General Wesley Clark will catch a lot of flack for his appearance on Face the Nation, Sunday, and likely killed whatever slim vice presidential chance he had, by saying this:
Said Clark: “I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”
It’s no fun being the guy who had to say it but is he wrong?
McCain freely admits that his is a single-issue campaign: foreign policy experience. Of course, this is an assumption people make about him based on his story, which is again, based entirely around his military experience. So his campaign pitch really boils down to “vote for me because I know how to keep us safe from terrorists because I was in the military.” Compare it to Rudy Giuliani’s now punchline campaign line: “Vote for me, I know how to keep us safe from terrorists because I was there after 9/11″. Being a pilot in the military, albeit a heroic pilot, in no way makes you any better suited to guide a nation’s foreign policy than being in New York on 9/11.
Of course, this is all tied into a bigger problem with the way Americans vote. People want to vote for the guy with the best narrative, because we confuse a good story with actual evidence.
Being a POW has certainly shaped his philosophy of foreign policy (although in a truly honest, emotionless discussion, it must remain open to debate whether or not this is a good thing), but what actual proof can he point to when making the case that he is best qualified not just to serve his country — as he has done for most of his adult life — but to create and implement a truly global foreign policy? That’s something that only a sitting president or secretary of state can fairly claim, and it’s hardly swiftboating John McCain to point out that his resume doesn’t really make him any more qualified to lead foreign policy than Barack Obama’s.
There’s hardly a single American who doesn’t want a more honest political discourse, but the problem is most people don’t know what honestly looks like. They want a sterilized politics, respectful to the golden calves and white lies of normalized society. But honesty is more iconoclastic than people know how to accept. It’s too difficult to defend political attacks on Michelle Obama even though her role in the Obama campaign is an inherently political one, and its sacrilege to point out that the only thing military experience really is exemplary of is the ability to serve in the military.
And since elections are a contest to see who can convince the most people of their honesty — as defined by idiots who judge honesty based on proximity to what they already believe — this will go down as a loss for General Clark, and of course, for honesty.
