Big Dogs Weblog

The Hypocrisy of Wesley Clark

by Big Dog on Jul 1, 2008 at 13:27 Political

Right from the start let me say that I am not into denigrating the military service of veterans who served honorably. Wesley Clark served this country honorably and I do not intend to attack that service. However, his recent attack on the service of John McCain leaves open some questions about the ability of Clark to make reasoned decisions and to think cogently about an issue. To recap, Wesley Clark stated:

Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. 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.

We will not get into the fact that if McCain’s military credentials do not qualify him to be the Commander in Chief or to serve as President in general then Obama’s sickly resume hardly qualifies him to be the guy who directs traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. Besides, Clark already stated that Obama has judgment and character and that those items are qualifications for the job. Let us just look instead at the hypocrisy of Wesley Clark.

Four years ago Wesley Clark and John Kerry were running for the Democratic nomination which Kerry eventually won. Wesley Clark backed John Kerry. To Clark, Kerry’s three month stint in Vietnam qualified him to be Commander in Chief as opposed to McCain’s meager service. Or, as Clark might say [if Kerry were a Republican], getting a few splinters and leaving early hardly qualifies as executive responsibility.

But the heart of the matter is Clark himself. He ran for president which means he believed that he possessed experience that demonstrated executive responsibility. How did his service qualify him any more than John McCain’s? Clark led a company in Vietnam for exactly one month before he was wounded and sent to Fort Knox where he commanded a company of wounded soldiers. There are two other shots that Clark took at McCain and they are important:

“That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded – that wasn’t a wartime squadron.”
~snip~
“Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,”

Clark served as a commander for one month before he was shot and sent home. I hardly think serving one month as getting shot qualifies him any more than getting shot down in an airplane but that never entered his mind when he ran. As for command time, what does Clark have besides that one month? He was commander of the Allied forces in Kosovo so one could debate whether that service qualifies him as a wartime commander. Even if it does (and I believe it did), what about being relieved of his command qualifies as executive responsibility?

Like I said, I am not into dishonoring anyone’s service and that is not my intent here. I am pointing out that Wesley Clark is dismissing the service of John McCain when he had no problem with Kerry’s thin military resume (but very think traitor credentials) and Clark never felt as if his own military experience was less than qualifying for the job when he ran. This in spite of the fact that the very issues Clark brought up with regard to McCain very easily apply to Clark.

The bigger issue here is why Clark is doing it. He is trying to diminish a few of McCain’s strongest attributes, his vast military experience and his foreign policy credentials. The left is trying to negate this as an item that can be used as a comparison to Obama because Obama cannot win that match up. By reducing the importance of the issue they hope to even the playing field and have voters believe that McCain has as little experience as Obambi. Clark did this out of fear.

I predict this will backfire. Regardless of what people think about the war, a great number of them support the troops. Our military has higher approval ratings than the president and the Congress combined (and probably twice the combined total). Attacking a veteran is an unwise move.

General Clark might have handed McCain the White House on a platter.

Tags: experience, McCain, Military, Obama, war, wesley clark