I think that we need to get the list of everyone who has ever been shot down or crashed a military aircraft and survived. Put every one of those people into political and business leadership Or maybe just marry them all to beer heiresses.

(Could it be that was Dubya’s fatal flaw—that he flew the damn things but never cracked one up?)

This post is not not made of win.

well, tho what clark said is correct, getting down on mccain’s service record is kind of like going into the bible belt and making fun of the baby jesus myth.

You know why McCain’s stuff about his military record irritates me? Because he plays it up as heroic.

There’s nothing heroic about getting shot down, dragged from the water by a civilian, and held in a POW camp, where you were held without incident. that’s doing your fucking job. Saying “oh, he’s a survivor. he ENDURED, for his COUNTRY” so what, you’re saying some poor SOB who died in a POW camp somehow didn’t do enough, because he didn’t ENDURE? If Kerry doesn’t get Automatic War Hero status for serving with distinction, neither does McCain. he’s got to actually DO something.

He’s not Audie Murphy. If you’re less than that, you aren’t a hero.

There’s nothing wrong with not being a hero, either.

General Clark calls him a hero, karpad, and I’m not really inclined to disagree.  He chose not to be released to prevent it being used for propaganda purposes.  That’s above and beyond.  He chose, out of bravery and patriotism, to suffer years of torture.  He’s a hero.

Barack Obama’s no coward, though.  He’s risking his life every day out of bravery and patriotism.  He’s in more danger than any presidential candidate in recent history, and he’s choosing to live a fairly grueling lifestyle in order to make a difference.  With our help, he can end up a hero too.

Of course it’s not attacking McCain’s service record to say that it doesn’t make him qualified to be President. If I say, “The Nobel Prize in Chemistry doesn’t make you qualified to be President,” nobody in the world would think I was disparaging chemistry, chemists or Nobel Prize winners.

I suspect that Clark’s statement is causing such dudgeon among the Bobblehead Brigades not because of the way it attacks McCain, but because of the way it indirectly attacks the Village and their worshipful attitude towards McCain’s Mavericky Manliness. If guys like Wes Clark convince their viewers that issues and policies are more important than shallow narratives about character, TV pundits might start having to work for a living.

DB, if you or General Clark want to use that language, you’re free to do so. It’s certainly impolitic to say “a military POW is just a shlub doing the job he signed up for.” Unless you’re a republican, it’s totally fine to say Volunteer Military means people who are killed knew what they were getting in to.

I don’t like the word hero. At all. it has all kinds of connotations, many of them completely unconscious to the user, which value judge an awful lot of people.

Is someone who refused to fight in viet nam out of principle a hero? What if they went to jail as a draft dodger? but what if they just had a really high number and never came up? The two can be morally identical, but because one person got “lucky” enough to suffer for their beliefs, they’re a hero.

a “war hero?” What makes a war hero? If McCain had been released for the “propaganda” would he still be a war hero simply for his participation in bombing campaigns and having been shot down? Is EVERYONE who serves in the military a war hero? What if their only motivation is getting to kill people and blow stuff up? How do we know a person’s motivations? If not everyone is automatically a hero for serving in the military, how do we make the distinction? Do you want to be the one to explain to someone how their father, who died in service, wasn’t a hero because all he did was entirely undistinguished until he got hit by a sniper? Because I’d kind of want to be there to help them beat you up.

“Hero” is a badly loaded word. The whole of humanity would be well served by expunging it from our vocabulary. I realize it’s kind of pedantic, but I cannot stress enough how much I fucking hate that word.

I suspect that Clark’s statement is causing such dudgeon among the Bobblehead Brigades not because of the way it attacks McCain, but because of the way it indirectly attacks the Village and their worshipful attitude towards McCain’s Mavericky Manliness. If guys like Wes Clark convince their viewers that issues and policies are more important than shallow narratives about character, TV pundits might start having to work for a living.

