. They muted Paul Hackett and now they're in the process of muting Wes Clark. What a bunch of tools.

Don't Want To Say I Told You So, But...

I told you so.

I was pretty sure that the press would deliberately misinterpret, intentionally clip and generally get wrong Wes Clark's statements about John McCain's military service. Egged on by the conservative noise machine, they ginned up this controversy and set their outrage meters to 11. There must be a run on pearls in Washington today with all of them being clutched. Joe Klein actually went ahead and called it "bad manners." In a political campaign. Good Jeebus. Josh Marshall says it best.

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.

What I wanted to see was how the Obama campaign would handle this. McCain and the conservative outrage machine wanted to pick a fight, divide Clark from the Democratic Party, make his comments radioactive and allow the Democrats to once again fold like a cheap suit. They didn't disappoint.

Sure enough, just as I was about to publish this blog post, I got an email from Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "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."

And this is why people get upset with politics. Wes Clark makes a perfectly legitimate statement and can't find a single national Democrat to back him up because they're all a bunch of scared little kittens. They got used by the combination of the conservative outrage machine and the media. It's a filthy little game and they do it time after time and they somehow never learn. Even if we have a victorious Presidential election and a larger majority in Congress, we're going to be dealing with this. As long as conservatives can flip a switch and get Democrats to crumble, whatever the context, the idea that we can make any progress legislatively is laughable. McCain's campaign hit Obama with a chair today and he meekly asked for another.

...even richer, apparently the head surrogate McCain sent out as an attack dog on this today was Bud Day, one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Surely he's completely fit to judge anyone's military service.

Get Ready For The Mother Of All Hissy Fits

So Wes Clark went on Face The Nation today and "went there" - challenging John McCain's constant referrals to his wartime biography which are standing in for his doctrinaire ideological stances on foreign policy. Let's first give the snippet that you're going to be seeing crawl across the screen and on the lips of every Republican strategist tomorrow:

“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

Now, let's add one sentence of context:

CLARK: 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 the Navy that he commanded — that 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 this publicly? He hasn't made those calls, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: Can I just interrupt you? I have to say, Barack Obama hasn't had any of these experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

CLARK: I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.

So Schieffer kind of led him in that direction. Furthermore, Clark has been saying this for a few weeks now; Digby highlighted it on June 16.

The right is going to go after Wesley Clark tomorrow with everything they've got. The press releases from the McCain campaign have already started flying.

If Barack Obama's campaign wants to question John McCain's military service, that's their right. But let's please drop the pretense that Barack Obama stands for a new type of politics. The reality is he's proving to be a typical politician who is willing to say anything to get elected, including allowing his campaign surrogates to demean and attack John McCain's military service record.

John McCain is proud of his record of always putting the country first — from his time in the Navy, in Vietnam and through to today.

Rick Sanchez apparently termed it "Wesley Clark tried to Swiftboat John McCain today."

Just so you know what's coming. A couple points:

1) Clark is right. He's not blatantly lying about McCain's political service or even disparaging it. Earlier in the interview he called McCain a hero to "all of us in the service." He's making the simple point that military service and executive experience aren't the same thing. Because we've been saturated with this "commander-in-chief" stuff for the last 7 years, and this false notion that criticizing the President's policies equals "criticizing the troops," this dangerous blurring has occurred.

2) I seem to remember a post about the media seeing in McCain a certain honor that they recognize as lacking in themselves and that's why they constantly feel inadequate in his presence and continuously looking up to him. That's what this is going to be about. Bob Schieffer literally couldn't believe anyone would take on McCain's perceived strength, and now that Clark has done so the rest of the media herd will take it the same way.

3) I have few doubts that Clark will handle this head-on. Let's see how the rest of the Democrats handle it. Will they run for the hills screaming? Undercut Clark at the knees?

Should be an interesting Monday.

Now That's How You Get McCain

Wes Clark, against a clueless Mika Brzezenski who can't fathom that John McCain doesn't know what he talks about on national security.

He's changed his position on torture. At one point he said he was against it, now he's in favor of it. He's even come out against the Supreme Court decision that was yesterday on the prisoners at Guantanamo. So what does John McCain really believe, who is he? Is he the Straight Talk Express maverick that people thought he was in the late 90s, or is he just a guy who wants to be President, and he'll say what's necessary to get the job.

That's a really good line of attack. The media is too far gone to get this, but I'm sure anyone else can easily figure this out.

George Will took a whack yesterday, too.

