Clark Takes Swipe at McCain's POW Captivity

Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation, Barack Obama supporter General Wesley Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe and former Democratic presidential candidate, made some particularly vicious remarks about Sen. John McCain's fitness to be president. Clark, speaking on behalf of the Obama campaign, questioned whether McCain's military experience was sufficient to qualify him for president. Clark said of the 23-year Navy veteran, "He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded - that wasn't a wartime squadron." But Clark's most controversial comment referred to McCain's imprisonment in North Vietnam's Hanoi Hilton. Clark ventured that McCain's experience as a prisoner of war should not be a qualification for office.

"I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president."

The McCain campaign released a statement from Admiral Leighton Smith, the former commander of allied naval forces in Europe, focusing not on Clark, but on Sen. Obama. "If [Sen. Obama] expects the American people to believe his pledges about a new kind of politics, Barack Obama has a responsibility to condemn these attacks."

This is not the first time that an Obama supporter has made mention of McCain's military career as a way of questioning his fitness for office. In May, Obama supporter Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) said that McCain's military experience was properly viewed as a dis-qualifier for the office of president rather than a resume enhancement. "He's running for commander in chief, and our Constitution says that should be a civilian," he said. Prior to that, Obama supporter Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said in April that McCain's particular military experience, as a Navy aviator, may have made him callous towards people. "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet," he said. "He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues." Rockefeller later apologized.

But Clark's comments stand out as perhaps the most despicable of all the attacks on McCain's service record. He at once implies that McCain was a substandard pilot, by noting that he was shot down in action; and disparages his five and one half years of service to the country as a POW. Clark's logic necessarily discounts the torture McCain endured and the heroism he displayed during his captivity. The comments do not detract from McCain's service, but they do make Wesley Clark, and by extension Sen. Obama, look very small by comparison. Clark will most likely issue an apology to McCain, and perhaps to Obama for the damage his obnoxious statement has done to the Obama campaign.