Day: July 1, 2008

McFlipflop: McCain Surrenders His Principled Stand against Swiftboating

Jon Ponder

Of all John McCain’s reversals of longheld positions — his 180s on taxes, offshore drilling, intolerant Christians and even torture, to name just a few — nothing is sadder or more disgraceful than his flipflop on Swiftboating, a practice he decried when it was used in 2004 to defame the Democratic presidential nominee, his former friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, Sen. John Kerry.

McCain’s sudden embrace of Swiftboating — which today is synonymous with a concerted effort to lie about an opponent’s history — is all the more deplorable because he has hired retired Col. George “Bud” Day, a proud member of the group that Swiftboated Kerry — and someone McCain once described as having “tunnel vision” — to lead what McCain is calling his “Truth Squad.”

At Huffington Post, Sam Stein reports that “[during] the 2004 campaign, [Day] said of Kerry: ‘My view is he basically will go down in history sometime as the Benedict Arnold of 1971.’ And after appearing in a national advertisement for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, Day formed the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, an extension of the Swift Boat effort.”

During a McCain campaign conference call with reporters this week, Bud Day was asked how his work for McCain will be different from his efforts to Swiftboat Kerry four years ago.

“The Swift Boat attacks were simply a revelation of the truth,” Day told reporters. “The similarity does not exist here. What the Swift Boat campaign was about was to lay out John Kerry’s record. John Kerry has never produced any evidence to deny that. We are producing the evidence of these attacks right now to show that those remarks were completely inaccurate.

“One was about laying out the truth,” Day said. “This one is about attempting to cast a new shadow on John McCain.”

Just four years ago, John McCain had a very different view of Day’s attacks on Kerry. According to Media Matters:

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McCain’s Spotty Military Record Is Declared Off the Table – And Obama Appears to Accede

Jon Ponder

This Q&A on “Face the Nation” on Sunday between retired Gen. Wesley Clark and host Bob Shieffer has caused quite a stir:
Much to the dismay of Democrats who took Obama at his word that he would bring a gun to the Republicans’ knife fight, less than 24 hours after Clark’s appearance on “Face the Nation,” Obama unceremoniously threw Gen. Clark under the bus.
SCHIEFFER: You went so far as to say that you thought, and these are your words, that John McCain was “untested and untried.” And I have to say I had to read that twice because you’re talking about someone who who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He’s been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for many years. How can you say that John McCain is untested and untried?

WESLEY CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war.

He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron … in the Navy he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, “I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. You want to take the risk? How are we going to handle it? What about your reputation…” He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: Well, General… I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either. Nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.

WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification for being president.

SCHIEFFER: REALLY?

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In an article about the controversy published on the CBS News website, Ben Smith, the reporter who covers the Democrats for right-leaning Politico.com, laid out a key element in the conservatives’ strategy for delivering a win for John McCain this year. “The highest voltage third rail of this presidential campaign may not be race, sex, or age,” Smith wrote, “but Senator John McCain’s military service.”

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