The Attack on Military Service

The Obama campaign is deliberately, and aggressively, attempting to devalue military service in order to devalue John McCain's credentials for the presidency. But the dirty deed is being done by surrogates, so Barack doesn't take the blame for backfires like General Wesley Clark's .

Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe's token conservative columnist, runs down the attacks, and points out that this new, negative attitude toward military service comes in dramatic contrast to the hero worshiping they promoted on behalf of John Kerry four years ago.

In April, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia denounced McCain as insensitive - pointing, as evidence, to his military service. "McCain was a fighter pilot who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet," Rockefeller told the Charleston Gazette. "He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues."

Rockefeller later apologized, but a few days later, it was George McGovern's turn. The former Democratic presidential nominee told an audience that he would like to say to McCain: "Neither of us is an expert on national defense. It's true that you went to one of the service academies, but you were in the bottom of the class." He added, tauntingly: "You were shot down early in the war and spent most of the time in prison. I flew 35 combat missions with a 10-man crew and brought them home safely every time."

Next came Barack Obama supporter Bill Gillespie, an Army veteran and Georgia congressional candidate who scorned McCain as a product of "Navy royalty," who was "given a silver spoon" but "needed to draw attention" to himself. Having been a POW made McCain "somewhat of a celebrity and it went to his head," Gillespie sniped. "I think he was a self-promoter."

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters that growing up in a family with a history of Navy service made McCain too military-oriented, "and he has a hard time thinking beyond that." He looks at everything "from his life experiences," Harkin complained. "I think that can be pretty dangerous."

Much attention was focused on General Wesley Clark's comments that McCain "hasn't held executive responsibility" and that "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" is no qualification for the Oval Office. Far more obnoxious was the claim by an informal Obama adviser, Rand Beers, that McCain's national security experience is "sadly limited" because he was a POW and thus "did not experience the turmoil" of the antiwar movement "or the challenges" faced by those who went ashore in Vietnam.

Do Democrats only honor a military record when their nominee happens to be a veteran? In a recent speech, Obama mentioned McCain's wartime service, pointedly adding that "no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign." Now if only the rest of his party would listen.