Over the coming months Senators Clinton and Obama will spend millions of dollars and do irreparable harm to one anothers candidacies. One of them will be elected and have to deal with a situation that is far more complex then either are admitting.
It looks like the McCain camp has decided to paint him as a modern day mix between Winston Churchill & T.R. Other then the fact that McCain is no Churchill, the ad is also a call for continued war with no end in sight. While the Democrats tear eachother apart over specifics, there is no doubt where the Republican nominee stands.
Seriously one of those speeches is considered among the greatest speeches of all time, the other is from a stump speech in a country whose citizens are facing nothing like what the British were in 1940. That being said, the commercial is effective in painting an image of McCain’s heroic past, advice that Karl Rove wrote about in his WSJ editorial.
Mark Benjamin of Salon writes that many military leaders fear a President McCain with his finger on the button:
It is not difficult in Washington to find high-level military officials who have had close encounters with John McCain’s temper, and who find it worrisome. Politicians sometimes scream for effect, but the concern is that McCain has, at times, come across as out of control. It is difficult to find current or former officers willing to describe those encounters in detail on the record. That’s because, by and large, those officers admire McCain. But that doesn’t mean they want his finger on the proverbial button, and they are supporting Clinton or Obama instead.
“I like McCain. I respect McCain. But I am a little worried by his knee-jerk response factor,” said retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004 and is now campaigning for Clinton. “I think it is a little scary. I think this guy’s first reactions are not necessarily the best reactions. I believe that he acts on impulse.”
“I studied leadership for a long time during 32 years in the military,” said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, a one-time Republican who is supporting Obama. “It is all about character. Who can motivate willing followers? Who has the vision? Who can inspire people?” Gration asked. “I have tremendous respect for John McCain, but I would not follow him.”
“One of the things the senior military would like to see when they go visit the president is a kind of consistency, a kind of reliability,” explained retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, a former Republican, former chief of staff of the Air Force and former fighter pilot who flew 285 combat missions. McPeak said his perception is that Obama is “not that up when he is up and not that down when he is down. He is kind of a steady Eddie. This is a very important feature,” McPeak said. On the other hand, he said, “McCain has got a reputation for being a little volatile.” McPeak is campaigning for Obama.
In other news, it looks like Maine’s Stephen King is not the only one weaving tales of horror. The AP has yet another example of what Mr. Obama will face if he wins the Democratic nomination for President. These comments make Hillary Clinton sound like Mother Therea.
TAGS: Barack Obama, Congress, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Islam, John McCain, mccain, NATO, obama, Slam, war, youtubeAn Iowa Republican congressman said Friday that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if Democratic candidate Barack Obama were to win the presidency.
Rep. Steve King based his prediction on Obama’s pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, his Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein.
“The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror,” King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer.
King said his comments were not meant to demean Obama but to warn how an Obama presidency would look to the world.
“His middle name does matter,” King said. “It matters because they read a meaning into that.”
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