The purpose of a writ of habeas corpus is to cause a government to release a prisoner or show through due process why the prisoner should be held. Of Guantanamo's approximately 270 detainees, many certainly are dangerous "enemy combatants." Some probably are not. None will be released by the court's decision, which does not even guarantee a right to a hearing. Rather, it guarantees only a right to request a hearing. Courts retain considerable discretion regarding such requests.

As such, the Supreme Court's ruling only begins marking a boundary against government's otherwise boundless power to detain people indefinitely, treating Guantanamo as (in Barack Obama's characterization) "a legal black hole." And public habeas hearings might benefit the Bush administration by reminding Americans how bad its worst enemies are [...]

McCain, co-author of the McCain-Feingold law that abridges the right of free political speech, has referred disparagingly to, as he puts it, "quote 'First Amendment rights.' " Now he dismissively speaks of "so-called, quote 'habeas corpus suits.' " He who wants to reassure constitutionalist conservatives that he understands the importance of limited government should be reminded why the habeas right has long been known as "the great writ of liberty."

I'll tell you, the consensus that McCain doesn't have core beliefs on plenty of issues and just follows the conservative track is picking up a lot of steam. And there's a parallel narrative of masking his deficiencies, hiding behind his resume. When his own website's decription of his record on Iraq doesn't start until August 2003, you know he's hiding his cheerleading for the war and the initial vote.

"Duplicitous" is the word that springs to mind.

...by the way, if you want to see someone with a truly terrible legal argument about Guantanamo, look no further than John Yoo.

Iran Update

The President went on Arab satellite TV and denied that the US was about to attack Iran:

"I have said that if they suspend their nuclear program, we will be at the table," Bush said, according to a transcript of the interview the White House released on Friday. "But they have so far refused to do that."

Bush brushed off as "gossip" reports in the Arab press that he has issued orders to senior U.S. military officials to prepare for an attack on Iran at the end of January or in February.

"I would call that empty propaganda," Bush said. "Evidently, there's a lot of gossip in the parts of the country - world that try to scare people about me personally or my country or what we stand for. And that kind of gossip is just what it is. It's gossip. It's baseless gossip."

Somehow, I'm not getting the believing vibe off of him. On the one hand, it's true that, as the Iranian foreign minister said, that the US is too tied up in foreign entanglements to get involved in committing ground troops to Iran. It's also true that Iraq would be totally against any military strikes on its neighbor.

On the other hand, the neocons who are desperate to change the subject on Iraq don't care about the sensitivities of the Iraqis or the lack of manpower. They still believe in this fantasy that you can get in and out, make precision strikes that hit nuclear facilities and nothing else, provoke no radioactive accidents, and cause no retaliation. It's something less than a real-world view.

Robert Byrd is absolutely right, just as he was when he spoke in that empty chamber before the war with Iraq:

It is deeply troubling to see the U.S. Senate joining the chest-pounding and saber-rattling of the Bush administration. I am no apologist for the Iranian regime, anymore than I was for Saddam Hussein, but I fear that we may become entangled in another bloody quagmire. We have been down this path before. We have seen all too clearly where it leads.

The Senate has refused to learn the lessons of history. And just maybe, they just want the war as much as the neocons:

When I asked Hersh who wants to bomb Iran, he said, "Ironically there is a lot of pressure coming from Democrats. Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have all said we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. Clearly the pressure from Democrats is a reflection of - we might as well say it - Israeli and Jewish input." He added the obvious: "a lot of money comes to the Democratic campaigns" from Jewish contributors.

But while Democrats argue that we must "do something" about an Iranian nuclear threat, Hersh says the White House has concluded their own effort to convince Americans that Iran poses an imminent threat has "failed." Apparently the public that bought the story of WMD in Iraq is now singing the classic Who song, "Won't Get Fooled Again."

I don't know if the front-runners are at all committed to military action, but they are cautious to appear "sensible" to the foreign policy community, in other words completely un-sensible. And while Hillary has signed on to Jim Webb's bill blocking funding for military action against Iran, she also supported the Kyl-Lieberman bill giving Bush a back door to attack. And it concerns me greatly that Wes Clark is indrectly endorsing Kyl-Lieberman because he can't criticize the candidate he endorsed:

Last week, Hillary voted for a non-binding resolution that designates the odious Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in order to strengthen our diplomatic hand. (emphasis mine) On Monday, she joined Senator Jim Webb in co-sponsoring a bill that would prohibit the use of funds for military action in Iran without specific authorization by Congress.

