General Wesley Clark

I was going to get the video from the MSNBC site, but it was convoluted, and the video I did find was frustrating, disparaging meta-commentary. So I'm going to embed a youtube video, because it isn't a soundbite, and because this is something that cannot be condensed into a soundbite:



To clear my biases, I support General Wesley Clark. In 2004, when I was four years too young to vote, I convinced both of my parents to support Clark's bid for the presidency in the democratic primary. Clark is, as best I've found, an exemplar of sensible military policy, and of sensible military policy on the left. That's my bias.

That said, this whole debacle over what he said is more or less the exact flaw of soundbites, and no person should be eviscerated for something they said taken so out of context. Watch the video. It's only a few minutes, and you'll be smarter than most people on the issue, so it's worth it.

Wesley Clark said that McCain wasn't in an executive position in wartime. He said that McCain's military service and time as a POW are admirable aspects of his character, but they don't relate to his ability to make national security decisions. They aren't proof of how he would act when he is in charge of the world's best military, and how he would deal with being responsible for the lives of millions of innocents. That is what General Wesley Clark said.

It was brought up that Obama doesn't have this experience either, but that's kind of the point: McCain's military experience, while an important part of his character, doesn't count as foreign policy experience. This places him on square one with Obama, and when you take away experience as McCain's credential, Obama can stand on his own for his policy intentions. And from where General Clark is sitting, Obama's planned policies make way more sense.