From the ArcaMax Publishing, Kathleen Parker Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/kathleenparker/s-372537-480290
WASHINGTON -- Being shot down may not qualify one to be president, as
retired Gen. Wesley Clark infamously said recently. But what men do
under fire might tell us about the character we may discover in a
president.
Clark's precise words, aimed at undermining John McCain's executive
experience, were: "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and
getting shot down is a qualification to become president." In
fairness, Clark also praised McCain's heroism, saying that he honored
his service as a prisoner of war and even that "he was a hero to me."
Predictably, Republicans were outraged and Democrats were outraged at
the GOP's outrage. For his part, Barack Obama performed the political
minuet of condemn 'n' distance. He condemned the remarks and distanced
himself from his surrogate/general.
McCain made a few tepid remarks, but mostly let others put Clark in
his place. And, though McCain is clearly content to use the iconic
image of his younger pilot self for campaign purposes, he also has
shrugged off his heroism.
"It doesn't take a great deal of effort to get shot down," McCain
himself is fond of saying.
As the news cycle churns, Clark's comment was yesterday's chum. It was
in poor taste, yes, but it wasn't the first time he had expressed
similar thoughts. National Review's Byron York blogged in March that
Clark viewed McCain's combat experience as inferior to Hillary
Clinton's qualifications for office.
"If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as the
first lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, her
representing the U.S. abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think
she's the most experienced and capable person in the race," York
quotes Clark as saying.
Ahem. Well. So much for that. Now that Clark is a military adviser to
Obama, he apparently is still skeptical about McCain's qualifications.
Let's concede that surviving torture doesn't necessarily endow one
with presidential mettle. And, fine, being shot down doesn't qualify
one to direct the executive branch.
But Clark misses the point of McCain's story.
McCain isn't a hero because he was tortured. He's a hero because he
declined an offer by his captors to be released, refusing to leave his
fellow Americans behind.
It may not take much effort to get shot down, but it must take a
considerable act of will to consign oneself to more deprivation and
torture. It must take a level of courage unknown to most to place
concern for others above one's own interest.
Surely self-sacrifice, courage and loyalty figure somewhere in the
calculus for selecting a president.
We can make no similar analysis of Obama, since he hasn't fought in
any wars in his lifetime. But we have been given a glimpse at how
Obama responds to external pressures and where he draws the line on
loyalty and self-sacrifice. When it comes to family and friends, it
seems Obama is first a survivalist.
A few months ago, when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright first came to national
attention, Obama was nearly demure when he said: "I can no more disown
(Wright) than I can disown my white grandmother."
He may not have disowned his white grandmother, but Obama didn't
exactly paint a sympathetic -- or loving -- portrait of her either. He
essentially threw her under the bus, saying that she had made racist
remarks while he was growing up, a statement that served only to
highlight Obama's own remarkable transcendence.
After several weeks of balancing his professed love for Wright with
the controversial statements of his chosen father figure and spiritual
mentor, Obama eventually left his church of 20 years. But why then,
after all those years, did Obama finally find the door?
What changed was the degree of his self-interest. As long as Wright
was helping Obama burnish his bona fides within the African-American
community, it didn't matter that the minister's rhetorical flights of
fancy bordered on paranoid, racist delusion. Only when Wright became a
potential obstacle to Obama's ambition -- by saying that Obama was
simply behaving as a politician -- did Obama show Wright the underside
of that very busy bus.
Clark is right that getting shot down doesn't qualify one to be
commander in chief. But it is relevant to wonder with whom one would
rather share a foxhole.
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Kathleen Parker's e-mail address is kparker@kparker.com