Legal Commentary

McCain's Foreign Policy "Qualifications"

By Big Tent Democrat

Matt Yglesias writes:

McCain doesn't need daily [foreign policy] talking points. But the reason he doesn't need daily talking points isn't that he can talk about national security issues with fluency and skill without them. Lacking daily talking points, he's repeatedly confused Sunni and Shiite, repeatedly forgotten that Czechoslovakia doesn't exist, changed his position on Afghanistan twice in 24 hours, etc. In short, he's made a ton of gaffes just as you would expect from an underprepared candidate. But he's allowed to get away with a lack of adequate preparation because, in the mind of the press, his years in captivity decades ago are adequate demonstration that he understands national security issues even though there's no real basis for that view.

(Emphasis supplied.) Wes Clark spoke at Netroots Nation last night and said about his now infamous remarks about McCain:

[O]n CBS' Face the Nation, he remarked that McCain's time as a POW did not serve as a qualification for the White House.

"There is just no other way to say it," said Clark. "Someone said to me 'This is a playbook operation by the right wing freak machine, the great freak show where they take a statement, distort it, blast it out of context and make it personal. They are so good at it they did all three steps in three hours and you fought back and I'm grateful for you from the bottom of my heart.'"

The connection between Yglesias' complaint about the Media's fawning over McCain's foreign policy prowess based on his POW history and the treatment Clark received from DEMOCRATS is direct. Unless and until Democrats stop being afraid to stand up for themselves when they tell the truth, Republicans like McCain will always get a free Media pass. Time to learn this lesson. Past time.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 18, 2008 (boomark / email).