What a remarkably silly story. And it’s probably even sillier that I comment on it, knowing how silly it is, but the rhetoric out there is just amazing.  Wes Clark was on Face the Nation, often referred to as “that show that’s on Sunday mornings after you’ve already left the house to actual do something with your weekend,” and seems to have opened a bee’s nest of controversy by pointing out something rather innocuous and obvious:

TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Obama Campaign Condemns Wes Clark’s Comments About McCain

But what did Clark actually say? In the course of arguing that military service alone doesn’t qualify you to be a commander in chief — a topic Clark himself knows something about — he said: “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

And of course, the McCain camp is shrieking like a teenage girl over the unfairness of it all!  Why, what could be better hands-on learning to be president than sitting in a tiger cage?  The only better thing I can think of is free-falling in a late-sixties model fighter plane.  That’s just like being president. . . sort of. . .

But what’s worse is lefties like those on TPM - both Josh Marshall and the myriad of commenters - who seem to want to insist that this is a cause for Obama to fight, that Obama’s disavowal of Wes’ comments is a capitulation of epic proportions.  I realize we’ve all spent ten years watching Democrats capitulate and we all hate it, but seriously folks, pick your battles.

Because there are just some subjects which are untouchable, injuries inflicted that are simply not within the range of polite talk.  I’ll do myself the favour of not itemizing that list here, but we all know topics for which there are no good ends, and this happens to be one of them.

Of course, Wes Clark is 100% right: the North Vietnamese probably did not give lessons on International Diplomacy or Macro-economics while John McCain was detained there.  They almost certainly did not debate the merits of ethanol nor the weight of scientific data supporting the theory of Global Warming.  They probably didn’t practice diplomatic table-seating protocols, town hall meeting debate styles or the intricacies of the Farm Bill.  He was in a prison, not a primer school for American politicians.  We may regard his heroism as a mark of character, but by itself, it is not a practical qualification for being president.

The fact remains, however, that the public will always rally around someone on whom the mantle of hero has been bestowed.  It is an indelible mark of character, even while the current opinion of the man can and does wane.  Such is as much a reflex of our own war-guilt - about all wars, in all times - as it is an expression of support for McCain, and probably more.  You can say it sucks, you can say it’s absurd, you can insist its irrelevant, but you cannot change it.  And just like Geraldine Ferraro stupidly defending herself on television after making her “Archie Bunker-esque” comments about Barack Obama, trying to swim against that current is folly.

The counter argument generally goes that by giving in to the scream-fest, Obama is codifying the unassailable nature of John McCain’s service as a qualification to be president.  Well, that’s true.  But that genie is long-since out of the bottle, now, thanks to Wes Clark’s small mistake and Bob Schieffer’s giant leap of hystrionics.  It’s not going back in because Obama chooses to fight upstream on Shit Creek.

No, as much as it pains me to see him do it, Barack Obama’s camp is doing the right thing: disavow early, let the steam run out of the story, and move on to the next thing.  Better to let this go now and let everybody get back to remembering McSame’s vision of the future.  And oh, by the way, fighting this battle isn’t something the Obama campaign is supposed to be doing: this is the kind of thing for his supporters to take up for him.

Hint, hint.

Unfortunately, it was during the chaos of my website meltdown that Barack Obama announced that he would not be taking the public campaign financing and run on his own donated money.  The media has been making a big deal of this, and of course, so has John McCain.  Ideologically, its a bit of a disappointment to see Obama or any politician not take public financing.

But those of us with a brain knew months ago that Obama wouldn’t be taking the public money, so while it might not seem like a great thing for those of us who support Clean Money, it’s not the huge surprise the media would like to believe it is.  It’s also just not the most interesting issue for many voters, which is why no one on the Democratic side has bothered hitting John McCain on his own public financing problems - it’s all just too esoteric.

But what is amusing is to watch the media, which has sat idly by while Republicans have out-raised Democrats in every single contest from President to Podunk Dog Catcher, suddenly find itself so concerned with the fairness of campaign finance when the situation is reversed.  It’s even more amusing to hear Republicans who actively work against Clean Money whenever it comes up suddenly clutching the pearls because Obama didn’t take the taxpayer dollars.

And all of this to be entirely ignored by the public.  No one really cares, it’s just Republicans flailing.

