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Are You Experienced?
Last week on Face The Nation, Wesley Clark
said crashing a jet
doesn't qualify John McCain to be the next president, and
hawkish conservatives everywhere clawed at their breasts and howled
"Traitor!"
Mark Hemingway at NRO's The Corner, who is one of the more relaxed members of the McCain cabal, didn't go so far as to defend the record of National Review's barely-breathing second-choice nominee, but he did passively entertain a fantasy of pushing Clark off the national stage and (presumably) on to a tuba player in the orchestra pit.
Clark is a little rough around the edges, but I agree with David Reese at the Huffington Post that standing idly by while McCain lists "crashed an expensive plane" on his resume would have a devastating trickle-down effect on potential appointees:
Riding on a rollercoaster and flying out of your seat but then landing on a waterslide and sliding down to into the water and almost drowning but then being rescued by an Elvis impersonator: QUALIFIES YOU TO BE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR....
Getting really, really drunk at Thanksgiving and crying, "Why was I never good enough for you, Dad?" and then literally eating a banjo, and then saying, "Am I man enough NOW, Dad? Now that I've eaten my banjo-- the one thing I loved, the one thing you could never understand?": QUALIFIES YOU TO BE CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE.
Read the rest of Reese's qualifications
here. Peruse reason's McCain archive
here.
Hat tip to my associates at The F*ck Squad and Bill
Watterson.
Kolohe|7.3.08 @ 1:11PM|#
Dammit, Riggs. You're now going to make me waste my morning looking for other alt text captions in previous posts.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:11PM|#
However, voting "present" in Springfield, ILL around 160 times is exactly the resume item we should be looking for.
Naga Sadow|7.3.08 @ 1:13PM|#
I've slept with some of the cocktail servers at the casino I work at . . . so I have enough experience to be CEO of MGM?
Naga Sadow|7.3.08 @ 1:15PM|#
I have something like seven speeding tickets . . . so I have
enough experience to run the Department of Transportation.
Hey! This is fun!
|7.3.08 @ 1:16PM|#
hawkish conservatives everywhere clawed at their breasts and
howled "Traitor!"
I know, I left work yesterday and there they were, about 20 of em,
foaming at the mouth yelling "traitor traitor!!" I'm thinking, what
the hell did I do? Then I went to McDonalds, and there were more.
There everywhere Mike, everywhere. Run for your life!!!!
|7.3.08 @ 1:23PM|#
Dammit, Barack, fold already! Fold!
Look, I know you haven't been around very long, so I'm going to
walk you throught this:
You, or someone you know, or someone who's black, says something.
We howl about it. Then - and this is the important part, boy - you
apologize, and stop doing it, and fire somebody.
Look, you're friends with Daschle. Ask him about it.
Episiarch|7.3.08 @ 1:24PM|#
I've hidden little alt text treats everywhere.
I'm surprised your blogging software gives you that much
control.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:27PM|#
Wow, those hawkish conservatives are a bit late to the party. I
was yelling Commie Traitor when GEN(Ret.) Clark was touting the
Communist Manifesto as the values our nation was founded on.
When the former NATO commander, fired in 2000 for his own stupidity
during Kisovo operations, said this stuff I just scratched my head
and laughed.
|7.3.08 @ 1:28PM|#
Oh yeah, crashed an expensive plane, shot down by a communist missile over enemy territory, same difference right?
|7.3.08 @ 1:31PM|#
"communist missile"
I am somewhat of a collector of wingnuttia, and that is beyond
awesome.
|7.3.08 @ 1:38PM|#
Wasn't the Hanoi deal something like the third time McCain had
managed to prang up an expensive airplane?
And I believe the first two he managed to accomplish without even
get shot at.
Look, I won't knock McCain's service. Getting shot down on a combat
mission is a hazard that a pilot faces and is not a sign of
incompetence as a pilot. It's mostly just shitty luck. Enduring
what he went through in captivity indicates a level of character
that most of us will never show.
But Wesley Clark is right. Neither of those things get to go on a
resume as "executive experience."
nutwing|7.3.08 @ 1:41PM|#
That was the fifth plane McCain lost. Having him held prisoner for years saved the taxpayers lots of $$$.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:41PM|#
capital L,
I think he lost a couple in flight school too, but, as I am sure
you all know, those are on the instructor, not the student.* So you
might be technically correct.
*For two-or-more seat aircraft.
