Delusional

I'm reading about General Wesley Clark's comments about John McCain's service in Vietnam and how it doesn't necessarily translate to the capability to be president. Seems to make sense, right? Someone can certainly be highly praised in one aspect of life that does not translate into success in other aspects, right?

Well, the mainstream media have been quoting everything out of context and performing all of the usual tricks that make them mainstream. I've read a couple of articles where, instead of giving the whole context of one of General Clark's comments, the "news" sources have chosen just to print this: "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." It does sound like an attack like that. But here's the whole exchange:

[BOB] SCHIEFFER: 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. I mean...

CLARK: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

Clark was simply responding to the fact that, yes, you're right, Obama has not ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. But is that how we are to choose our presidents? How many presidents have ridden in a fighter plane and been shot down? Seriously, I want the numbers.

When is the media going to stop pandering like this? Why can't people just accept that certain things, even if you don't want to hear them, may just be true. Being a POW does not qualify you to be president. It's just a fact. Maybe community organizing in Chicago doesn't either, but I'd rather put my stock in that kind of experience.

Now, before I forget why I even started this post: Delusional. In my reading about this story I came across this quote from Senator Joseph Lieberman on Yahoo News:

``I hope Barack Obama goes to Iraq,'' Joseph Lieberman, an independent U.S. senator from Connecticut, said on the CBS program today. ``And frankly I hope he changes his position. Because if we had done what Senator Obama asked us to do, for the last couple of years, today Iran and al-Qaeda would be in control of Iraq. It would be a terrible defeat for us and our allies in the Middle East and throughout the world.''

Then I remembered something I read today in the June 30th issue of the New Yorker. Dorothy Wickenden quotes from a speech that Obama gave back in 2002:

“I don’t oppose all wars,” Barack Obama told a few hundred Chicago protesters, adding:

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars."

How about if we did what Barack Obama suggested six years ago, Mr. Lieberman? Where might we be then?

These people re-write history as they go.