Why You Don't Wrestle a Pig: the McCain 'War Hero' Debacle

by Damozel | As Paul Krugman points out, the Republicans have managed numerous times to get some of the most absurd distortions of reality accepted in the public domain as sober fact.

Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated.... Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, titled his tell-all memoir “What Happened.” But a true account of modern American politics should be titled “What Didn’t Happen.” Again and again we’ve had media firestorms over supposedly revealing incidents that never actually took place.  (NYT)

And of course the latest faked-up 'outrage' is over Wesley Clark's remarks to the effect that McCain's military service doesn't qualify him to be Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. 

As my trial lawyer colleague remarked at the time, anyone in the business of presenting arguments could have told Obama, Clark, and the campaign that there are many absolutely truthful arguments that it just isn't worthwhile to raise.

So now we see the McCain Machine in full smear mode.  And I'm betting that some of the smears will stick.

Krugman writes:

What General Clark actually said was that Mr. McCain’s war service, though heroic, didn’t necessarily constitute a qualification for the presidency. It was a blunt but truthful remark, and not at all outrageous — especially given the fact that General Clark is himself a bona fide war hero....

It was predictable that the McCain campaign would go wild over the Clark remarks. Mr. McCain’s run for the White House has always been based on persona rather than policy: he doesn’t have ideas that voters agree with, but he does have an inspiring life story — which, contrary to the myth of the modest maverick, he talks about all the time. The suggestion that this life story isn’t relevant to his quest for office was bound to provoke a violent reaction.

But the McCain campaign went beyond condemning General Clark’s remarks; it went out of its way to distort them. “This backhanded slap against John as not being a worthy warrior because he just got shot down is one of the more surprising insults in my military history,” said retired Col. Bud Day, who participated in a conference call organized by the campaign. In fact, General Clark had said no such thing.

The irony, not lost on Democrats, is that Col. Day himself has done what he falsely accused Wesley Clark of doing: he appeared in the 2004 Swift boat ads that impugned John Kerry’s wartime service. (NYT)

At the end of the day, the best thing for Obama to do is to focus on his policies, which are right, and contrast them to McCain's, which are wrong.  Republicans have a whole special set of rules for their own and a completely other set for Democrats.  War heroes John Kerry and Wes Clark are fair game.  War hero John McCain is not.

It isn't fair, but it's the way the game is played, because Republicans know that the part of their base that reacts to this nonsense is, by and large, not very bright. 

The best thing for Democrats to do about this debacle is to back away from it and go on to the next thing, which is to show that Obama is right and McCain isn't.

To quote McCain himself:  If you wrestle a pig, you get dirty and the pig likes it.

Memeorandum has more blogger responses here.

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Comments

[MrMeaner]

Geez!
You moonbats sure have selective memories.
Or maybe you've just been lying for so long, you actually believe it, yourselves.
Let's dissect this latest tripe from the King of all Tripe, Paul Krugman:

"Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet."

This one's easy.
From CNN's Late Edition--March 9, 1999

BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.
Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I TOOK THE INITIATIVE IN CREATING THE INTERNET. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

So technically, you moonbats are correct. He didn't claim to invent the internet, say, in some scientific fashion. No, his claim is to have CREATED in god-like fashion the internet, which he took upon himself to bestow to humanity.

" Howard Dean didn’t scream. "
This one really has me scratching my head.
So, let me get this straight...I'm not to believe my on two eyes and two ears?
I did not see and hear what I know I saw and heard?...in complete context?
Hell, my neighbors, who weren't even watching TV, heard screamin' Dean

"Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated"
No, she didn't come right out and say it in those words, but we all knew what she meant.
But after this gaining of insight into the delusional liberal mind, via this article, I can see how you might not get the insinuation.

Now on Wesley Clark:
His position and his statements do not employ the same logic. And the numerous defenses of his actions show just how addle-brained the typical liberal blogger is.
This is what Clark said on Face the Nation, about McCain:
"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,"

He almost seems to be arguing that he is, in fact, the better candidate. What else could he mean? He certainly can't claim that Obama has more experience in those areas than McCain does.

When Schieffer reminded Clark that Obama did not have experience in those areas, nor had he "ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.", Clark shot back with
"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."

Now he seems to be arguing with himself.
On one hand, McCain doesn't have the right experience, on the other hand, his experience doesn't qualify him.
What?...Hold on..
doesn't..have..experience.. experience..doesn't..matter....nope, that's what he's saying. That's the notion you idiots are defending.
What do they teach in journalism courses, anyway?

[damozel]

Good to get that off your chest, huh? Notice that though you address me as a 'moonbat,' I've refrained from calling you a 'wingnut' in return. Though I have to say, I always find it persuasive when people lead off with an insult.

I am not going to dispute your spinning of the facts point by point because of what McCain said about wrestling.

[MrMeaner]

"Good to get that off your chest, huh?"

Yep..It kinda was. And kudos to you for actually responding. I was almost sure no one would. It wouldn't have to be this way if the NYT would open it's articles to reader comments. But then, you would have (probably) never had the displeasure of knowing MrMeaner's opinion on the whole thing.

"Notice that though you address me as a 'moonbat,' I've refrained from calling you a 'wingnut' in return."

Force of habit. I'm used to being in some pretty heated verbal battles. Actually, moon-bat has become almost an affectionate slur. I think that it's almost cute that people can be so dense. And being called wing-nut wouldn't have bothered me. I've been called much, much worse.

"Though I have to say, I always find it persuasive when people lead off with an insult"

Wow...you're really taking this moon-bat thing seriously, aren't you?
See, normally I'd say something really snarky, right here. But I will instead offer a sincere apology, if it will cause you to pause, and reconsider the facts surrounding this issue.

"I am not going to dispute your spinning of the facts point by point because of what McCain said about wrestling."

My spinning of the facts?
Well, read the direct quotes. How am I spinning anything? What part of my comment do you dispute?...and why?

[MrMeaner]

And what does McCain's over-use of a good quip have to do with Krugman's lies, and Wesley Clarks' non-sensical line of reasoning?