Cornholio|7.3.08 @ 1:43PM|#
Wow, those hawkish conservatives are a bit late to the
party. I was yelling Commie Traitor when GEN(Ret.) Clark was
touting the Communist Manifesto as the values our nation was
founded on.
You Bush rednecks need a little remedial course in American
history.
Our nation was founded on the liberal principals of John Locke -
notably due process, freedom of speech/press, democracy, separation
of church and state, separation of powers, gun rights, and the
such.
Nowhere in the Constitution is there a prohibition on taxes or tax
collection. As odious as government has grown in its current
bloated state - it has not betrayed Constitutional
foundations.
When the populace embraces a fiscally responsible government then
it will happen. As of yet, neither party can claim the mantle of
"fiscal responsibility".
nebby|7.3.08 @ 1:43PM|#
This "crashed a plane" stuff is pretty rich. He was shot down by enemy fire. Fell free to contrast this with your own experience in flying combat jet missions.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:44PM|#
Shouting "Traitor"! Like from the scene from 300?
I was thinking more like Ethel Merman yelling at her son-in-law in
Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:48PM|#
Cornholio,
You are reading challenged aren't you? Perhaps a dose of
amnesia.
Presidential candidate, GEN. Clark, would on a regular basis state
that people of means should gladly 'give' through government, for
those of little means.
Sound disguised but familiar?
GEN Clark NEVER stated any appreciation for anything from John
Locke.
David|7.3.08 @ 1:55PM|#
That's funny, a few months in country followed by a couple do-nothing decades in the Senate seemed to be great qualifications four years ago. It'd be fun to see some of Clark's statemnts from back then.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:55PM|#
nebby,
This "crashed a plane" stuff is pretty rich. He was shot down
by enemy fire. Fell free to contrast this with your own experience
in flying combat jet missions.
I never crashed a helicopter in over 1200 hours of flight time.*
But the one day I knew that I was getting shot at I might
have crashed if the Pilot in Command was not reminding me to slow
down.
No rockets though, just rifle bullets. Not even a "war zone", just
central Tennessee.
Did crack a skid shoe in flight school learning how to do low-level
engine failures at night.** Not sure that is even Senate
worthy.
*Would have to go back and dig up records to be sure of my hours,
but that is what I did from 1985 - 1992.
**Instructor barked about my cracking the skid shoe, I responded
"no, it is your skid shoe" :)
Elemenope|7.3.08 @ 1:55PM|#
This "crashed a plane" stuff is pretty rich. He was shot
down by enemy fire. Fell free to contrast this with your own
experience in flying combat jet missions.
Nebby, as has already been covered, he managed to crash all by
himself a good handful of planes before he finally was actually
shot out of one.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:57PM|#
That's funny, a few months in country followed by a couple
do-nothing decades in the Senate seemed to be great qualifications
four years ago. It'd be fun to see some of Clark's statemnts from
back then.
Good luck with that. He was a General then and was fired when that
administration was in charge.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 1:58PM|#
David,
Ooops, I was still thinking GEN Clark, you are obviously speaking
of the Senator from Arazona vs. the Intertubes Invenroinator.
Mike M.|7.3.08 @ 2:01PM|#
However, voting "present" in Springfield, ILL around 160
times is exactly the resume item we should be looking
for.
Now now, he also managed to organize the community to get some
asbestos removed from a building in Chicago, and don't forget about
his extensive foreign policy experience he obtained as a ten year
old living in Indonesia!
|7.3.08 @ 2:06PM|#
Wesley Clark campaigned for precisely one presidential candidate
before this year.
Q: Is Guy Montag too stupid to know who that was.
A: Yes.
zoltan|7.3.08 @ 2:14PM|#
Didn't he finish in the last 5% of his naval academy class? The whole crashing a plane (disregarding the one shot down, of course) shouldn't be too surprising then. Not that either of those incidents should have any bearing on his ability as president it's just fun to bring up.
Cornholio|7.3.08 @ 2:25PM|#
Presidential candidate, GEN. Clark, would on a regular basis
state that people of means should gladly 'give' through government,
for those of little means.
Then you must agree that McCain's leadership credentials are
lacking.
After all, all you could muster up was an attack on Clark in a
Obama/McCain contest.
Yes, you GOP hacks are really desperate.
You are getting what you deserve however. You tied our country to a
miserable piece of shit like Bush.
