This is what he's supposed to do? Am I getting that right from kos and people here who are pissed at Obama for not having General Clark's back?
Allow me to disagree.
I'm sure Rule #1 for the Obama camp, when going after McCain in the general election, is not to go after his military record. There are several reasons for this:
- American voters hate non-military people attacking a person's military record. Especially if it is seen as a left-leaning person. The media would destroy Obama for something like that.
- Obama is already anti-Iraq war. He does not want to be seen as anti-military as well. The press would paint him as anti-military if they could. A good way of being seen as anti-military is to attack a POW's military record.
- Obama is the standard bearer of the democratic party. If he does something, every democrat is going to have to be asked if the party as a whole backs that opinion. The democratic party doesn't want to be known as the party who attacks a POW on his war record. It just doesn't look good on face value.
- Obama is already fighting back against patriotism charges, the flag issue, etc. All things that an attack on a former POW would exacerbate.
I fully expect that anyone who works for Obama would get fired immediately if they attack McCain's military record.
Now, General Clark obviously has the military record to back up his criticisms of McCain. So does that mean it's fine for Clark to attack McCain and then have Obama just back Clark?
No. Hell no. It makes it seem like Obama is attacking McCain's military record using a military proxy. That goes over about as well as Robert Johnson saying "guess who's coming to dinner" about Obama.
Obama HAS to distance himself from anyone attacking McCain's military record. He can't attack by proxy, and he can't directly attack. This should be obvious to General Clark. That doesn't mean that General Clark should back down for Obama's sake. Clark can make his valid points, knowing that he is going to get bashed by the media for it, and knowing that democratic politicians, by and large, including Obama, won't have his back for it. He's a big boy. He can take it. He knows plenty of people do have his back, like us DFHs.
Be angry at Obama about FISA or some other things that go along with his move to the 'center', but don't be angry at him because he's not doing a politically suicidal thing like backing an attack on his opponent's military record (valid or not) when he has no military record.