The fallout from retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark’s Sunday comment that “riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down” is not “a qualification to be president,” dominated campaign coverage yesterday. In today’s coverage, Clark is widely seen as having hurt Sen. Barack Obama by seeming to belittle Sen. John McCain’s well known record of service in the Navy and his experience as a POW. Moreover, the controversy distracted media attention from Obama’s speech on patriotism.
Last night’s network news broadcasts portrayed the controversy as a PR disaster for the Obama campaign. On NBC Nightly News, for example, NBC News political director Chuck Todd said Obama had hoped that his speech yesterday on patriotism would get as much coverage as his March speech on race relations, but the Clark episode overshadowed the long-planned event. Said Todd, “What Wesley Clark did yesterday, whether he meant to or not, whether he was trying to audition to be the number two to show how he can be an attack dog, it ended up stepping on this speech and really causing some political pain for Obama today. Now this speech on patriotism looks like a response rather than him trying to put to rest this idea of whether he’s patriotic enough, whether he’s American enough.”
Barack Obama's new attack dog, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, is not backing down from his attacks on John McCain, saying he spoke independently of Senator Barack Obama. Yeah right. So let me ask the obvious question: "What has Obama done to make him prepared to lead this country in a time of war???" Answer: NOTHING.Attackdog
(Mr. Clark has made similar assessments before, and in these interviews he again seemed to be contrasting his level of supervisory leadership in the military against Mr. McCain’s.)
On Tuesday, two of Mr. McCain’s closest allies — Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and retired United States Marine Corps Lt. Col. Orson Swindle — not only rejected General Clark’s recent remark, but also began to question his own military service.
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