Tym|7.3.08 @ 2:29PM|#
I took flight lessons a few years ago. The second time I landed I didn't do a great job, I touched down and went back up while flaring, it was a fast approach without flaps. I guess I am at least qualified for the House of Representatives or something.
|7.3.08 @ 2:30PM|#
"Communist missile" is a funny wording. I didn't mean to imply that the missile itself was an avowed communist, rather that it was fired by the NVA and, I assume, constructed in the USSR or "Red China."
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 2:36PM|#
David,
Guy,
I was referring to LT John F Kerry.
Holy crap! Those guys are almost interchangable aren't they?
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 2:39PM|#
'Republicans',
Wow, some 'smartest person in the room', hiding his regular handle,
is completly unaware that GEN Clark competed for the Democrat
nomination in 2004.
And he is trying to be cute by calling others stupid, thus
fulfilling his own rule.
Wow, who could it possibly be . . .
Nigel Watt|7.3.08 @ 2:40PM|#
Is a missle capable of declaring itself a communist a smart bomb or a dummy?
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 2:41PM|#
And 'Cornholio' is confusing me for some sort of McCain supporter? Wow, how does joe keep all those handles straight. Must take a big giant brain to do that.
|7.3.08 @ 2:42PM|#
McCain of course has been a Senator for a couple of decades as well. That would seem to count as relevent experience wouldn't it? Moreover, whatever the presidential merits of spending time in the Hanoi Hilton, what exactly are Obama's relevent experiences? Does being a community organizer and sitting through hundreds of hate whitey sermons at the local church really qualify you to be President anymore than getting shot down over Vietnam?
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 2:43PM|#
Is a missle capable of declaring itself a communist a smart
bomb or a dummy?
It can only change itself if it really wants to, deep down
inside.
ev|7.3.08 @ 2:44PM|#
man. bill watterson is one of my heroes.
can anyone imagine anything more decidedly badass than a t-rex
flying an f-16? while taking down stegasauruses*?
that's right. you fucking cant!!
*(i...do not know the plural)
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 2:45PM|#
NW,
Also, a missile can call itself whatever it wants, but its actions
will show what it really is.
Perhaps the missile we are talking about was calling itself a
Progressive. Oh, bad example ;)
B|7.3.08 @ 2:51PM|#
Mike Riggs has to be the worst columnist this fucking magazine
has ever hired. Where has McCain ever said crashing (I love the
choice of words, as if it was pilot error instead of enemy bullets
that brought him down)was a qualification. I think most Americans
see it as a benefit because he volunteered to fly combat missions
in a time of war, a sacrifice most Americans would not make. He
refused to leave the Hanoi Hilton when given a chance by his
captors. Instead he endured five years of gruelling torture. I see
such resilience and strength of character as admirable. Foolishly
mocking it with stupid jokes about Elvis impersonators is the realm
of the tinfoil-hat left, and it is fucking pathetic that Mike
"douchebag" Riggs repeats it on this site. Evidently selflessly
serving your country during a time of war and receiving life-long
injuries because of it is now a liability in the eyes of these
assholes.
And by the way, I challenge you Mike, you ignorant fucking nitwit,
to find one prominent conservative commentator who referred to
Wesley Clark as a traitor. It quite simply did not happen.
And for Cornholio, exactly what qualifies Barack Obama to be
Commander-in-chief? For all the qualifications you claim McCain
lacks, at least he has military experience and has been in the
Senate for more than four years. What the fuck has Barack Obama
done, other than promise change to sycophantic dumbasses ready to
lap up his meaningless words?
B|7.3.08 @ 2:53PM|#
"communist missile"
"I am somewhat of a collector of wingnuttia, and that is beyond
awesome"
The missile that shot down McCain was launched by the North
Vietnamese, who happened to be communists. Exactly what the fuck
don't you understand joe? You quite simply can't go a day without
proving you are the stupidest fucking person to ever post on this
message board. No wonder you support a candidate who thinks the
United States is comprised of 57 states.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 2:55PM|#
B,
Slow down there buddy, you got a detail a little off.
Senator Obama was sworn into office January 4, 2005. He is a few
months shy of four whole years in the US Senate.
For all the qualifications you claim McCain lacks, at least he
has military experience and has been in the Senate for more than
three years and change.
Better. See?
