Defending or attacking McCain's Myth?
Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 05:59:43 AM PDT
What happened on Meet The Press Sunday is so typical. The people who are propagandizing for John McCain, be it the non-visit to Landstuhl AF Hospital non-issue or dissing McCain's record have no compunctions about a falsification or fabrication to sell their stories to the American people.
It is what the President and Vice President do and do often to persuade Americans to go along with their schemes. In McCain's case his past history is not for discussion, it is on a pedestal to substitute for his very real and appalling lack of judgement.(more on the jump)
Also and capacity to lead, to strategize and make informed judgements
What happened to McCain 43 years ago has a bearing on his history and his character but little to do with his fitness or capacity to be commander in chief or be president.
The Navy thought about that history too, and passed him over for promotion. He never made flag (admiral) rank.
The MTP hosts, Schieffer and Brokaw picked up the right wing frame, and true to form and the rightwing playbook, enticed, encouraged and prompted their Democratic guest to undermine Obama by attacking a powerful statement by Clark. Kerry fell for it. That is the truth, not the distortion and spin that Schieffer used and Brokaw used. That spin gets left behind as the message that got repeated by other trad media types is "Kerry repudiates Clark."
Don't believe it? Then how does having your PT boat sliced in half and having to swim for a mile with a wounded comrade make you a President? How does flying many missions jumping from an airplane make you a President? Hundreds of thousands of men and now some women) have combat experience although the vast majority do not.
Neither having served in combat is a qualification or not having served at all is a requirement of disqualification for office of President. Qualities for that office require a lifetime of leadership, ability to strategize, lead senior executives in a manner that advances the country, defends the Constitution,and a number of seasoned policy efforts and experiences that show capacity and education as to the challenges of the job.
Military service is one facet of a lifetime of preparation
and in the case of Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Clinton it wasn't even a factor in their successful presidencies.
Defending Clark in the facts and merits of what he said, his directness and refusal to play the worship of McCain's myth making about that part of his life, should be a perequisite for any serious Democratic operative in this campaign for the White House.
It is no place for dilettantes and amateurs.
Which also, interestingly enough rules out the opportunist and right wing hack McCain. He has shown a certain lack of judgement and opportunism in his votes, when he makes them and more often when he avoids them.
His history or direct experience isn't being challenged as was Kerry's service in 2004.
What is being done by Clark and others is the refutation that somehow a accident and good fortune to survive an appalling incident some 40 years ago gives a pass and automatic expert status to "foreign policy" or "security" or military matters. Name some facet of Presidential duties and tasks, and a POW myth will be substituted for real ability by the McCain surrogates. The vast majority of Americans are neither POW survivors nor veterans. That need and engagement passed long ago to where 1/2 of 1% of the population if that, has any active connection with the military.
But the McCain myth goes on, because the PR apparatus, the traditional media,the laziness and shallowness of the media and their paymasters demand they pay attention to it. Enough.
One last thing about "iconic" prisoners of war. I know a few, some in my family and the most telling thing about them is they NEVER create a personna, a myth about how special they were or how heroic and superior to lesser mortals like we non prisoners fellow citizens are. They understand how fortunate they were to survive at all, when fellow combatants were killed or died in the camp of ill treatment or of disease, or bad luck and they got to return home. They are resolute and humble, and properly grateful and empathetic towards all those that lost their lives.
It is a historic part of their life, but special marks of courage and honor in the camps were not simple investments or a gamble that paid off later or touted to advance in life, that cheapens their stories to a disgraceful venality . John McCain cashed in his POW status when he first ran for office. It should not have been milked incessantly ever since by the recipient of the ordeal to lord it over the rest of us.
That's a disservice to all those who sacrificed everything including their health and for some, their lives, and have no fortune or career of luxury afterwards to show for it.
McCain's POW harping should stop. He is not the poster child for how awful and heroic military experience and prisoner of war status is.
Quite the opposite. He is a survivor, not a hero.
He has made his own POW experience an untouchable subject, a taboo by the trad media and political rivals to get 26 years of Federal office and a well paid career out of it.
Enough already. Deconstruct the McCain myth, put his military history on the timeline and leave it there and discuss what he has done for 26 years of "public service".
The Republicans themselves punctured and shredded McCain. They didn't trust him in 2000,and are defaulting/turning to him as no one else has full enthusiasm for a thankless job of following the worst president and Party leadership in over a hundred years.
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