Travellinguist's Musings

Wesley Clark's criticism of McCain.

I love the crocodile tears being shed by Republican operatives about Wesley Clark's comments that because McCain was a prisoner of war he is not necessarily qualified to be president. This from the people who have slimed veteran after veteran, including Max Cleland of Georgia who gave limbs in service. Secondly, I am tired of this BS about how veterans are untouchable. I am sorry. Volunteering for the military is just one of many choices people make, though statistics (look them up if you don't believe me) show it is a choice made most often by those who are on the low end of the pay scale. To hold up veterans as these magic good people is a crock. Some no doubt are good and patriotic people and others violent sociopaths who like to make naked piles of prisoners and massacre villages My Lai style. Being a veteran neither should give one a free pass nor additional scrutiny. What is especially funny to me is that the loudest voices denouncing Democrat veterans and religiously defending Republican ones tend to be silver spoon fed business elites who've never been near the military except to sell them equipment or pose for political pictures.
It is true that McCain served and was tortured, but before we hold him up as a paragon of virtue we have to wonder just how many Vietnamese civilians were blown up, or chemically poisoned or shot to pieces by the ordnance loaded on McCain's aircraft before they shot him down. It doesn't make torture right obviously, anymore than those police who beat the hell out of actual violent criminal suspects before arresting them is, but it should temper our enthusiasm. Then again, this is America and the death of foreigners is utterly unimportant to us. We simply don't care. We are the most selfish people on Earth. When we were attacked the world sympathized with us. When the Spanish were attacked we were most concerned with whether they'd bring their troops home from Iraq, not at all about broken Spanish families whose lives were destroyed that day because their government followed us into military imperialism.
I hate the fact that so many Americans are utterly devoid of logic and facts that you can't even argue with them. I am not sure who said it but I saw a reference to the notion that some smart-minded people shouldn't even argue with the ignorati just ridicule them and I for one feel quite the temptation to do so. Interestingly enough, I find a high corollary between white Americans with racist feelings and their "support" for all things military and imperialistic.... hmm... I wonder what that illustrates. Oh wait I know what that illustrates, that people who are utterly ignorant about their own fellow citizens also blindly follow the patriotism which defends this country even those same fellow citizens they look down upon for reasons of skin color, religion etc.
Whoops divergence. Anyway, John McCain was a fighter pilot who admitted he doesn't know a lot about economics. This does not make him qualified to be president. Of course this isn't saying that Barack Obama is "more qualified." It is simply a false argument to speak of "qualifications." There are some basic ones, spelled out in the Constitution, 35 years old, born in the United States. Both men fit, thus both men are qualified. I am tired of this BS about being "experienced" or "qualified" enough. President Bush was the Governor of Texas and President of the Texas Rangers (who traded Sammy Sosa) plus failed CEO of several oil companies. Republicans weren't concerned about experience then. Does this mean that they are now repudiating "unqualified" candidates like our current "worst president in US History"? No it just means they are banking on the short attention span of our media to feed the short attention span of the voters to whom they condescend, rally up and then whose needs they ignore when in power.
In short, those people complaining about Wesley Clark's comments. Go do a hitch in Iraq patrolling Sadr City and then talk to me about "qualifications" or put more succinctly F$^%# YOU!

posted by travellinguist @ 11:53 AM