Monday, June 30, 2008

Is Clark's crime what he said or who he supported?

In a rather stunning and bumbling move, Obama has brtually thrown Wes Clark under the bus for, well, saying "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." Nothing offensive about that, unless you're a Republican looking to make a headline, or a Democrat scared of such Republicans.

At best, this is an amateurish repeat of John Kerry's failures to hit back in 2004. Or as David said disastrous. Obama needs to make the cogent case that being a POW some thirty years ago is sufficient reason to elect McCain president. Clark, a man with four stars' more credibility on national security than Obama, made it for him -- and got slapped down for it.

Perhaps this is just incompetence on the part of Obama and Axelrod. But I can't help noticing such a brutal dismissal of a man who prominently supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries. He is also a leading candidate for vice president. It's not pleasant to think that Obama's campaign is using Clark's common sense as a reason to eliminate a Clintonite from VP contention, but it's not pleasant that Obama swiped at a Clinton surrogate the first chance that he got once the nomination was secured.

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