Cocksoldiers

Discuss:

When John McCain says American soldiers could be in Iraq for 100 years, the Liberal Mainstream Media screams "out of context!" -- even though when the remarks are put into "context," they become even crazier.

When Wesley Clark says that "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," context explicitly does not matter to the Liberal Mainstream Media.

Interesting, ain't it? Whoever could have seen this coming?

BONUS. My very favorite quote so far about this crap is from ABC's Rick Klein, on why this Matters So Very Very Much:

Clark’s comments seem to miss a vital point about the McCain campaign: Yes, his military service is part of his stock campaign biography, but McCain is not running on that record nearly as much as he’s running on his service in Congress.

Bullfuckingshit. Or, bullshitfucking.

Here is McCain not running on his war record:

"When I was offered a chance to go home early from prison camp in Vietnam, I put my country first,” McCain said on a conference call Tuesday night with independent and Democratic voters in South Florida. “And I’ve been doing that ever since."

Here is continuing to downplay his war record.

And whoops, there goes McCain, once more avoiding any mention of his war record as a qualification for high office!

And here is a speech where McCain deliberately avoids saying that his war record gave him qualities of character and judgment that would qualify him for the position of chief executive.

And I could go on.

All of which makes  Rick Klein's assertion that:

Clark is right that “getting shot down” isn’t a qualification to be president, but McCain isn’t saying that it is.

A load of shit.

If Clark is right, then he's right.

Comments

[chiggins]

Clark is right that “getting shot down” isn’t a qualification to be president, but McCain isn’t saying that it is.

No, McCain isn't, or wasn't, that was Bob "Fucking" Schieffer saying that Obama hadn't done any of those things, thus implying that flying and being shot down is an important qualification for a candidate. Fucking asshole.

Jesus, does Rich Klein think that Wes Clark just burst onto the set mid-taping ranting about McCain's service record?

Where's the booze?

[spencer]

McCain may not use the exact sentence "I deserve to be president because I sat in a North Vietnamese POW camp for six years while you all burned your bras and dropped acid," but that is the plain meaning of almost everything he says. And it should be clear to anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of the English language.

[Ken]

Clark may be right but so what. Why even say it.

You are walking right into the trap, Dems hate the military.

And why does Obama have to defend Clark. What the hell has Clark done besides rip Obama for the past year.

Get a Wesley Clark doll and you two can cuddle all day.

It was an incedibly stupid thing to say.

And I stand by that as well.

[Thers]

Get a Wesley Clark doll and you two can cuddle all day.

Fuck off.

[chiggins]

Clark may be right but so what. Why even say it.

Let's roll the tape back, shall we?

SCHIEFFER: Can I just interrupt you? I have to say, Barack Obama hasn’t had any of these experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

CLARK: I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.

Catch the part where Schieffer adds those two experiences onto a list of legitimate qualifications for making foreign policy decisions? See how he implies that Obama's not as qualified as McCain because of that? That's why.

How do you think he should've replied?

And why does Obama have to defend Clark. What the hell has Clark done besides rip Obama for the past year.

By that standard, the Unitayyy! event they had last week in New Hampshire should have been about Obama throwing baseballs at a Clinton Family dunking booth. But that didn't happen either.

Where you see a "trap", I see a lazy, inaccurate tendency by broadcast journalists that needs to be dismantled and burned. I don't want to wait to have that fight, I want to have it now, and I think Clark's actually a pretty good point person to get on that.

Unfortunately, I also see Democrats tripping over themselves to renounce a comment that's %100 true, thereby letting Scheiffer get away with that shit, and signaling to the rest of the Village that it's A-OK to start the pile on.

Contrast that to the fucking Balls and Thatchers the GOP showed in drafting a resolution praising Rush Limbaugh after he made that "phony soldier" comment. The content of that resolution is obviously repugnant, but I admire the chutzpah, and I wish we fucking had some of it on our side.

[Davis]

I've heard that POWs were not permitted to be released earlier than those in the prison longer, and that if McCain had accepted the offer, he would have been court-martailed. Is that true, or just some Internet bullshit?

[Chris Rich]

Military record drivel seems to be a staple among contenders who have some bit of it but Soldier president outcomes have been mixed at best from the trough of U. S. Grant to the genial plateau of Ike.

If we allow that Preziduncy is an executive function, wouldn't one want to look at track element records of actual decision making?

This seems to be the core of Clark's assertion and I've noticed a trickle of other retired senior commanders chiming in.