...in terms of the psychology behind the remarks. However, I think it may be wrong in political terms. If you follow his logic, you'd have to conclude that it was foolish of Bush surrogates to go after Kerry's war record.

As was noted elsewhere in Slate, there's some truly profound political hackery going on in the McCain campaign, with their deployment of one of the Swift-Boaters to decry Clark's comments, which were, unlike the SBVT ads, clearly statements of substantiated fact or opinion. Clark may have been rude, but he wasn't making assertions of fact that were either false or unsupportable, as was the case with the SBVT folks.

I think in the grand scheme of the campaign, undermining the "I'm a war hero" storyline may be just as effective in '08 as it was in '04. And given that the VP spot has traditionally been used to play offense, if Clark wants it, this could be a creditable audition. As Kaplan notes, in terms of military experience actually running a large operation, Clark's resume is a lot better than McCain's...

The problem with your theory of course, is that Clark is not running for President. A first term Senator who has never served a day in the military is.

Arguing who's service was more patriotic, McCain or Clark, is stupid and irrelevant. The American people had almost zero interest in General Clark as a Presidential candidate, and for good reason. He is as bad at politics as he was good at commanding soldiers.

Wes Clark has nerve talking about character - besides nearly starting WWIII he stepped on alot of others on his way to the top. Not an honest bone in his body, ask anyone who served with him.

that McCain has hardly worked a day outside of government and since marrying into multimillionaire status. Now it is obviously true that McCain has the edge in military experience, but that is not the only experience relevant to Americans that want a president that understands them and their lives. Furthermore, I think that Clark's point that McCain's honorable service as a POW does not necessarily make him a great strategic thinker. To convince people of that, McCain needs to start doing a better job of keeping basic facts straight, like knowing that Sudan is not Somalia, al Quaeda is not Shia, and how many troops are in Iraq. Then he needs to explain how he plans to commit enough troops to pacify Iraq into allowing US troops to stay forever without continuing to divert resources from the real front in the hunt to bring bin Laden to justice. These things are much more relevant that a manufactured nontroversy.

In '04, the guy running against the veteran was not a veteran. And while Clark didn't do well in the '04 primaries, having seen him since then, I think he's gotten somewhat more polished. I think bluntness, willingness to flout the unspoken rules, is part of how he operates, same as Jim Webb. And if he sticks to his guns, he can get the media to make his point for him, even while scolding him for being so uncouth as to have brought it up. c.f. Articles like Kaplan's.

aquadawgs. You didn't perchance serve on a swift boat did you?

What we also all tend to forget is that Bush's team honed their "swiftboating" tactics during the 2000 Republican primary... on none other than one Senator John McCain.

I wonder if anyone on Obama's team will be interested in reopening that line of attack. Probably not. Not that I think Obama is the squeaky-clean paragon of virtue that he is sometimes made out to be, just that McCain has revealed such an abysmal grasp of economics and has made so many obvious foreign policy blunders that one hardly needs to conjure up Vietnam veterans to launch an effective attack on his credentials. Sun Tzu advises us to know our enemy and know ourselves. As someone who deeply respects McCain's military record, I still have to recognize that, from the senator's own mouth, he doesn't know much about either.

I wouldn't rule out Clark as an advisor, though. That still might be a good call, especially for a Presidential candidate with no military background.

Right, he "almost started WWIII" by successfully conducting a mission in Europe, with the full support of our NATO allies, bringing to justice a vicious dictator, and helping to restore democracy to an entire unstable region.

Whereas McCain gave full support to, and wants to continue, a mission that is destabilizing an entire region, and a bunch of McCain's allies have insisted on calling the current war WWIII -- so by their logic, McCain helped start WWIII, and it was a good thing.

You can always count on conservatrolls engaging in projection and self-contradiction.