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Mediamatters.Org - The media frenzy that
has followed retired Gen. Wesley Clark's comments on the
June 29 edition of CBS' Face the
Nation is based on at least two false premises: first, that Clark
attacked Sen. John McCain's military service, and second, that his
comment -- that one's, in this case McCain's, military heroism
alone does not establish his qualification to be president -- is in any way
extraordinary or unusual. As Media Matters for America has
noted, Clark did not
attack McCain's military service; he praised McCain as a
"hero." Moreover, Clark's comments
were far from the first time someone has said of a war veteran running for
president that his military service alone does not make him qualified to be
president.
Indeed, in 2004, numerous media figures argued that Sen.
John Kerry's (D-MA) military record alone did not qualify him to be
president. For example:
On the September 10, 2004, edition (accessed via Nexis) of Fox News' Special Report, Roll Call executive editor Mort Kondracke asserted that "this whole business of John Kerry saying I'm qualified to be commander in chief because I was a Swift boat commander in Vietnam is bunk. ... It does not qualify you to be the commander in chief of all the Armed Forces because you were a Swift boat commander."
In a February 13, 2004, column, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker wrote: "Given that military service neither qualifies nor disqualifies one for political office -- and given the fact of Bush's honorable discharge -- it's time to dismount this jackass. Vietnam is over. To judge people now on the basis of what they said or did then is to forget how emotionally riven we were. And how young and naive we were. ... What's more important now is what would a man do as president?"
In a September 23, 2004, column, syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell
wrote of Kerry: "Never mind that people who were actually there with
him in the 1960s dispute what a great job he did then. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that he did all the things he said he did and none of the things that eyewitnesses in Vietnam said he did. How does that qualify anyone to be President of the United States?"
In an August 26, 2004, column, National Review Online editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg wrote that "experience -- while more often than not superior to the lack of it -- isn't as powerful or important as we like to think. If service in Vietnam or in uniform were the prerequisite for correct thinking on military and foreign-policy issues, then you'd think Veterans would all agree with each other. Obviously, they don't. The media's favorite veteran, John McCain, disagrees with John Kerry about Iraq and most foreign-policy issues."
Moreover, then-staff writer Ronald Brownstein wrote in a July 28,
2004, Los Angeles Times news analysis (retrieved from Nexis) that
President Bush's "aides quickly insisted that
Kerry's military service in Vietnam, however laudable, was
less relevant to his
qualifications as commander in chief than his
Senate voting record on national security issues -- which the Bush
campaign has tried to portray as soft
on defense.
'Every American, including the
president ... believes John
Kerry's service in Vietnam was
admirable,' said Steve Schmidt, the
Bush campaign's deputy communications director. 'But what's most
striking is that in order to talk
about John Kerry's accomplishments, they've had
to go back for
35 years. There is no mention of what John Kerry has done in the
Senate the past 20 years.'"
On the June 29 edition of CBS' Face the Nation, Clark said of McCain:
CLARK: 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 Air -- in the Navy that he commanded, it 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?" He hasn't made
those calls, Bob.
After Face the Nation
host Bob Schieffer said, "[Sen.] Barack Obama has not had any of those
experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot
down," Clark replied: "Well, I
don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification
to be president. ... But Barack is not -- he is not running on the fact
that he has made these national security pronouncements. He's running on his
other strengths."
From the September 10, 2004, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:
JUAN WILLIAMS (Fox News contributor): Well, that's what they say. But
let me just say, these documents
have slowly poured out over the course of Mr. Bush's term. And they haven't
been in a consistent fashion,
where I were to say, here is an entire record of
President Bush's service and
here is why he did not show up for a period in the Alabama National Guard.
KONDRACKE: Let us stipulate this
whole business is nonsense. It is a diversion.
WILLIAMS: That is a good point.
KONDRACKE: It's a diversion --
FRED BARNES (Weekly Standard
executive editor): No,
I don't agree with that.
KONDRACKE: No, it's
a diversion from what the voters of America deserve.
WILLIAMS: I agree.
