Of all the attack dogs McCain could have picked…

June 30, 2008

The McCain campaign wants to manufacture a controversy over Wesley Clark’s comments about McCain’s qualifications. Fine. McCain and his allies want to feign outrage. Fine. They want to spend the day whining about the Obama campaign being insufficiently sycophantic about McCain’s military record. Fine.

But did these guys really have to give us Bud Day?

One of the members of John McCain’s new Truth Squad — which his campaign says was launched to respond to unfair attacks on his record of military service –- was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and appeared in an attack ad for the group in 2004.

The group was created to attack 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry’s military service record.

“How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?” asked former Air Force Col. Bud Day, who was a prisoner of war with McCain in Vietnam, in a 2004 Swift Boat Vets spot.

The Politico’s Ben Smith asked Day this morning if he sees a similarity between the lies spread by the Swiftboat group in 2004 and Clark’s questions about McCain’s qualifications yesterday. In an apparent attempt to bury the needle on the irony meter, Day rejected the comparison, saying, “The Swift Boat ‘attacks’ were simply revelation of the truth. The similarity does not exist here.”

Sometimes, the irony is so overwhelming, I have to wonder if the political scene is some kind of satirical performance art, and I’m just not in on the joke.

Let’s review.

Wesley Clark praised McCain’s war record and military service, but questioned its relevance to the presidential campaign. This has been twisted into an attack on McCain’s service. Bud Day and the McCain campaign believe that they’re spreading the truth, when it’s pretty obvious they’re involved in a deceptive stunt.

The Swiftboat group, four years ago, made up a bunch of demonstrable lies about John Kerry’s military record. This, according to the McCain campaign’s surrogate, was “simply revelation of the truth,” even though the opposite is true.

What on earth is wrong with these people?

And let’s not brush past the point too quickly that McCain, four years ago, expressed a fair amount of disgust for the vicious smear campaign that Bud Day was involved in. In August 2004, McCain called the Swiftboat group “dishonest and dishonorable,” and the kind of politics he “deplores.”

With that in mind, why, pray tell, is McCain encouraging one of the people responsible for the “dishonest and dishonorable” smear to speak on behalf of his campaign, in order to distort the words of a four-star general?

Update: John Kerry, whose opinion on this matters quite a bit, weighs in:

Sen. John Kerry today released the follow statement in response to John McCain surrogate Colonel Bud Day’s comment that “the Swift Boat ‘attacks’ were simply revelation of the truth” today on a conference call with reporters:

“Colonel Day’s comments today only further highlight the McCain campaign’s disregard for a new kind of politics. John McCain condemned these kinds of attacks in 2004 when he called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ‘dishonest and dishonorable.’ Senator McCain should condemn these remarks and cut ties with the Colonel and anyone else connected to SBVT. Day’s comments only serve to disparage all those who served on swift boats in Vietnam.”

What on earth is wrong with these people?

The same thing that was always wrong with them. They’re creeps who will slime their own mother if it gets them more power or money. My question is what is wrong with the people in the media, who play along with them?

  • Wow. Things are so confused at Camp Str8 Talk they think Clark is running for president. Don’t tell them!

    But hey, if they want to blow their funds attacking everyone associated with the Obama campaign, I say have at it.

  • Why on earth is Obama willing to throw Clark under a bus when he did nothing wrong?

    Since he’s nailed down the nomination, he’s turned into just another spineless Democrat, in hopes of garnering the votes of “moderates” I suppose. But at the rate he’s going, I’ll be voting down ticket only (& hey, I’m a Dem in a swing state).

  • Day tried to discount Kerry’s service where as Clark praised McCain’s service but discounted it’s relevance to becoming president. Right off the bat Day does the same thing again, trying to give relevance to his lies and smears. This just shows McCain is shameless as well as a hypocrite by allowing this bigot to speak on his behalf.

  • McCain seems to be developing another theme with more frequency. His “poor John” routine where he whines and decries the evil assaults on his character are becoming more routine. Everyone is picking on him (when we all know that the only ones allowed to be war heros are right-wing Captain Americas).

  • racer x,

    My question is what is wrong with the people in the media, who play along with them?

