getting shot down in no way qualifies someone to be President. McCain's strength as a POW is a much better indicator of his character than getting shot down. That still does not mean he would be a good president. Heck, Ollie North has all kinds of metals for heroism in war.

... in what Aravosis is saying.

He ends with "Again, it's not nice to say say, but we're not running for class president here. We deserve real answers, not emotional outbursts designed to quell the questions."

I couldn't agree more.

Also, I wasn't aware of any propaganda film McCain provided. Obviously, we'd tend to give a pass for someone who, like McCain, was subjected to brutal torture, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate the sum of his service in the cold light of day.

Rather than pasting over his military service with the word "hero" and then not permitting any other comment cedes a bit much to the GOP.

After all, they'll likely claim that getting shot down is a direct qualification for President, and cite Bush's father as the proof. Of course, unlike McCain, Bush's "heroism" resulted in the deaths of his compatriots.

And we all know that the "Walsh Rule" says that every single post must defend Hillary Clinton, and brutally savage her critics, but isn't dragging up some favorite minor player as an enemy in some lame approximation to a tu quoque argument just going a bit far?

If you want to criticize Obama, criticize him for backing away from Wes Clark just when the man's getting some attention. Why allow the media to paint the former commander of NATO as some sort of fringe crank? He deserves better than that from Obama.

and the primary season in particular proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are NO qualifications to be president whatsoever besides the constitutional ones and general personability?

Didn't all the seemingly qualified candidates get steamrolled, i.e. Biden, Clinton, Romney, etc.?

I'm actually amazed that this issue of qualifications still even comes up. From what I can tell it is naught but a blatantly transparent conceit that lets Americans pretend that they're elections are little more than a very special episode of American Idol.

Obama made a speech today on patriotism, which you should read o view on his site. While I agree with Clark, I also think that Obama should defuse any attack on McCain's military service.

At teh sme time I'm sick to death of the republican using military service, flag spins and flag flying as a sign of patriotism. Patriotism comes in may forms. Protesting a war is just a patriotic as fighting in it.

McCain has opened himself up by running on his OLD, OLD, OLD, military record. Who cares? He should run on the issues, and his Senate record. Of course McCain's new position the issues is a total flip flop from his Senate record so that can be a catch 22.

All I know it is scary listening to McCain, as he sounds deeply depressed every time I hear him.

He is a clinton backer after all. Playing for 2012 much?

A number of American presidents began their careers as military leaders, but even those with the least distinguished records had vastly more going for them than McCain. Not every one of these former generals defeated the Nazis in Europe like Eisenhower or bested Robert E. Lee like Grant or won our freedom from King George like Washington, but even Andy Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Theodore Roosevelt won a battle or two. In contrast, John McCain was a mediocre officer and lousy pilot who barely made it through the Naval Academy--he was sixth from the bottom of his class. At that, as with so many Republicans of recent years, his military accomplishments were obviously wind aided. Even so, although his father and grandfather had been flag officers, he had no future in the service and knew it, which is why he got out while there was still time to pursue the less demanding occupation of American president.

Joan,

Ever since Reagan's miserable Presidency, the Republicans have been knife-wielding streetfighters, and the Democrats have been namby-pamby cowards uttering conciliatory words. The upshot has been that the Republicans have run wild over the Democrats (who, in my analogy, would be left cut to ribbons and bleeding to death in the gutter, with heelmarks mashed into their faces for good measure). In the process -- and damn the spineless Democrats -- the Repugs have practically destroyed our country.

It is time to fight back harder, dirtier, meaner, and more viciously than the Repugs. Take no prisoners. Say anything so long as it's not legally libelous or slanderous.

McCain is a foolish old man with an unstable temper, married to a formerly (?) pill popping ex-cheerleader 17 years his junior who committed crimes to get her fix. He fucked her while he was married. He doesn't have any principles save what's good for John McCain. Do we want this crazy old nut to be President?

That's the mild version of how we should take down the Repugs. By any means necessary, Joan. We can't afford four more years of plutocracy under men who believe that torture is just fine.

Obama has to reject arguments from other people that he wouldn't make himself. That's the only way Obama can maintain that he represents a change from old politics. I just hope that McCain is compelled to do the same.

And if Clarke has been trying to get himself chosen as Obama's running mate, Obama has just delivered a clear message to keep things clean.

Meanwhile, the essential critique of McCain's supposed military strength has been delivered. Whether Obama likes that or not, I approve.

about Schieffer's "Really?"

I haven't seen much of the fuss about this although I heard enough to know that it would balloon out of proportion. But why is Schieffer inserting his editorial opinion in an interview like that?

The man's a conservative. Here's what he says about Vietnam in his memoir THIS JUST IN: "I had gone to Vietnam with two preconceived notions: First, I thought Lyndon Johnson was right. We had to draw the line somewhere. Like so many in my part of the country, I didn't have much use for peaceniks and the antiwar movement, and like so many of my generation, it was inconceivable to me that America could ever lose a war." (p.62)

His shameful, disingenuous justification for his part in the media's Lewinsky circus goes from p.357-363--all about how they HAD to cover it or someone else would, but WE GOT IT FIRST, and it was so embarrassing to say all those sexy words on live TV without even reading any of it first, but I handled it well, coming up with my own phrases for the graphic words ("Where I came up with the term 'sex of a kind'--for oral sex--remains a mystery to me. I can't remember ever having said it before. It just popped out..."). He made the whole thing about himself and the media and their "responsibility" to the people. What bullshit. What an ass.