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 2:58PM|#
B,
As noted above, well maybe obsured a bit, but many of those folks
don't call themselves Communists any more, they are
'Progressives'
The newer ones really don't want the old word coming back, so they
throw a big distraction fit to try to get everybody else off
track.
zoltan|7.3.08 @ 2:59PM|#
B, the missile wasn't communist. That was the point. I'm no joe fan, but the description of a missile as communist is kinda ridiculous. Kinda like a "Nazi mortar".
aircraft pedant|7.3.08 @ 3:01PM|#
can anyone imagine anything more decidedly badass than a
t-rex flying an f-16?
Maybe so, but the aircraft in the drawing is actually an F-14.
Though I'm sure flying and F-16 would be just as badass. :)
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 3:07PM|#
zoltan,
Yea, everybody knows that WWII German mortars were of Polish and
Czec manufacture.
Kolohe|7.3.08 @ 3:09PM|#
And by the way, I challenge you Mike, you ignorant fucking
nitwit, to find one prominent conservative commentator who referred
to Wesley Clark as a traitor.
Does this count, from
from a new outfit called vets for freedom? who have been all
over the blogs and fox news lately, so i suppose that makes them
prominent.
Even worse, your arrogant and careless words undercut the credibility of all those who served and continue to serve, in wartime and peacetime.
Where I come from, deliberating undermining the armed forces =
treason. Persons who commit treason = traitors. ymmv.
Mayday mayday!|7.3.08 @ 3:10PM|#
I love the choice of words, as if it was pilot error instead
of enemy bullets that brought him down
In fairness, McCain lost other aircraft as well. Dropped one in the
drink off of Corpus Christi in 1958 and another one on his way to
the Army-Navy game (ended up bailing out onto a deserted beach). He
also flew too low in Spain and cut through some power lines. Then
there were the last two which you can't really blame him for --
getting hit by an errant rocket on the deck of the carrier and then
getting shot down. Whatever his culpability in any of them, if
McCain is flying, I'm not getting on that plane!
|7.3.08 @ 3:13PM|#
"B, the missile wasn't communist. That was the point. I'm no joe
fan, but the description of a missile as communist is kinda
ridiculous. Kinda like a "Nazi mortar"."
I clarified my meaning, but please save the semantics-- if I called
the Me262 a "Nazi Jet" you'd know I didn't mean the jet
self-identified as a Nazi. (for that matter if I called it a German
Jet you'd wouldn't assume that the Jet considered itself a German
citizen.)
And speaking of misconceptions, the grievance that many people have
with characterizing McCain's experience as "crashed expensive jets"
isn't that it's technically true that he crashed a few jets (heh...
Gee whiz you guys, it was only a couple...), it's that its
a rather deconstructionist reinterpretation of his notable "crash"
(In my opinion it's only the one incident that people are
immediately thinking of.), devoid of context.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 3:16PM|#
zoltan | July 3, 2008, 2:59pm | #
B, the missile wasn't communist. That was the point. I'm no joe
fan, but the description of a missile as communist is kinda
ridiculous.
Yea, like all those idiots talking about Japanese cars, German cars
and American cars. They have no nationality!
International Socialist built military hardware is so different. No
way of telling if it was a Marxist, Maoist, Stalinist or other
variety of the Communist blanket all of the countries supplying
North Vietnam shared.
Yea, such is crazy talk.
|7.3.08 @ 3:26PM|#
"Yea, like all those idiots talking about Japanese cars,
German cars and American cars. They have no
nationality!"
Is "communism" a nationality?
|7.3.08 @ 3:27PM|#
Whatever his culpability in any of them, if McCain is
flying, I'm not getting on that plane!
Finally, an explanation for why McCain and Kennedy are so
comfortable working with each other.
|7.3.08 @ 3:30PM|#
So, would it be ridiculous to say that a WWII pilot was shot
down by Nazi AA? Or, for that matter, Allied AA?
I don't think so, really.
But kudos to joe for an excellent crypto-troll. No telling how many
pixels have been burned on this non-issue thanks to him.
|7.3.08 @ 3:32PM|#
Guy Montag | July 3, 2008, 2:41pm | #
And 'Cornholio' is confusing me for some sort of McCain supporter?
Wow, how does joe keep all those handles straight. Must take a big
giant brain to do that.
Ohai, gai. Im n yr hed, obsessin yr thawts agin.
|7.3.08 @ 3:35PM|#
McCain was not a particularly good pilot. He was of course stuborn as hell and drove his captors crazy. I leave to it other people to judge what that says about his qualifications to be President.
|7.3.08 @ 3:36PM|#
"Is "communism" a nationality?"
