Bogus attacks on McCain: Weekend edition

A couple of ’em on the frontburner today.

—- First up: General Wesley Clark, an Obama surrogate, has once again attacked John McCain’s service to our country, this time on CBS’ Face The Nation:

Gen. Wesley Clark, acting as a surrogate for Barack Obama’s campaign, invoked John McCain’s military service against him in one of the more personal attacks on the Republican presidential nominee this election cycle.

Clark said that McCain lacked the executive experience necessary to be president, calling him “untested and untried” on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” And in saying so, he took a few swipes at McCain’s military service.

After saying, “I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war,” he added that these experiences in no way qualify McCain to be president in his view:

“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 Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron” Clark said.

“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

The last time he did this was on a conference call back in March with other retired military “leaders” who at the time were endorsing Hillary Clinton.

About a month ago, I wrote about how these types of attacks from surrogates of Barack Obama were getting out of hand. It’s one thing to say that serving in the military in a war alone doesn’t necessarily make one qualified to be president, but considering the hell McCain went through for 7 years as a POW at the Hanoi Hilton, attacks of this nature – insinuating that McCain’s getting shot down was the sign of a weak fighter pilot – are below the belt, especially coming from a fellow military man. This is something that Barack Obama himself would never say, but his surrogates do and they get a free pass on it.

I can assure you, though: If this is a debate the Obama campaign wants to have through surrogates, I’m sure McCain would welcome it by calling out his opponent and demanding to know what his direct – not through a spokesman or other surrogate – thoughts were on the repeated attacks and belittling of his service.

McQ over at QandO asks a good question in response to Clark’s assertion:

[I]f the willingness to fight for your country, put your life on the line and suffer the brutality McCain suffered as a POW doesn’t make the cut as far as qualifications go, how far below that does a “community organizer” show up on the list of non-qualifications?

Didn’t McQ get the memo? Every move Obama has ever made “took courage” so obviously becoming a community organizer was an act of sheer bravery unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, and therefore ranks high on the list of qualifications people should consider when choosing a president for this country.

—- Second, the liberalistas over at HuffPo and Think Progress believe they’ve caught McCain in an “out of touch” moment, asserting that in a recent interview McCain said he didn’t know how much a gallon of gas cost and that he didn’t think it mattered that he didn’t know.

Only one problem: That’s not quite how the conversation went down. Patterico has the details, including a link to recent story that proves McCain does indeed know how much a gallon of gas costs.

Guess it musta been a slow news weekend for the leftosphere …

Monday AM Update: Wow – I think the title of this post, written by a popular far left blogger, says it all: “Honestly, besides being tortured, what did McCain do to excel in the military?”