"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Monday, June 30, 2008

Wesley Clark is such a fucking scumbag.

With Senator Barack Obama planning to visit the Middle East and Europe in an apparent effort to burnish his foreign policy credentials, the credentials of his likely presidential rival, Senator John McCain, came under sharp attack Sunday from a man considered a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate.

The retired general Wesley Clark said McCain had not “held executive responsibility” and had not commanded troops in wartime.

McCain’s experience in Vietnam, where he was a prisoner of war for five years, has seemed at times almost to grant him invulnerability to criticism of his security background. But on Sunday he was assailed by a fellow military man, a highly decorated one who was once the NATO supreme commander.

McCain frequently points out that he led “the largest squadron in the U.S. Navy,” but Clark said on CBS television that that was not enough to support a claim to the presidency.

“He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall” as a wartime commander, the general said on CBS. Clark is mentioned as a possible Obama running mate, although he originally supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

When the interviewer, Bob Schieffer, noted to Clark that McCain had been shot down over Hanoi, Clark replied, “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

This man has sold his soul in an egomaniacal lust for power.  Let’s let Matt Welch, a fierce critic of McCain’s, tell his story.

[A]fter being shot out of the sky during a risky raid over Hanoi in 1967, then pummeled by a mob of local Vietnamese and detained at the notorious prison nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton, McCain comported himself heroically despite two broken arms, a mangled knee, and innards wracked by dysentery and other maladies. Every morning for two years a guard the prisoners called The Prick would demand that McCain bow to him. Every morning McCain would refuse, then brace for his beating. Herded into a made-for-propaganda Christmas Eve service in the prison yard, McCain punctured the enforced silence with repeated shouts of “Fuck you!” while raising his middle finger to the camera. Beat senseless for days on end for refusing to divulge information or accept early release (which would have given the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory and violated the Navy’s honor code), he would reveal only the names of every player he could remember from the Green Bay Packers. “Resisting, being uncooperative and a general pain in the ass,” he wrote, “proved, as it had in the past, to be a morale booster for me.”

Wesley Clark is a worthless piece of shit, a man completely devoid of honor or integrity, an embarrassment to the uniform he once wore.  Back to the original article:

When Schieffer then asked what executive responsibility Obama had held - the Democrat’s résumé includes work as a community organizer in Chicago and eight years in the Illinois legislature - Clark said that Obama was running on the strength of his character and good judgment.

That’s it.  McCain doesn’t have the experience necessary to be in command of the military, despite being a fighter pilot who got his teeth kicked in for five years by savage Vietnamese communists.  But Obama?  Well, he’s a nice guy.

Now, let’s compare Clark to another military man, Colin Powell.

He was a four-star American general, the secretary of state during President George W. Bush’s first term and remains a Republican.

But Colin Powell said Thursday in Vancouver that he is considering voting for Democrat Barack Obama in November—and he took shots at the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and the holding of terrorism suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Powell told a crowd of about 1,000 people at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre that he hasn’t decided whether to support Obama or Republican John McCain for the U.S. presidency.

Powell said that Obama’s life story sums up the “American dream” and he described McCain as the “toughest man I’ve ever met.”

Powell said he told both candidates recently that he has not decided which one will have his coveted endorsement.

The African-American former general said his decision won’t be based on the race or military experience of the candidates, but on their passion and policies.

Powell, of course, is all class.  Clark is beneath contempt.