    Same thing as with the GOP: they want more power and money.

  • CB, I don’t how you can read this crap all day long and not want to shot yourself. Thanks for doing it! I couldn’t.

  • Instead of stabbing Clark in the back, Obama should have gone on offense and full of righteous indignation asked how the McCain team can dare to talk about the importance of honoring our men and women in uniform while embracing Bud Day, who lied to attack the honor of John Kerry, a decorated veteran who was wounded in combat for his country. Heck, showing that perhaps he learned something from Hils he could have called on McShameless to reject and renounce Bud Day as someone who has a known history of engaging in the kind of politics that John McCain promised the American people he would rise above. Obama could have bemoaned the fact that this is yet another flip-flop by McCain, calling for a substantive campaign but then bringing Swiftboaters onto his team. And Obama could have pointed out that repeating the dirty tricks that gave us four more years of the Bush Administration and its costly wars, its sagging economy, its culture of corruption, and its partnership with Big Oil is not a change, certainly not the change this country needs, certainly not a change we can believe in.

    But, instead, Obama stabbed Clark in the back. Oops.

  • -daze@9, would you please send your comments direct to Obama? Your scenario is precisely what he should have said and done, and I’m very disappointed he didn’t.

  • Wes Clark has it exactly right, and there was nothing that needed to be added to it. Obama needed to hit back about the facts, starting with the point that Faux News and their ilk on MSNBC, CNN, etc., all edited the comment.

    Keep in mind that unless they are actually the squadron division officer or higher, they all are officers with such challenging jobs as movie officer, popcorn officer and the like, and they do get their eight hours of sleep a night.

    There’s an old joke amongst us nukes:

    You can tell an air-dale by the leather jacket,
    You can tell an air-dale by the brown shoes,
    You can tell an air-dale by the sunglasses,
    You can tell an air-dale by the way he flies with his hands,

    But, you can’t tell him anything.

  • If everyone doesn’t get on this with the MSM and e-mail them till their in-boxes explode, this is going to be proof the Republicans can win. I cannot believe the Obama campaign is letting this happen – this is even more stupid than what Kerry did with the Swiftboat attacks.

  • The jury’s verdict is in. McAce has my vote for Prisoner of War for the United States. I think he should have the good Colonel Day as his V.P. and Tommy DeLay as his Secretary of State. Now there’s a ticket one could sink their teeth into. Literally…

  • The capacity of Republican’ts to believe the spin they put on other people’s words is amazing. I guess that’s what happens when you listen only to Faux Spews.

    Headline News is running the story straight however, except they are pulling the wrong quote from Obama. It makes Obama seem to be agreeing with McCan’t.

  • Please show me where and how being shot down and captured makes a Commander in Chief for the US. McCain flew so few missions and yet was awarded many medals for being captured, far more than other POW’s. Could it be that the Navy brass wanted to legitimize our bombing of civilians in a war that was wrong then and still is? McCain has been living off the war hero BS far too long. I am certain as this campaign goes on there will be more Wesley Clarkes waiting to shed some light on the war hero myth.

  • The capacity of Republican’ts to believe the spin they put on other people’s words is amazing. I guess that’s what happens when you listen only to Faux Spews. -Lance

    Why wouldn’t people believe it? No one, not even Obama, is telling them any differently.

    The ‘truth’ is now that Clark, a long-serving retired general with an accomplished record, is denigrating McCain’s record, and McCain’s truth squad will have successfully swift boated someone who would have made a great addition to pre-presumptive nominee Obama’s ticket or cabinet.

    I am certain as this campaign goes on there will be more Wesley Clarkes waiting to shed some light on the war hero myth. -Frank Carbone

    I hope you’re right, but seriously, what will push them to speak the truth after seeing how Obama reacts? Instead of having Clark’s back, he wilted.

  • I was afraid Obama wouldn’t fight. Proud member of the 2006 DemCong, the fighting one-ten.

    When your surrogate tells the truth, you shouldn’t abandon him.

