The Right State

Some things defy explanation.

[Bill] Clinton, who has vowed to campaign for Barack Obama, then suggested that POWs could lose their cool at any moment.

“It’s just like if you know anybody who’s ever been a POW for any length of time, you will see you go along for months or maybe even years, and then something will happen and it will trigger all those bad dreams and they will come back, and it may not last 30 seconds,” he said.

This is an attempt by Barack Obama surrogates to paint John McCain’s time as a POW as disqualifying him for office. Bill Clinton was mostly likely trying to question McCain’s service without questioning his service, but fouled it up. Reagan once told Walter Mondale that he would not bring up his opponent’s youth thus ending any speculation about Reagan’s age. It is an old political trick to say you are not going to bring up an issue. This time Clinton screwed it up.

During the 2004 campaign conservatives, particularly the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, questioned John Kerry’s war record and rightfully so. George Bush’s time in the military was fair game then as is John McCain’s is now. But this latest bunch of questioning of McCain’s time as a POW goes way over the top.

Before this latest episode Wesley Clark suggested that “getting shot down in a fighter plane doesn’t make one fit to serve as president.” While Obama goes out and says no one’s military record should be devalued, that is exactly what they are doing. With all of the Obama surrogates out there questioning John McCain’s service to our country, Barack Obama can say what ever he wants.

The bottom line is, the Democrats are being disingenuous. They can not attack his service to his country, so they attack his time as a POW? John Kerry’s service pales in comparison to John McCain’s. So instead they attack what happened to him while he was in the Navy.

If this is a plan by Obama and the Democrats, it is a very poor one and is likely to backfire on them. McCain’s time in the military has been well documented and investigated. What the former Navy pilot endured a POW is beyond what any of these white-flag-waving-Democrats can even imagine. The Arizona Senator has hundreds of votes on the Senate floor; why not go after those votes? The answer is puzzling, but it may hinge on their dislike of anything military. It is ironic that a cigar waving draft dodger can even bring himself to question McCain’s service.

Tags: Democrats, National Elections //