KONDRACKE: And that is a discussion of their future. I mean, this whole business of John
Kerry saying I'm qualified to be
commander in chief because I was a Swift
boat commander in Vietnam is bunk. And the idea --
WILLIAMS: Why is it bunk?
KONDRACKE: Because you command a little boat. You are not
commanding --
WILLIAMS: Let me just say this to you.
KONDRACKE: Just a second.
WILLIAMS: If you are in the military --
KONDRACKE: Just a minute.
WILLIAMS: -- and
served --
KONDRACKE: Just a minute. Just a minute. Just a minute. It does
not qualify you to be commander in chief. Abraham
Lincoln did not fight in any wars, right? And he ran a very good war in the
Civil War. FDR did not fight in any wars and he ran a very good war in World
War II. It does not qualify you to be the commander in chief of all the Armed
Forces because you were a Swift
boat commander.
WILLIAMS: Can I respond to this
point?
KONDRACKE: Nor does it mean that you
were a lousy commander in chief if you were a hack-off back in the 1970s, and then became an
upstanding person because you had a religious conversion --
WILLIAMS: Do you think that it adds
to your credibility as the American people look at the fact that we're in war
right now that you were able to say,
I put myself on the line.
I went to war for this country.
I risked my life? Do you think that adds to something to the voters in terms of
their information about your character and your willingness to put their
children at risk?
KONDRACKE: But your record for 20
years on foreign policy is a much more important thing. And that's very weak.
WILLIAMS: I think people have a
strong feeling about your character on this point.
JIM ANGLE (guest host): We need to take a break at this point.
Coming up, maybe a little bit more of this.
[laughter]
ANGLE: But also, John Kerry says if
the president were serious about fighting terrorism, he'd extend the weapons assault
ban -- the assault weapons ban, rather. We'll ask our All-Star panel about that
and maybe some more of this next.
From Parker's February 13,
2004, column:
In defense of Bush's record, the
White House has produced military pay
receipts. Outside entities, including The
Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project of the
nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University
of Pennsylvania, have
investigated records and found nothing to substantiate claims of desertion. (www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=131)
Kerry wisely has
taken the high road
during this obvious witch-hunt, saying he has no interest in Bush's record. Of course as long
as he has people like
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe cluster-bombing the media with AWOL charges, the
high road is a pretty easy leap. There's no way to go but up when the
source for "desertion" is movie producer Michael Moore.
Given that military service neither qualifies nor
disqualifies one for political office -- and given the
fact of Bush's honorable discharge -- it's time to dismount this jackass. Vietnam is over. To judge people now on the
basis of what they
said or did then
is to forget how
emotionally riven we were. And how young and
naive we were.
By that
standard, it is possible to forgive Kerry's 1970
Harvard Crimson interview in which he said
he wanted to eliminate CIA
activity and turn our
troops over to the
United Nations. He's changed his
tune. Presumably he's wiser. So are we all.
What's more important now
is what would a man do as president? We know what Bush
would do. Kerry voted for the war on Iraq but against funding to finish the job,
thus making life more
difficult for our service men
and women still on the front lines.
Which Kerry would be president, the
hero who advances assertively against the
threat of danger? Or the antiwar demonstrator who
turns protest into political currency?
From Sowell's September 23,
2004, column:
Yet for
the most important job
in this country -- indeed, the
most important job in the world -- Senator John
Kerry has applied by talking about what
he did in a wholly different job
back in the 1960s.
Never mind that
people who were actually there with him in the
1960s dispute what a great job he did then. Let
us assume, for the
sake of argument, that
he did all the
things he said he did and none
of the things that
eyewitnesses in Vietnam said
he did. How does
that qualify anyone to be President of the United States?
The Kerry campaign and the liberal media want to make this
election a referendum on President Bush, especially as regards Iraq. That
too is an insult to our intelligence.