  • From the New Yorker in 2006:

    Day was also prominently featured in ads prepared by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which attacked Senator John Kerry’s Vietnam service last year. In one commercial, Day addressed himself to Kerry, asking, “How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?” When McCain defended Kerry and denounced the ads, Day was upset with his old comrade. “Something that made Bud such an ideal leader in prison was his tunnel vision,” McCain told me later. “That makes him behave on the outside-well . . . ” He trailed off, chuckling.”

    From Ben Smith’s blog at Politico today:

    A line I missed in his speech today:

    All too often our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare arguments – a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.

    That’s a shot across the bows of MoveOn, whose “Petraeus/Betray Us” ad generated a wave of controversy. At the time, Obama skipped a vote on condeming MoveOn.

    In general, he seems willing — almost eager — to make enemies on the left now that the primary is over; the FISA fight similarly pits him against MoveOn.

    Further:

    “As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton says in a statement.

    ALSO: From his Missouri speech:

    Beyond a loyalty to America’s ideals, beyond a willingness to dissent on behalf of those ideals, I also believe that patriotism must, if it is to mean anything, involve the willingness to sacrifice – to give up something we value on behalf of a larger cause. For those who have fought under the flag of this nation – for the young veterans I meet when I visit Walter Reed; for those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country – no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides. We must always express our profound gratitude for the service of our men and women in uniform. Period. Full stop.

    Obama. Obummah.

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss and just as dumb an asshole.

  • yeah, i’m really ticked that i was overcome with post-primary enthusiasm and made my first political contribution (i’m 51) to obama, the day before he made his statement about the current FISA bill.

    today i went to obama’s campaign website and left a comment expressing my significant concern that the direction he’s now headed in can do nothing but hurt his core support — the general membership of the democratic party, and that i would NOT be putting up the yard signs i had ordered unless and until he started campaigning as a democrat.

    i recommend to everyone that you post your comments to senator obama. the nice thing about it is that you do not have to “register,” although you do have to provide identifying info.

    yeah, i feel like i’m caught inside of a not-so-fun house.

  • Meet the new boss, same as the old boss… -Tom Cleaver

    And we have no choice but to get fooled again.

  • Of course Obama wants to put an end to Patriotism as an issue, because Obama is the one who’s patriotism is in question! He conveniently condems questioning patiotism, but where was he when his hatchet men came up with General Betray Us??? Also, why isn’t Iraq, or Afganistan on Obama’s upcoming itinery? Obama knows he can’t compete with McCain on the issue of patriotism, so he’s trying to make it a non issue. Obama has no experience, except to listen to God Damn America for 20 years!

  • I just can’t believe how Obama threw Clark under the bus. Or stabbed him in the back, perhaps a better metaphor that some have chosen. I remember the outrage when Hillary said McCain was a capable commander-in-chief. Well, now Obama has said it, and destroyed Clark’s reputation as well.

    Is there any Democrat who has stood up for Clark?

    How is Chris Matthews going to spin this ridiculous controversy? Any bets? How will Keith Olbermann respond? He’s between a rock and a hard place – Obama on one side, the truth on the other. Which way does he bend?

    Why didn’t the Obama people think this through, first? This is a case where the media got it wrong, sensationally wrong, and the record needs to be set straight. But how can it be, when Obama sucked up to McCain? How can the Democrats oppose him?

    And in the unlikely event that the press and media realize that they knee-jerk reacted without considering what Clark actually said, how is Obama going to look? Of course, this won’t happen. Not in this upside down reality we occupy now.

  • I just went out and wrote “Meet The New Boss – Same As The Old Boss” across my Obama bumper sticker. It was easier than just ripping it off.

  • Merely stating that McCain’s credentials for president were not insured by his war record. For this McCain unleashes the Swift Boaters to make their outraged reply to a legitimate question. Shame on Obama for not having what it takes to make an adequate reply to a potential swiftboating. Enough pussyfooting around what is and more being real or I will reconsider my alternatives.

  • This may be worse than his FISA support, and it certainly is worse than Kerry’s response to the Swift Boaters in 2004. If you throw a surrogate overboard every time the noise machine manufactures a fake scandal from nothing, you aren’t going to have any surrogates left by the convention. Obama’s campaign just took a major step towards losing this.