Oh, it’s simpler than that. Hysterical ad hominem attacks at Wes Clark, personally, distract people from the fact that he IS correct. First rule of the internet - the more hysterical the fact free ad hominem, the less actual facts on the side of the person making them.

Being a fighter pilot, being shot down, and enduring as a POW do not demonstrate Presidential qualities.  Outside of the movie “Independence Day”, of course, and I think America might be able to endure the possibility of a President unable to lead an attack on alien ships.

Since I still have George Carlin on my mind, I want to thank you for not using the word twice in your headline.

“Don’t make the same mistake twice seems to indicate three mistakes, doesn’t it? First you make the mistake. Then you make the same mistake. Then you make the same mistake twice. If you simply say, “Don’t make the same mistake, ” you’ll avoid the first mistake. “

My grandfather was a PoW in WWII.

I think this qualifies him for the presidency, and I would suggest he run were he not:

a) a foreign national
b) dead

But aside from those two disqualifying factors, he’d be great.

Really Dana give me a break.  If a bunch of right wing nuts decide to purposely ingore what you actually said and twist it into something else—I don’t think that is the fault of the speaker.

Watching the clip it is not possible to even remotely fairly observe it and think he denagrated McCain in any real way. 

Saying that the guy’s time as a POW is not a qualification for president is (or rather should be) no big deal.  It is twisted by the right wing noise machine and bought into by the media who love them some McCaine.

Dana, Bob Schieffer asked Clark specifically about McCain’s piloting a plane and getting shot down, compared to Obama, who had not. Why anyone thinks that this makes McCain better for president than Obama is beyond me—particularly since McCain had a track record of nothing but cowardice and failure since returning to America, and has been trying to get a “do-over” of the Vietnam war ever since.

And that “executive experience” claim is bullshit, and you know it. McCain had a military officer position. Doesn’t make him qualified to manage anything. Even George McGovern went bankrupt trying to run a small business, and he was an actual war hero.

You sound pretty desperate to prop up a loser like McCain if you’re reaching back to a job he had 40 years ago as “execcutive experience” that makes him presidential.

Pepito

As a dead man, he would be an improvement over both remaining candidates.

I should also add, Dana, that McCain was, even by his own accounts, a fairly shitty pilot. Funny how you gravitate to the incompetent. What’s interesting is not only how this campaign has become about the judgment of the candidate’s (Obama’s being obvious better, in comparison), but how it exposes problems with the judgment of activists. McCain supporters consistently reflect poor judgment, make bad arguments, and end up supporting bad ideas because they’re blindly trying to get their guy elected while making moronic claims about Obama. Dana was, of course, 4 years ago, part of the same group of fanatics sporting purple heart band-aids, and now he’s squealing like a pig about this trumped-up attack on McCain’s honor.

What we’re seeing is that the Republicans are left with a dead-ender rump of only the most fanatical, most irrational activists.

Jeez, if crashing a mere airplane qualifies one to be president, I’m surprised the Republicans haven’t nominated Joseph Hazelwood.

Karpad,

McCain has made it clear in interviews on the History Channel and other media outlets that he doesn’t consider himself a hero, and that those who died while captive or otherwise during the war were the real heros. 

You also made the comment that he was “held without incident” which is false. He and others were beaten and tortured on a regular basis.

As you may or may not know, he was offered early release by his NVA captors because his father was an Admiral; he declined and chose to stay with his commrades in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. Life there for the POWs was no walk in the park. Those who were held there and endured that hell whether they lived or died are heros.

Those who were held there and endured that hell whether they lived or died are heros.

Actually, people who are captured and unjustly abused and maimed/killed are known as “victims.”

Tyro says:

“Actually, people who are captured and unjustly abused and maimed/killed are known as “victims.”

So what you’re saying is that McCain should play the victim card? Brilliant, I think you should join his campaign as an advisor.

So what you’re saying is that McCain should play the victim card?

I did not say what McCain should or shouldn’t do. I merely pointed out the obvious: those who are victimized by a cruel enemy are victims.