I support Hillary in both these votes. She is committed to ending the unilateralism of the Bush-Cheney administration. She is a strong supporter of direct nuclear talks with Iran, because she believes that direct dialogue with our adversaries is a sign of strength and confidence, and a prerequisite to achieving America's goals and objectives.

What the...

Is the guy who created StopIranWar.com really falling for the "strengthening our diplomatic hand" nonsense?

This concerns me more than ever that, as Byrd said, we are sleepwalking into another conflict.

No Movement

To top off voting to censure MoveOn today, the Senate dealt a blow to Feingold-Reid, defeating it handily. It got 29 votes in May, 28 votes today.

Did anyone even know that this was coming up for a vote today? Was Reid's office whipping up support amongst the base? His name's on the bill, after all. This was a designed-to-fail spring job.

I love Wes Clark, but this idea that we should leave politics to our betters just angers me. It's antithetical to democracy.

Matt Stoller: Chuck Hagel called his performance "a dirty trick on the American people... It's not only a dirty trick, but it's dishonest, it's hypocritical, it's dangerous and irresponsible." Admiral Fallon was reported saying that he thinks Petreaus is 'an ass-kissing little chickenshit" for the way he sucks up to politicians.' There are a lot of rumors that David Petraeus wants to run for President. My question is, um, is their criticism a mistake as well?

Wes Clark: Well, I think for Chuck Hagel, who's a sitting Senator who wants to criticize a General, that's fine. That's his right to do so. As far as Admiral Fallon was concerned, if he's got a personal quarrel with Petraeus, you know, that's between the two of them. Petraeus works for him, obviously he feels cut out and to some extent I've known situations like that, but, um, as for Moveon.org, it was a mistake.

Matt Stoller: But why can a sitting Senator criticize a General and millions of grassroots activists not do that? That's really what Moveon is, it's not like it's an entity.

Wes Clark: Moveon's an organization, and when it does that it distracts from the dialogue that the Senator's trying to have. Frankly, I think the better course of action is to bring out all the statistics and challenge Petraeus directly to explain how he can say that in the face of all these statistics. Did we do that? Did Moveon do that? Did they lay out the statistics and say 'Petraeus says this, here's the other fact he doesn't tell you, General Petraeus come back to us and explain to us.

Matt Stoller: Absolutely they did that. That's what the ad was, was there anything in the ad that was factually inaccurate?

Wes Clark: What instead came out was the play on his name, and that's all that came out. And that was the mistake. If it was a serious ad, did it ask those serious questions, no one could have objected to it.

I agree with the end of that to an extent, but this theme of betrayal accurately describes how a lot of us feel, particularly about Democrats at this point. The part where he says us boys and girls have to run along and play outside while the menfolk Senators have their dialogue is just putrid.

And to paraphrase Allen Iverson, puns? We're talking about puns?

That kind of reckless language, especially the use of puns and so forth...

How much of a child do you have to be to be offended by a PUN?!?!?!!? I swear, sometimes I find us Americans to be the most humorless bunch that ever walked the Earth.

The DC establishment wants no part of a progressive movement. They don't care about us and never did. And they knifed us but good today. But we do hold more power come election time than we did before. Eventually, a new generation of leaders will upset this precarious establishment balance. But we're not there yet. Not at all.

The Continuing Back And Forth Saga of Bill Richardson

He still adopts right-wing tax frames, he's still an erratic campaigner, but he managed to get off this funny line...

"The President has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue," Richardson said. "You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush."

... and he did show up at our Drinking Liberaly National Conference event last night in Des Moines. The DL chapter here is really remarkable, and because it's Des Moines, where big offices are already up and running, staffers for all the campaigns routinely show up (except for, I guess, Hillary Clinton). And one of them came through and got Richardson to make it last night. "I'm proud to be a progressive, and I'm proud to wear this (Drinking Liberally) button. And now, I have to leave," he said in brief remarks.

Headed to the Harkin Steak Fry today, which should be interesting. Harkin has promised to remain neutral in the Presidential race, unlike Wes Clark, who endorsed Hillary Clinton yesterday. I remember the rumor that Clark only got in the race in 2004 to split the antiwar vote and stop Howard Dean at the behest of the Clintons. So I'm not too surprised. Hardcore Clarkies, apparently, are crestfallen, though.

