McCain Flips At Legit Question
John Soltz is a leader of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans community and Co-Founder and Chair of VoteVets.org. He has endorsed many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress and states that, when discussing their suitability for the post, he is always asked the exact same first question:
What is it about their honorable service in Iraq and/or Afghanistan that qualifies them to go to Congress?This, of course, should be a very easy question for them to answer. They should state that, at a time of war, their direct experience of warfare will give Congress a view which has never been needed more than it is now.
As Soltz points out, that's exactly what McCain is being asked about his experience in Vietnam, and McCain is behaving as if the question is somehow way out of line.
This is a very basic problem with McCain's campaign. The entire campaign is built around the fact that he was once a POW, he hints at it and refers to it and to his sacrifice in almost every stump speech he makes. He has even produced TV ads highlighting the fact that he was once a POW.McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.
"Please," he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.
And yet, when asked in what way that prepares or qualifies him to be president, he becomes truculent and bad tempered. He does this because his experience as a POW does not prepare him to be president any more than the experiences of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are somehow preparing them to one day run Afghanistan.
McCain wants to play the Vietnam card without ever having to state what that card signifies. He wants voters to have an emotional response to his record rather than a reasoned response, which is why when he is asked directly to name the link between the two, he simply can't; because there is no link.
As Soltz points out:
And that is the point, McCain has no answer as to why the very thing he is using as the centrepiece of his entire campaign is even remotely relevant.The fact of the matter is that General Clark was absolutely right. McCain's service, while heroic and honorable, is not very relevant when it comes to preparing him to be the military's ultimate commander. His experience didn't involve executive decision making in the military, or global strategy. Very few candidates for the presidency have had the experience in life that prepares them for that role. In fact, McCain said it himself in 2003, that some of our best Commanders in Chief had no military experience at all.
That's why the McCain campaign went into all-out outrage mode over General Clark's comments. It wasn't about being offended. It wasn't even about General Clark. It was about lashing out so strongly that the media would cower in fear, and not even think about putting a question like this to McCain -- a question to which he has no answer, and is afraid of being exposed on that point. And, for most of the week, that strategy was successful, as the press wimped out, and repeated the McCain talking points.
The reporter from ABC News didn't fall for it, and did his job. But he didn't get an answer. Maybe now, reporters will stuff their guts back in their bodies and keep asking McCain this legit question -- a question I get a version of all the time from the same reporters.
It's a legit question, and it's a question for which the American people deserve an answer.
That's why he gets angry when questioned on it. The Republicans are now going to attempt to make any questioning of the relevance of McCain's Vietnam experience as somehow below the belt and unpatriotic, even as a form of attack on the notion of service itself.
However, the memory of the Republican swift boating of John Kerry is too fresh for that tactic to really succeed. McCain needs to come up with an answer. Or he needs to stop playing the POW card. Which is highly unlikely as, without that, he simply has no campaign.
What's John to do?
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