From Goldberg's August 26, 2004, column:
As for
the president, the only
area in which he beats John Kerry decisively in the polls is, broadly, in his
capacity as commander-in-chief. The American people -- as well as a majority of veterans and (I presume) those serving in the military -- generally think Bush
is a better war
president than Kerry would be. And yet the
Kerry campaign insists that
Kerry's stint in Vietnam makes him
more qualified to be a war president because George W. Bush's four-year term
as a war president cannot outweigh the
fact that John Kerry spent four months in Vietnam. Meanwhile a bunch of guys
who served alongside Kerry under similar circumstances all say
that Kerry's full of it, and the
Democrats say they have
no right to talk
at all. Indeed, they
want the book pulled from
bookstores. Follow all of that?
Now, keep
in mind this is all largely a reversal from twelve years ago when Bill Clinton ran
for office. Back then
the Paul Begalas and
John Kerrys claimed that
service in Vietnam -- or anywhere else -- was irrelevant to being an effective president (while some
Republicans were largely saying the
reverse). Now, suddenly, it is the qualification that
trumps all others.
My point isn't the usual hypocrisy gotcha, though that's certainly worth pointing out. It's that
experience -- while more often than not superior to the lack of it -- isn't as powerful or important as we like to think. If service in Vietnam or in uniform were
the prerequisite for correct thinking on military and foreign-policy issues, then
you'd think Veterans would all agree with each
other. Obviously, they don't. The
media's favorite veteran, John
McCain, disagrees with John
Kerry about Iraq and
most foreign-policy issues (depending on which day of the week Kerry is talking). John Edwards talks about how Kerry still carries shrapnel in his
leg and therefore...therefore...therefore, well, something along the
lines of nobody's ever
allowed to criticize John
Kerry. Obviously, that's idiotic on its face. If it's not, maybe we should count the
side with the most
shrapnel in its collective body
and declare it the
most qualified to lead
the country. My guess is Karl Rove would be happy with that.
We do not live in the world of Starship Troopers where only veterans are allowed to vote.
In a democracy, arguments and
reason must count for
something, if not necessarily everything. During the
lead-up to the war,
opponents of the war
(including hundreds of nasty folks in my e-mail box)
declared that the White House had no right to send troops into
combat because they hadn't seen
it themselves. Or, I remember Chris Matthews trying to bully Rich Lowry into silence during the
lead-up to the war.
Matthews shrieked at Rich
something to the effect of "Have you ever
been to the Middle East!?" And
when Rich said no,
Matthews responded something like
"Well, then you have
no right to talk."
This is the path to madness. If reading books and articles, talking to experts -- including veterans -- and making arguments built on facts and logic is always insufficient compared to the experience of being shot at
-- or taking a walking tour
of a Middle Eastern city
-- then we must have
compulsory military conscription for everybody -- men, women, Quakers, Amish, gays, and invalids included (and
then find ways to rotate them through combat). That's the
only way to ensure that
everyone maintains their rights.
From the July 28,
2004, Los Angeles Times article:
And Bush
aides quickly insisted that
Kerry's military service in Vietnam, however laudable, was
less relevant to his
qualifications as commander in chief than his
Senate voting record on national security issues -- which the Bush
campaign has tried to portray as soft
on defense.
"Every American, including the
president ... believes John Kerry's service in Vietnam was admirable," said
Steve Schmidt, the Bush
campaign's deputy communications director. "But what's most
striking is that in order to talk
about John Kerry 's accomplishments, they've had
to go back for
35 years. There is no mention of what John
Kerry has done in the Senate the
past 20 years."
The dueling arguments over
the relevance of Kerry's Vietnam experience illustrate a key way the
convention is sharpening and
advancing the debate between the
two contenders. In effect, the
two sides are competing to define the frame that swing voters could use to assess Kerry's fitness to be president.Media Matters - Media in a frenzy, but Clark's comment not extraordinary or unprecedented {...} The media frenzy that has followed Wesley Clark's June 29 comment on CBS' Face the Nation that Sen. John McCain's military heroism alone does not establish his qualification to be president is partially based on the false premise that the comment is in some way extraordinary or unusual. In fact, in 2004, numerous media figures argued that Sen. John Kerry's military record alone did not qualify him to be president. {...} Published: July 1, 2008, 10:56 pm - Indexed: July 2, 2008, 4:45 pm - Page Size: 29KB |