Bob Somerby disagrees with my interpretation of the Clark flap and argues that nobody had ever suggested that McCain's POW experience was a qualification for the presidency so Clark's statement was ill advised.
I don't know if anyone had ever said it explicitly, but it's in the subtext of everything the media believes about John McCain. I'll just reprise this one perfect example:
Brian Williams: You know what I thought was unsaid ---they took their position Chris, we're seeing the replay --- they end up in this spot and the sun is coming is just from the side and there in the shadow is John McCain's buckled, concave shoulder. It's a part of his body the suit doesn't fill out because of his war injuries. Again you wouldn't spot it unless you knew to look for it. He doesn't give the same full chested profile as the president standing next to him. Talk about a warrior...
Chris Matthews: You know, when he was a prisoner all those years, as you know, in isolation from his fellows, I do believe, uhm, and machiavelli had this right --- it's not sentimental, it's factual --- the more you give to something, the more you become committed to it. That's true of marriage and children and everything we've committed to in our lives. He committed to his country over there. He made an investment in America, alone in that cell, when he was being tortured and afraid of being put to death at any moment -- and turning down a chance to come home.
Those are non-political facts which I think do work for him. When it gets close this November, which I do believe, and you likely agree, will be a very close contest between him and whoever wins the Democratic fight. And I think people will look at that fact, that here's a man who has invested deeply, and physically and personally in his country.
Williams: Absolutely, Couldn't agree more. Of course the son of a Navy Admiral, a product of Annapolis who couldn't wait to become a Navy aviator...
No, nobody explicitly said that "getting shot down" qualifies McCain for the presidency but I think it's pretty clear they think it does. If a four star general has no standing to challenge that assumption then nobody ever will. That kind of nonsense will protect McCain from criticism all the way through to November.
The media rushed to defend McCain, not just as a war hero, but as a man of vast integrity, with the result that anyone who challenges his national security credibility has to dance on the head of a pin, issuing disclaimers every time he issues a criticism. Crooks and Liars caught this one:
Sen. KERRY: …what almost every person in the Pentagon has admitted. I mean, Bob, you’re smart, you’ve talked to these people in Washington. There are very few people who walk around and say, `Going into Iraq was the right thing to do and we should’ve done it. I’d do it again if I had the chance.’ John McCain does. John McCain believes this was the right decision.
SCHIEFFER: Well, let…
Sen. KERRY: He said, you know, you can’t–I have to tell you, Bob, I just came back from the Middle East. I just met with the king of Saudi Arabia. I met with President Mubarak of Egypt. I met with others. You know what they said to me? They said, `You, America, have served up to Iran, Iraq on a platter.’ They are outraged by this sort of, you know, ineptitude of what has been done by those who decided it was smart to go into Iraq.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you one question here.
Sen. KERRY: And they have turned away–yeah.
SCHIEFFER: Before we–before–because we are going to talk about–are you now challenging Senator McCain’s integrity?
Sen. KERRY: No, I’m challenging Senator McCain’s judgment, his judgment that says there’s no violence history between Sunni and Shia. That’s wrong. His judgment that says this is going to increase the stability of the Middle East. It hasn’t. It’s made it less stable. The judgment that says this will, quote “This will be the best thing for America and the world in a long time.”
SCHIEFFER: All right....all right.
Thank goodness Schieffer stopped him before he went down that road. It's one thing to question a candidate's judgment, but it is completely inappropriate to question his integrity. Right?
BUSH: Well, I'm just saying, you can disagree on issues, we'll debate issues, but whatever you do, don't equate my integrity and trustworthiness to Bill Clinton.
But that's Bush. Everyone now agrees that he's an ass. McCain, the man of character, never questioned anybody's integrity because he doesn't do things like that:
If Republicans nominate the weaker candidate, Al Gore will be able to continue the big money, special-interest politics of truth twisting that has shamed his party and America for seven long years.
I served in the House with Al Gore. I faced him down in debates. I know him and I know his lack of principles and will eagerly put him on the defensive for his embrace in 1996 of Bill Clinton's financial corruption.
Well, maybe it's ok to question some people's integrity. When they're really, really bad. But questioning McCain's integrity is a no no.
And that's quite interesting considering that he was right in the middle of one of the biggest, most expensive corruption scandals in American history. It seems to me that when you have a record like that --- and lobbyists doing business out of your campaign bus as we speak --- that it should be expected that your integrity and honor would be in question when you run for president of the United States. But not St John. Because he behaved heroically over forty years ago, and the media love his mavericky, flyboy straight talk, his character is beyond reproach.
Clark's statement was only impolitic in the context of a media love affair with McCain that can't be broken without going directly to the fact that McCain gets a pass because he did something heroic forty years ago. In keeping with their ongoing successful political strategy of "don't make trouble" the Democratic establishment decided that they would not challenge that assumptions and so it will stand.
"John McCain doesn't always tell us what we hope to hear. Beautiful words cannot make our lives better," the announcer says. "But a man who has always put his country and her people before self, before politics, can. Don't hope for a better life. Vote for one."
McCain's new ad makes an explicit case that his experience as a POW better qualifies him to be president. And nobody is allowed to say otherwise.