Wesley Clark, Military Service, and the Presidency

The latest media-contrived controversy du jour seems to be surrounding Gen. Wesley Clark's comments on Face the Nation this past Sunday that supposedly impugn John McCain's patriotism and seek to discredit his military record. Even the Obama campaign has already started to distance themselves from the comments on the grounds that they would never question another candidate's patriotism. However, looking at the comments, Gen. Clark did nothing of the sort. All he said was that getting shot down is not a qualification to be president, and that being in a non-decision-making position in the military does not indicate you have a better understanding of foreign policy. He didn't call him a babykiller. This wasn't a Swift-Boat type attack that tried to undermine his valor in uniform. He acknowledged that McCain is an American hero. He just reminded us that it takes more than being a hero to be a good president. There ought not to be anything controversial in his comments. I've been saying these things for months. Of course we respect and honor what McCain went through in Viet Nam, but serving with valor does not qualify you to be president. As the McCain and Obama campaigns criticize these remarks, what are they trying to say? That they feel being shot down is a qualification to be president? If that's the case, Obama might as well drop out of the race and endorse McCain.

The funniest thing, I think, about Gen. Clark's comments is that he seemed to be offering more of an explanation for him to be president, than for Obama to be president. After all, for all of McCain's lack of real foreign policy credentials, Obama doesn't exactly have them either. Neither candidate has ever been in a decision-making position when it comes to foreign policy. I suppose Clark was probably trying to do this as a clever ploy to get himself picked as vice president. Judging from the Obama campaign's reaction, it seems to have backfired, though unfairly so. I've already given my opinion about a Clark vice presidency in the last post and I won't say any more about that now.

Four years ago, John Kerry tried to play up his valiant service in Viet Nam as giving him strong foreign policy credentials. Let's hope this tactic works as well for McCain as it did for Kerry. The fact is, military people have a mixed record as presidents, just like non-military people. After all, all of McCain's so-called experience gave him neither the clairvoyance to appreciate the dangers of the war in Iraq, the intelligence to understand who our enemies are and how they think, or the judgment to know when to use force and when to use diplomacy. Obama has shown himself smarter and better prepared on all of these issues despite his short resume. The last 4 elections have each pitted a candidate who served in the military against one who didn't. Each time the one who didn't one. This time around, at least, let's hope that trend continues.

Veepstakes

I don't want to spend to much time on veepstakes speculation as it really is just that: speculation. However, I thought I'd make one brief post to stick my two cents into this. It seems lately that polls and the media are already playing off each other to try and frame this election in terms of the conventional paradigm of Republicans are strong on national security and Democrats are strong on the economy. As the theory goes, whichever of these issues ranks of higher importance in voters' minds on election day will determine who wins. Now, this might have been a plausible paradigm in 1992 when president George H. W. Bush had just fought a successful war in Iraq, but the economy was slipping into recession. It's absurd though, that after 8 years of dubya, anyone could still believe the Republicans are stronger on national security. What have 8 years brought us? A war in Iraq with no end in sight, 4,000 US troops dead (more than were killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11), Al Qaeda growing ever stronger, Iran exerting more influence than ever over the region and coming ever closer to developing nuclear weapons, a North Korea that is reportedly selling nuclear weapons technology to Syria, a Hamas-led government in the Palestinian territories. This administration has been a disaster on national security and McCain offers more the same. If ever there has been a year for Democrats to win the election on national security issues, this is it. And yet, perhaps owing to the length of their respective resumes in the area, the press insists on continuing to portray McCain as strong on national security and Obama as weak. This is why I think Obama needs to pick a running mate with strong, bona fide, national security credentials. Someone who can, and will, forcefully make the case that the Democrats are stronger on national security than the Republicans are. The obvious choices would be Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Jim Webb, or Sam Nunn. Sam Nunn is probably too old. Jim Webb, while he's obviously been a strong critic of the war in Iraq, I'm not really convinced he shares the basic overall philosophies of the Democratic Party. Between Biden and Clark, though I like them both, and I think they would both be strong picks, my preference goes with Biden. In addition to his national security credentials as chairman of the foreign relations committee, he also brings a long record of accomplishments in Washington, something else Obama is lacking. He will be able to provide president Obama with vital assistance in how to actuallly accomplish things in a city resistant to change.

Perhaps, in the end, Democrats will not be able to claim national security as their issue. There are many people who automatically associate militaristic with strong and non-militaristic with weak. For the good of the country, I hope this is the year Americans finally learn that isn't true. Picking Joe Biden would certainly go a long way towards making that happen.