Amdended: "Oh yeah, crashed an expensive plane, shot down
by a communist-manufactured missile over enemy
territory, same difference right?"
Is it sufficiently clear for you the grammar authoritarians? No I
suppose not, because the actual physical territory of North Vietnam
wasn't our enemy, and he certainly wasn't
"shot down" by the missile, as missiles don't have the
capacity to make such a decision and so on ad infinitum because who
can take the trouble to just fucking think
anymore.
|7.3.08 @ 3:37PM|#
Is "communism" a nationality?
Dammit, Lamar, don't you know that I wrote that comment?
Isn't that enough for you to know it's teh stoopid?
RC, it works, because people just can't help themselves. You, too,
apparently.
|7.3.08 @ 3:38PM|#
capital L,
Everyone gets it.r You don't need to explain anymore. It was
obvious what you meant the first time.
It reads funny, that's all.
|7.3.08 @ 3:40PM|#
Personally, I'd like to see a Watterson illustration of an actual (card-carrying!) communist missile, as it would likely be awesome. I imagine it would have a grin right across the nosecone and a big Stalin 'stache.
Guy Montag|7.3.08 @ 3:44PM|#
Lamar,
Try getting past the nationality bit, past the white space, all the
way to the flavors of Communism part. It is just a couple of lines
down from where you stopped.
|7.3.08 @ 3:45PM|#
Or, a bunch of missiles sitting in a warehouse, and one of them starts trying to get the other missiles to read his newsletter.
|7.3.08 @ 3:52PM|#
"It is just a couple of lines down from where you
stopped."
Uh, Guy, the whole about being snarky is that I didn't
read the post, comments or know what the f*ck I was talking about.
I think you're right. Nazi tank means German, WWII era. Commie
missile can mean so many things that the label is useless.
"Communist missile" is like saying "Democrat Party." We all laugh
at it, but we understand what he meant.
|7.3.08 @ 3:56PM|#
Hey, man.
If dinosaur military pilots are your thing, have I got the
candidate for you!
Bob|7.3.08 @ 5:02PM|#
There are no committees investigating Communist missiles any more, but if you ever see a missile on steroids Congress will be there to save us!
Gilbert Martin|7.3.08 @ 5:06PM|#
"Clark is a little rough around the edges, but I agree with
David Reese at the Huffington Post that standing idly by while
McCain lists "crashed an expensive plane" on his resume would have
a devastating trickle-down effect on potential appointees:"
Categorizing the sum total of McCain's military career and
experience as "crashed an expensive" plane is absurd to begin
with.
As for Clark, after Kerry got the Democrat noimination the last
time around, he was running around citing Kerry's military
experience as a qualification for being President.
Now he's saying McCain's isn't.
Clark is full of shit.
|7.3.08 @ 7:06PM|#
"Oh yeah, crashed an expensive plane, shot down by a
communist-manufactured missile over enemy territory, same
difference right?"
You could say Vietnamese, or more specifically North
Vietnamese.
That would be like calling JDAMs democratic bombs.
|7.3.08 @ 8:16PM|#
How similar are two military "lifers," McCain and Clark in their
concept of what it takes to be "qualified" to be President!
I don't vote, but my first "qualification" would be that my
candidate have a firm grasp on reality and how reality impinges on
politics.
Of the two choices we have this year, Obama leaves McCain in the
dust.
|7.4.08 @ 5:20AM|#
Or, a bunch of missiles sitting in a warehouse, and one of them starts trying to get the other missiles to read his newsletter.
So there's presumably a Dondero missile and a Lew Rockwell
missile in there somewhere?
Also, you and Guy are doing a good quasi-reenactment of the
Palestine-Israel conflict.*
*Yes, quasi- and crypto- are such utile prefixes I'm not sure I can
stop using them.
Gilbert Martin|7.4.08 @ 1:51PM|#
"I don't vote, but my first "qualification" would be that my
candidate have a firm grasp on reality and how reality impinges on
politics.
Of the two choices we have this year, Obama leaves McCain in the
dust."
On the contrary, Obama is a socialist twit.
And that precludes him from having a "firm grasp on reality". There
aren't ANY socalists/liberals/progressives/leftists or whatever
other euphemism they dream up for themsevles who do.
They keep on believing in socialist/collectivists policies despite
the fact that there has never been so much as one single instance
anywhere on this earth in the entire span of human history when any
of those policies has ever been proven to be anything other than an
abject failure.
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