  • Well, to be fair, a lot of Dems are sending mixed signals to Obama. It’s high time he stops pandering to the center, but it’s also time we stop the “anyone but Bush2.0/McSame” meme.

    A lot of Dems have essentially told Obama “We’ll vote for you no matter what.” In exchange, he has nothing to lose by pissing us off (except, apparently, a helluva potential VP in Clark.

    The sad thing is, the passion Obama’s campaign generated in the Dem loyalists is the main reason why people outside of that group were becoming attracted to Obama. It was the combination of what he was saying, how he was saying it and how “we, the people” responded/reacted to it.

    Sure, it also scared the piss out of GOP loyalists and racists, but that’s to be expected.

    But the Obama campaign, who did such a good job of reaching out to the base via the internet, needs to hear and understand just how disappointed that base now is. Obama comes across as pandering for a new base rather than convincing people outside his base to join in. And we’re all the lesser for it.

  • 21. On June 30th, 2008 at 5:37 pm, Howard said:
    Of course Obama wants to put an end to Patriotism as an issue, because Obama is the one who’s patriotism is in question! He conveniently condems questioning patiotism, but where was he when his hatchet men came up with General Betray Us??? Also, why isn’t Iraq, or Afganistan on Obama’s upcoming itinery? Obama knows he can’t compete with McCain on the issue of patriotism, so he’s trying to make it a non issue. Obama has no experience, except to listen to God Damn America for 20 years!

    Nice of Howard to demonstrate why you don’t give an inch on these baseless smears. Even when you give the noise machine everything you possibly can, all it does is make them more aggressive. Sure he reacted the way we wanted here, but where was he before when he could have mind-controlled all our other enemies so they didn’t say mean things?

    The media got Clark’s comments pathetically wrong. It’s time to fight back against the media and correct their errors, not give in and give up. What happened to the Obama campaign from just a few weeks ago that would have deftly parried these attacks and used the opportunity to amplify Clark’s message.

  • Hmmmm…..

    I always wondered how many of the negative-to-Obama posts are down to progressives and Democrats who have found themselves disappointed by his positions and statements, and how many are simply Republicans indulging in Limbaugh’s Operation NothingPositiveToSayAboutOurOwnCandidate.

    And then I noticed that ‘Howard’ cut-and-pasted the exact same anti-Obama rant on a Washington post blog as he did here:

    http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/06/mccain_fights_back.html?hpid=topnews

    How pathetic and lacking in inspirational qualities does McCain have to be when the most useful thing his own supporters can do is pretend to be disgruntled Republicans. This isn’t ‘chaos’, this is desperation.

  • Change ‘disgruntled Republicans’ to ‘disgruntled Democrats’ and that last sentence makes a lot more sense. 🙂

  • In 2008 USA who do you get to head up your new Truth Squad, you get a Swift Boat Liar, of course, the best (worst) one you can find. Although looking at the photo of Bud Day at ThinkProgress, I wondered where McCain found somebody older than himself for the job.

    I don’t really see what Obama did today as “throwing Clark under the bus”. Actually in my eyes, he was behaving in a very Presidential manner. I like Hillary Clinton, but she pissed me off a lot, especially voting for the war in Iraq. I like Barack Obama, but I also realize that there has never been a POTUS in my lifetime that did not piss me off, a lot.

    But just look over the last eight years. When did Bush ever come out and try to “moderate” any of the ridiculous and vicious lies told by his …uh, well, by his Vice President, his Secretary of State, his many Deputy Undersecretaries, his Press Secretary, his spokesmen or Dana Perino. If anyone complained at all we basically just got the old middle finger in the face from Bush, who never has tried to act Presidential unless you count that swaggering gate of his.

    I’m about as radical in my beliefs as anybody, but I also know that nobody much like me is ever going to get elected President. Some on this blog sound more like jilted lovers than voters. Voting is not like dating where there is an endless sea of choice. The choices are Obama or McCain unless you want to make some kind of “statement” and throw your vote away on Nader or Barr, or maybe write in Ron Paul.

    Go ahead and send Obama an email, or whatever, tell him what you think. But unless you want McCain/Bush orchestrating WWIII and presiding over it, vote Obama and stop the hysteria.

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