With the assistance of a press corps willing to play along, the McCain campaign scored a hit yesterday, feigning outrage and manufacturing a controversy out of Wesley Clark’s questions on McCain’s presidential qualifications. It involved twisting the words of a four-star general a bit, and a pliant press corps willing to redefine the word “attack,” but the McCain/GOP spin machine was in high dudgeon and it got precisely the result it was looking for. Fine.
But sometimes, once a campaign has had some success with a given stunt, it gets greedy, and returns to the same stunt, hoping for another cheap score. This is just such an occasion.
Last night, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) was on MSNBC, and was asked about the right’s flap over Clark. Webb thought this was much ado about nothing, suggested McCain “calm down,” and said it’s time to “get the politics out of the military.”
And in response, the McCain campaign is, once again, outraged by this “attack” on McCain’s military service. McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers told Greg Sargent:
“If you didn’t think this was a coordinated attack on John McCain’s credentials before, it’s clear now that it is. Barack Obama’s surrogates are telling the McCain campaign to “calm down” about attacks on his military record? Seriously? Now somehow Wes Clark’s attacks are John McCain’s fault? It’s absurd. If Barack Obama can’t control his own surrogate operation, how can he be trusted to run the country?”
I find it hard to imagine that Rogers even believes this nonsense himself, highlighting why it’s a mistake to keep going to the same well over and again. Not only did Clark not coordinate with Obama — the most controversial remark in Clark’s interview originated with Bob Schieffer, not the Obama campaign — but Webb didn’t attack McCain.
The whole response comes across as whining, as if the Big Bad Democrats aren’t being nice enough because they question McCain’s qualifications and believe McCain shouldn’t get hysterical over the subject.
Indeed, before the McCain camp had a fit over Webb’s mild remarks, it sent out a press release, complaining about Clark for a third consecutive day.
“Yesterday, Barack Obama’s campaign said he rejected Gen. Clark’s attack on John McCain’s military service. But last night, Gen. Clark admitted to speaking with the Obama campaign, and then went out and repeated his attacks. It’s clear that the Obama campaign isn’t telling Wes Clark to apologize, and are either encouraging or tolerating his attacks on John McCain’s military service.
The Obama campaign even said they were ‘glad’ that Gen. Clark ‘clarified’ a comment they supposedly repudiated. If this kind of wink-and-nod game is how Barack Obama wants to run his campaign, then fine. But spare us the empty talk of ‘new politics’ and raising the dialogue in this country. We just wonder: Will Barack Obama’s actions ever match his words?”
Honestly, what is it, exactly, McCain wants here? Obama rejected Clark’s comments, which in reality, weren’t especially noteworthy in the first place. This isn’t evidence of “encouraging or tolerating”; this is evidence of the opposite.
Note to the McCain camp: You scored a cheap goal. Be happy and move on. The whining is unbecoming.