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The American Presidency: This Thread Is 'Inartful'.
Posts
Here's an interesting clip from Verdict with Clark expounding on his comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybBb2tUQtvI
The best exchange:
Abrams: Are you sorry you said it?
Clark: It's a great line. I didn't make it up--it was given to me by the interviewer.
I would have been dickish about it and offered him a ride over North Korea so he could run for president.
This is my annoyance with the situation.
His campaign is calling it a smear on his military record, but at no point cites anything that's a smear on his military record. He can disagree with Clark all he wants, I'm fine with that. But he's beyond misrepresenting Clark and well into making shit up, while having surrogates ACTUALLY disparage Clark's military record (directly saying he wasn't that stellar at his last post).
This right here is what angers me the most about what happened. Clark didn't attack McCains service record, but in fighting this made up smear they are attacking Clarks service record.
I've seen in more than one location assertions that everybody hated Clark because he was an arrogant asshole who never listened to anyone whose achievements were entirely a cynical ploy to garner the credentials to run for office.
Yup, smearing military folks is an abomination, except when you disagree with them.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
I think I've said a few times over the last couple days that the only time it's okay to disparage a (former) military person's record is if they're a Democrat. See: Max Cleland and John Kerry.
Thats a campaign ad all by itself, especially if you could get audio.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I suppose it's inevitable when an even higher number feel about the same about the Rapture.
And survey says, will get less play then Wesley Clark. Sorry General Clark.
Do bombings against civilians in Iraq count?
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I think a large part of this is because it's principally Republicans who get a bad case of the undie-bundies when you disparage military experience. When Pubs talk about how a Dem's service doesn't make him a minor deity, the Dems don't care nearly as much as the Pubs do given the inverse.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Wow. So what was this about Clark not speaking well? It seems like he perfectly explained his position the first time through. Le sigh.
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Just like implying an 'ism against a Dem is seen as more of a slight than implying that same 'ism against a Repub.
Call Bush / McCain a homophobe... now try the same with Clinton or Obama etc.
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
McCain campaign a month ago: "hey, betch you haven't even BEEN to Iraq!"
McCain campaign today: "visiting Iraq is just a cheap political stunt!"
Sane World: .... While true, doesn't that kind of point out your infamous Market trip?
Isn't McCain the person who talked about how safe and normal it was while he had a ton of bodyguards protecting him?
He speaks fine. He doesn't speak politics-ese well. Recall the genius of many of Obama's best speeches is that they provide nuanced and complex arguments in ways that are impossible to break into soundbites. You take a random sentence out of those speeches, and it's literally meaningless - you need at least a 30-40 second clip to even begin making sense of it. This keeps the media from fucking up the context by selecting damning 5-second portions that sound really bad when removed from the larger work.
Clark's treatment shows why the status quo has lately been to speak only in digestible blurbs and rah-rah truisms that sound good and say nothing. If your entire speech is a string of platitudes, the media can't sabotage you. You're not saying anything, sure, but at least you're not being kneecapped. Clark didn't follow the rules - he provided an actual nuanced argument over the course of his interview. But due to the interview format and his lacking Obama's rhetorical brilliance, he wasn't able to tailor his argument to be safe from the media's Soundbite-o-Tron 9000. So they grabbed an incriminating blurb and tar-n-feathered the fuck out of him.
tl;dr: Clark's a smart guy and a good thinker, but a poor politician.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Ton of bodyguards, a few attack helicopters and snipers nicely cropped out of the photos where he talked about how safe and great the market was.
Not too over-geekify this but:
The world has rewarded the media/powerful into treating us as stupid for too long and now a backlash is building.
That last sentence actually is a pretty good description (combined with his military cred) for a good (office holding) VP, and thats from someone who doesn't have Clark high on his list for Obama VPs.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I'm not certain I agree with that usage of politician. Restricting the virtues of a good politician to strictly those that help you get elected is a little silly. I understand your point that Clark fucked up on handling the media but I don't think that's the end all of politician-hood.
I will note that McCain is a poor politician by this standard if you take away the kid gloves the media has been using to keep this a competitive race.
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
Though I don't think they'd strike now, unless they're very fond of McCain (and let's face it, people would go to him because MILITARY MAEKS ME FEEL SAFE <3 <3 <3. That advisor in Forbes was correct, just stupid for saying it out loud and in that manner). They'll probably strike shortly after the Inauguration, if they have the resources to do so. Any attack now would be "wasted" in its effects on paralyzing the government because it would be blamed on Bush.
By the way, what do you think would happen if Obama is elected and then there is a 9/11 scale attack in his first year?
In the first year? Pakistan might quickly reconsider it's overlooking the camps within their borders. It still might not keep our troops out of there.
If it's much later than that Obama might have some issues and have to treat people like adults and talk about how there really isn't much the government can do to prevent terrorist attacks completely.
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
We'd flatten the people responsible.
Obama would use the good will generated to forge an international alliance and go into countries involved (most likely Afghanistan and western Pakistan), secure those countries, then stay there and help pacify, stabilize and rebuild the region so that terrorist groups cannot regain a foothold there. Basically, what any intelligent, rational person would do, and exactly the opposite of what Bush did.
On the national scene, two-thirds of Americans will blame Bush for doing nothing about terrorism for eight years and support Obama, and a third will wrongly credit Bush with preventing terrorist attacks during his term as president and claim this proves Obama is not as good a president. Fox News will report that Obama helped orchestrate the attack because he is a secret gay muslim terrorist.
The whole thing was a trap set up by McCain. Didn't much matter what Obama did, but this is probably the politically safer move.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
If we'd kept on with the first bit, it would have been a fine reaction to 9/11.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Fixed.
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
If you recall the nonsense surrounding McCain's Iraq trip nearly sank his campaign
Which nonsense?
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
McCain: Touring this Baghdad market, I can see that things are totally safe!
The Reality Based Community: Um, didn't you have like 100 soldiers as guards and 2 Blackhawks overhead while touring that market?
McCain: Shut up.
Though I don't think that was what nearly sank his campaign, it was more his lack of conservativeyness.
Thank you for permanently ruining anything sexy.
It was a trap, I'm just curious if anyone will effectively call McCain on it.
Damn that separation of church and state!