Depraved Audacity

The people pushing attacks on Senator John McCain's military record and experience are engaging in nothing less than depraved audacity. They demean not only McCain's military record, but attack all those in uniform.

McCain served honorably in the US Navy as a fighter pilot, and was shot down after his 23rd mission over Hanoi. He was a POW for nearly five years and was repeatedly tortured.

Yet, Wesley Clark and others have the audacity to claim that McCain doesn't have military experience or the record on which to become President? Clark made the following nonsensical statement which got Bob Schieffer to do a double take.

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 of millions of others in the 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. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, `I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly?

Clark shoots Obama in the foot given that Obama has even less qualifications to discuss any military matters. Obama has no experience whatsoever dealing with the military. Obama never served, let alone commanded a unit of airmen - in peacetime or not. Further, it's not like the Cold War was exactly uneventful or without loss of life. Carrier pilots had to deal with danger on every single sortie.

From the Navy, McCain went on to serve in the US Senate and sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Obama is still barely through his first term in the Senate and his only experience on military matters is opposition to the war in Iraq and demanding the cut and run strategy before the surge showed just how ill informed Obama and the Democrats were.

McCain has led men in peace and war. Obama may have led ACORN in community drives.

Obama's experience is even more thin than McCain's for if you claim that McCain lacks executive experience what does one say about Obama who is even more untested?

Still, the leftists in the Democratic party continue pushing all kinds of smears about McCain's military experience, which frankly is beyond the pale. That includes the odious Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who all but called McCain's bombing missions a war crime.

You can argue that McCain lacks executive experience, which is a fair point, but those arguments cut against Obama even more given that he has even less experience on which to run. You can argue that McCain's military experience doesn't give him an edge over Obama. But denigrating that service only shows the depravity of those making those claims.

UPDATE:
Jammie lays the Democrats and notes that when Obama loses in November, these folks can look back at such tactics and pinpoint where it all started going downhill. AJ Strata rips John Aravosis a new one for wondering what, besides being tortured, did McCain do that excelled while in the military. Hot Air also takes the leftists to task.