Ixnay On The Ottenray!

John McCain says that Wesley Clark's statement that McCain's military service alone (especially his time as a POW) does not qualify him to be president is an attack on McCain's patriotism and also denigrates McCain's service.

Clark (who himself is a USAF general, retired) was not tactful in his choice of words, though in fairness and in context, Clark was merely answering a question whose terms were posed by CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer on Meet The Press. But the gist of Clark's statement is correct. Consider: Ulysses S. Grant was one of the nation's best military men, yet his presidency has largely been considered a disaster of corruption, graft, and greed. Not by Grant himself--Grant's personal integrity is unquestioned--but by Grant's political allies, who shamelessly took advantage of Grant's inability to notice that not everyone around him shared his level of integrity. Military service in and of itself does not reveal someone's ability to be president. That is the sum total of the meaning behind Clark's indelicately worded answer to Bob Schieffer.

Nor was Clark's statement an attack on McCain's patriotism. Nor did Clark's statement denigrate McCain's service. Clark merely mentioned McCain's service. He did not evaluate it in terms of its patriotism or other level of quality. If McCain believes any mere mention of his service by his opponents in this election cycle equals an attack on his service, McCain lacks the discernment and judgment to be president. If McCain knows better but resorts to such slimeball tactics anyway, he's too craven to be president. Either way, McCain's own behavior, NOT his life's experience, disqualifies him to be president.

Barack Obama's disavowal of Clark's remarks did no service to Obama's campaign, however. By buying into McCain's premise that Clark was attacking McCain's service and McCain's patriotism, Obama falls into the same trap that has ensnared McCain. If he believes what McCain said, his judgment and discernment are not high enough to qualify him for the presidency--and if he doesn't believe it but caved because he saw political advantage in doing so, he's pandering just as much as McCain is.

[This is why I still want to see a "Draft John Edwards" movement at the Democratic Party's national convention. Even though I know it "ain't gonna happen. Wouldn't be prudent."--Ed.]

So how does one decide for whom to vote? McCain has been all over the place: he tells the residents of New Orleans he's supported every attempt to discover what went wrong with the levees and to correct the all problems revealed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but his public record of voting shows just the opposite. He voted against every single piece of proposed legislation that was designed to do the things he told New Orleans residents he said he supported. He said Dubya's tax cuts were dangerous and he opposed them in 2000. In 2008, however, he says the tax cuts are a good idea and he's going to make them permanent. In 2005 he said eventually we'd have to negotiate with organizations like Hamas. In 2008, he says negotiating with groups like Hamas is "appeasement." But he supported Dubya's negotiations with Kim Jong Il of North Korea. Go figure.

I'll give Obama the nod here for being more consistent in his message in terms of the legislation he has proposed and what he says he will support as president.

Call me crazy, but I want a president who is intelligent, who will do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not act out of blind partisanship or expediency, and who has the courage to stand his ground in the face of opposition from his own base of support, as he has done on the FISA bill. McCain, who claims to be a maverick and who says he's bipartisan, has an actual voting record that's nearly 100% in support of Dubya's failed policies. Either he is too dumb to notice the discrepancy between his words and his actions, or he thinks we are too dumb to notice. Either explanation is disquieting.

Nonetheless, Phineas Taylor Barnum is laughing his head off, as both major party candidates prove once again that Barnum was correct: no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.