More Bullshit Spread on Iran

Well, here we go again. I guess the first time around, when the Bush Administration claimed that Iran was constructing EFPs for Iraq (even though most of the EFPs have come from Sunni insurgents, not the Shia with whom Iran is in close concert), fell appart upon scrutiny. So it was time to make a new claim, now that the Iranian government has been arming the Taliban. It sounded ridiculous, the two are mortal enemies; Iran even helped the US rescue downed pilots during the Afghanistan invasion in late 2001. And now the bullshit peddling has been confirmed (h/t The Left Coaster).

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Afghanistan's defense minister on Thursday dismissed claims by a top U.S. State Department official that there was "irrefutable evidence" that the Iranian government was providing arms to Taliban rebels.

"Actually, throughout, we have had good relations with Iran and we believe that the security and stability of Afghanistan are also in the interests of Iran," Abdul Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press.

On Wednesday, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in Paris that Tehran was directly supplying weapons to the Taliban. He told CNN there was "irrefutable evidence" that arms shipments were coming from Iran's government.

The State Department later appeared to step back from Burns' assertion, but stressed that the United States has proof that weapons from Iran were reaching Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

This is how it's always gone, a bold assertion followed by hedging and denials. Common sense dictates that there was no way the Iranians would undermine their own interests and try to put an enemy back in power. We know who's arming the Taliban: Pakistan. This obvious fact is rarely uttered by State Department flacks like Nick Burns or warmongers like Joe Lieberman, who's using fake stories like this to push for attacks on Tehran. Wes Clark smacked him down on this one.

On CBS's Face the Nation, Lieberman said, "If [the Iranians] don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing." [...]

Senator Lieberman's saber rattling does nothing to help dissuade Iran from aiding Shia militias in Iraq, or trying to obtain nuclear capabilities. In fact, it's highly irresponsible and counter-productive, and I urge him to stop.

This kind of rhetoric is irresponsible and only plays into the hands of President Ahmadinejad, and those who seek an excuse for military action. What we need now is full-fledged engagement with Iran. We should be striving to bridge the gulf of almost 30 years of hostility and only when all else fails should there be any consideration of other options. The Iranians are very much aware of US military capabilities. They don't need Joe Lieberman to remind them that we are the militarily dominant power in the world today.

Only someone who never wore the uniform or thought seriously about national security would make threats at this point. What our soldiers need is responsible strategy, not a further escalation of tensions in the region. Senator Lieberman must act more responsibly and tone down his threat machine.

The conventional wisdom among those predisposed to view any global situation in a military context, the so-called "liberal hawks," is that we have to "do something" about Iran. It's never suggested WHAT; you know, what facilities should we specifically target, what ground troops should we deploy, etc. This is what Ezra Klein explores in a story for The American Prospect.

The new approach is not to refight the battle over the Iraq war, but to argue that those who got it right, or who got it wrong but eventually came to the right answer, are now in danger of overlearning the lessons of the war -- and missing the danger posed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An elegant entry into this burgeoning genre comes from Ken Baer in the latest issue of Democracy. "[A] president's past mistakes," writes Baer, "can so preoccupy political leaders that they lose sight of the dangers ahead or the principles they hold dear." In the conclusion of his piece, he warns that progressives must "not use anger at one war as an excuse to blink when confronting a future threat head on." [...]

The remarkable thing about the growing liberal hawk literature on Iran is its evasiveness -- the unwillingness to speak in concrete terms of both the threat and proposed remedies. The liberal hawks realize they were too eager in counseling war last time, and their explicit statements in support of invasion have caused them no end of trouble since. This time, they will advocate no such thing. But nor will they eschew it. They will simply criticize those who do take a position [...]

Baer's dodge is not rare. A while back, The New Republic demanded that "the West finally get ruthlessly serious about Iran." Unless "ruthlessly serious" describes some subset of containment theory that I'm unfamiliar with, this seems like mercilessly frivolous advice. But such is the sorry state of discourse on Iran: lots of hyperventilating, but relatively little in the way of actual diagnosis or prescription.

This, of course, plays into the hands of those who will articulate a strategy involving bombs and guns and indiscriminate murder against the citizens of a country that does not represent a threat. If anybody who actually stakes out a position against war with Iran is seen as irresponsible, it stands to reason that those on the opposite side are then completely responsible, despite the fact that they have no idea what they're talking about. There's a lot of deliberate lying designed to push us into yet another tragic mistake of a war. The useful idiots in places like the Brookings Institution that greased the wheels for the last mistake seem to make a fetish of "sounding tough" and disassociating themselves from the dirty fucking hippies than acting in the best foreign policy interests of the country. Here's hoping they wake up and understand that their enabling of a renegade President will be yet another disaster.