Hillary Clinton? Bob Lonsberry? Are you taking notes:

Ben Smith’s Blog: Obama apologizes to Muslim women; apology accepted - Politico.com

Sen. Barack Obama today called the two Muslim women who were barred from sitting behind him at his Detroit rally to apologize, one of the women and two other sources said.

“Sen. Obama called himself and he apologized to each of us,” one of the women, lawyer Hebba Aref, told me just now.

Senator Obama’s campaign screwed up - it was a couple volunteers at a local event, but it was still technically his campaign - and they refused to let a few Muslim women in hajib, or traditional headscarfs, sit behind Obama at a rally. Most likely, the volunteers objected for fear of eliciting more “Obama is a Muslim” rhetoric from the fringe Right. Whatever is the case, it’s still wrong.  And Senator Obama called each of the women to apologize because he knew it was wrong.

He could easily have dodged the problem by “firing” the volunteers.  He could easily have made excuses for why it didn’t happen the way the reports said it happened.  He could have blamed the volunteers and said, “that’s what happens when you use volunteers.”  He chose to do none of these things.  He assumed responsibility, took three whacks, and got it over with like a decent human being.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but its the right thing to do.  Especially for a leader.

You know it’s a sad day in Fox-ville when even Joe Scarborough is making fun of your attempts at racial smearing. Yes, America’s Pulse superstar E.D. Hill suggested, in the classic media “Brutus is an honorable man,” deniability fashion, that Michelle and Barack Obama’s campaign victory fist bump was a “terrorist fist jab.” Not just woefully inept, nor merely pathetically clueless, this was a thinly veiled attempt to link the words “terrorist” and “Obama” together ever closer.

But thankfully, no one in the media seems to be having any of it.

Obama’s Fist Bump Dissected Minutely By Media (VIDEO) - Media on The Huffington Post

The media has a new fixation, and it’s Obama’s fist bump, or dap, or pound, or whatever you choose to call the handshake he and his wife Michelle exchanged right before his speech claiming the Democratic presidential nomination.

And despite a late apology, it now appears as though Fox’s bad day and bad ratings have become E.D. Hill’s bad news, as she’s been removed from her post a day later. What a shame the gambit to smear Obama backfired for Fox. Does E.D. stand for “Electoral Disfunction?”

Especially for those of you who appreciate history and the roots and moorings of culture, this exploration in TNR of Senator Jim Webb’s background and his route to his current political position is a must-read. Seems like the author, Eve Fairbanks, is quite the proponent of Jim Webb as Veep choice for the Obama presidency. The more I think about it, the more I’m liking the idea as well:

Mad Skills || The New Republic Online

Webb is supposed to be Obama’s opposite: the angry white politician to Obama’s mild-mannered black one. But, oddly, Webb has something fundamental in common with Obama. Both men felt ill at ease at elite schools, leading them to embark on quests to rediscover their ethnic identities in their twenties. Both deepened these discoveries through writing. And both came to their identities as outsiders–as admiring anthropologists of the identity rather than people for whom the identity was organic from birth. This explains why Webb can celebrate anger without succumbing to it. It also helps explain his appeal to Democrats. Like Obama, he is not simply a member of a group historically important to the party; he is someone who embodies that group, someone who has turned that group’s narrative into his own. Webb–who, in our interview, defended Obama against charges of cultural elitism made by people “trying to cut Barack down”–has shown appreciation for the similarity between their projects. “If [the Scots-Irish] could get at the same table as black America, you could change populist American politics,” he told Joe Scarborough last month, “because they have so much in common in terms of what they need out of government.”

Nothing says “I’m really, really fucking old” quite like making campaign barbs out of presidents from thirty years ago, and trying to make them look like they’re really relevant:

Jonathan Martin’s Blog: Playing the Carter card - Politico.com

“Senator Obama says that I’m running for a Bush’s third term,” McCain said, picking up the central Democratic line of attack. “Seems to me he’s running for Jimmy Carter’s second.”

This is sad on a number of levels. Firstly, while the above quoted post tries charitably to come up with reasons why the Carter jab is a good one, the author points out things indicative of the Bush Administration such as gas prices and weak national security. But that’s probably too deep, anyway. The real problem is that, as I approach middle age, half the people my age and younger don’t really even know who Jimmy Carter was as a president, and know him rather as the Nobel Prize winning, charming old Southern guy who rocks out interviews on The Daily Show. That seems like a positive thing.

Maybe McCain aught to dig a bit deeper into our history, into something that isn’t half-assed taught in the last few weeks of June when there’s no air conditioning and no one’s even paying attention, anyway. Perhaps a Millard Fillmore crack, of some kind?

Just to clear up a few facts, of which John McCain is rarely in command, these days:

FactCheck.org: Soft on Iran

McCain implies that Obama doesn’t think Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist organization. That’s wrong. Before the Kyl-Lieberman amendment was introduced, Obama cosponsored a bill that called for the IRGC to be designated as “a Foreign Terrorist Operation.” Obama was one of 72 cosponsors of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, . . .The McCain campaign notes that the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act has yet to come to the floor for a vote. But that doesn’t change the fact that Obama’s sponsorship put him on record in favor of labeling the IRGC a terrorist organization, contrary to McCain’s insinuation.

Now that Hillary is making plans to concede the Democratic Primary race on Saturday, there’s a lot of talk about how she should go about that - whether to simply suspend her campaign or end it outright.  Many people on the Obama side are clamoring for her to end it outright, fearing that she’s just laying in wait for some reason to turn her campaign engines back on again.

Well, suspending now wouldn’t leave much wiggle room for that type of thing, even if that’s what she’s considering.  But ending the campaign rather than suspending it is probably the worse choice for Barack Obama.  Because, of course, once she ends the campaign, all those delegates become free agents again.  They can fall in line with Obama or not.

And since there are likely to be die-hard Hillary fans and anti-Barack votes in their midst, it would make for a lot of unpleasantness if the Obama Campaign had to answer for every delegate who chose not to join his campaign when there is no other rival.  It’s not the kind of question he really wants to answer in the media, nor is it the kind of situation that’s going to breed much party unity.  All of this would be fodder for the Republican attack machine.  Better that Hillary concede the race, endorse Obama and quietly encourage her delegates to switch over to Obama if they want.  There’s nothing really wrong with delegates voting their conscience at the convention, as long as they accept the results and come together.

————–

There is also a fair amount of discussion about the role of the Super Delegates and whether that position should be eliminated from the Democratic Party’s primary process.  My view is that the Supers ultimately contributed very little to the race and thus the role is really the beauty contest prize we all thought it was.  Keep ‘em or get rid of ‘em, I don’t think it really matters.

It *was* Super Dels that put Barack Obama over the top.  However, that only happened once the elected delegates put him over the top.  In point of fact, Barack Obama won the Primary according to conventional count, and nothing short of a complete defection of Supers would have altered that outcome.  To put it another way, the only thing the Supers really contributed was four hundred extra votes in the “magic number.”  Instead of 2100+, the number could have been 1700+ and the results would have been the same.  The only time that the Supers *would* or *could* matter is in a primary at least as close as this one - and as it’s been deftly proven - in such a case the pols that are Supers would be entirely too fearful of negative reactions at home to bother declaring anything until the matter has been decided by the normal process.

So, here’s what I propose: keep the Super Delegates, but instead of getting an extra vote at the Convention, let’s just give them free car washes at Delta Sonic and nice, up-close seats at the Convention.

Jake Tapper provides a bit of insight into what might have caused the reportedly intense exchange between Joe Lieberman and Barack Obama. The bottom line: Obama stuck up for Lieberman once and Lieberman fed him to the dogs in favour of John McCain:

Obama Confronts Lieberman On McCain Advocacy, Tone, on Senate Floor || Political Punch

“It’s one thing to support McCain,” said one Democratic source, “but many think Uncle Joe has gone too far.”

Obama campaigned for Lieberman in 2006 when he was challenged (and ultimately defeated) in his primary race for his Senate seat. When Lieberman opted to run as an independent, Obama stayed out of the race, unlike other Democrats, such as Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who endorsed nominee Ned Lamont.

Wow, so much is going on today! But this one’s a real goodie, if you’ve missed it on TPM. Apparently, Obama and Lieberman got into rather an animated conversation on the floor of the Senate today. There’s some suggestion that the fact that Lieberman has chosen to go on the attack with the Republicans against Obama is not sitting well with the presumptive nominee:

Talking Points Memo | Conversation

While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.

Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.

Well, it’s about time someone got in Lieb’s face. This could be about the campaign appearances or it could also have something to do with AIPAC, which is an alternative.