"The one certainty of the 2008 campaign, it might have seemed, was that Sen. John McCain would be acknowledged all around as a war hero for his service in Vietnam -- but apparently not."

• Salon's Alex Koppelman: "I realize we're not accustomed to hearing anyone say this, but it's not false, it's not a personal attack, and it's not criticism of McCain's war record. Several media outlets and the right are clearly manufacturing a scandal here."
• Campaign Desk's Zachary Roth: "The McCain camp, sensing an opportunity, complained that Clark had 'attacked John McCain's military service record.' Of course, Clark had done nothing of the kind. He had questioned the relevance of McCain's combat experience as a qualification to be president of the United States. This is a distinction that you'd expect any reasonably intelligent nine-year old to be able to grasp. ... This is the perfect embodiment of the press's unbelievably destructive habit of assessing every piece of campaign rhetoric for its political acuity, rather than for its validity and accuracy."
• Josh Marshall: "It's not surprising. But it is an example of the fatuous McCain worship that is the bread and butter of the Washington press corps that Wes Clark's comments this weekend on Face the Nation are being called 'swift-boating'. It's almost comical, but not much less than Bob Schieffer's incredulous responses to the fact that Clark had the temerity to argue that McCain's experience as a Navy pilot and a POW don't necessarily mean he'd be a good president."

Wait ... did someone say Swiftboating? Ah yes, the scandal of WH'04 made it's triumphant return.

Sullivan was one of the first bloggers to reintroduce the meme. In a post entitled "Swiftboating McCain," Sullivan: "Wesley Clark is now and always has been a Clinton-type, but this is pretty revolting. This kind of personal attack was repulsive coming against Kerry from the far right. And it's repulsive the other way round. Both Kerry and McCain served their country honorably; and their records should be revered, period. You can make an argument against McCain's foreign policy experience and judgment on its merits. Do it and leave this crap out of it."

Reality Based Community's Jonathan Zasloff responds: "For some reason, Sullivan attacks this as swift-boating, and links it personal attacks on McCain that Clark never uttered and never suggested. [Time reporter Mark Halperin] says that Clark's words criticized McCain's war record, which they very clearly did not. I don't expect mainstream guys like Halperin to be able to read: he's just a stenographer. But this is really beneath Sullivan. Jeez -- just listen to it on YouTube. So now, the McCain camp has gotten the vapors. Call out the scented handkerchiefs! If McCain can't stand up to Wes Clark, then how can he stand up to the terrorists?"

Digby concurs: "[Clark's] not blatantly lying about McCain's political service or even disparaging it. Earlier in the interview he called McCain a hero to 'all of us in the service.' He's making the simple point that military service and executive experience aren't the same thing."

Reintroducing the "Swiftboating" meme has predictably inflamed the partisan wars, and it's setting of a "He hit me first!" justification for going after McCain's military service. For example, in a post entitled "Reaping the Whirlwind," FireDogLake's TBogg: "This isn't too surprising, since sputtering indignation is their bread and butter, [but] conservatives and the conventional wisdom media villagers are going to go to Defcon 2 over anyone who says anything that is less than glowing about John McCain's military service. Conservatives created Swiftboating and the media let them get away with it, now, as little Tommy Friedman might put it: they can Suck. On. This."

JammieWearingFool: "Having noted earlier today the left's incessant whining over John Kerry being derailed by his former Swift Boat crew members and the absurd attacks from bloggers and Wesley Clark on John McCain, we figured maybe a new term was in order: Swiftblogging. ... Forget comparing his and Kerry's records against each other. Instead, if you're sick like I am over the endless droning about Swiftboating four years later, just throw it back at the left and accuse them of Swiftblogging whenever they besmirch McCain. Maybe then they'll realize how petty they sound."

OBAMA II: MoveOver Already!

Of all the statements in Obama's patriotism speech, liberal bloggers latched onto his veiled criticism of MoveOn's "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" ad from Sept. '07. Obama:

"A general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal. We can no longer afford these sorts of divisions."

• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "Moveon was not in the news, Petraeus was not in the news, Obama simply chose to bring this up today in his speech on patriotism. ... Obama's consolidation of the party amounts to a desire to eliminate all vulnerable competing power centers, and this includes Moveon and Clark. ... Obama's imperative is not to the truth but to increase his own range of action within the party."
• Crooks and Liars's John Amato: "I understand that Obama is going to move to the center during the general. It's a fairly common practice even if I disagree with it, but to go after MoveOn which supported him so stongly [sic] is a bit much. ... We all want him to win very badly in the fall, but he's moving much more to the right than I would have thought this early."
• No Quarter's SusanUnPC: "What fairy tale world do these MoveOn lefties live in that they can't see that Barack Obama doesn't care about them or their rights -- even though he's happy to scarf up all the money they'll throw at him?"
• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "[Obama's] getting terrible advice to make symbolic gestures of defiance toward those same progressive issues and groups in order 'to move to the center' for the GE. This is the part where 'untested' comes in for Obama. ... This isn't a 'center' election, it's a realignment one of base politics -- that's the opportunity he's blowing coming out of '06 with the progressive wind to his back."

Liberal blogger BooMan: "It would be hard to find a more eloquent defense of dissent in this county [than Obama's speech], but the blogosphere decided to dissent about something other than the war or FISA or torture today. They decided to throw a tantrum over one sentence from this speech that referred negatively to MoveOn.org (without mentioning their name). ... I can't think of a viable party in any country in the world that would stand by an advertisement that accused the commanding general in the field in a time of war of betraying his country merely because he was going to testify before Congress. It's as if eight-year olds were devising this public relations strategy, and the people that are still defending them are like two-year olds."

On the other side of the blogosphere, conservatives viewed Obama's swipe at MoveOn as an attempted "Sister Souljah moment", and they criticized Obama for not condemning the "Betray Us" ad sooner.

McCain Report's Michael Goldfarb: "We are heartened by Barack Obama's belated entry into the debate over MoveOn.org's egregious attack on the loyalty of General David Petraeus. ... The United States Congress condemned MoveOn's attack some nine months ago in a resolution with broad bipartisan support. Obama was at the Senate that day, [and] somehow missed that vote. Regardless, we're sure he was disgusted with the group's attack then, and that his renunciation now is sincere."

TownHall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Barack is receiving credit for having 'blasted' Moveon.Org in a patriotism speech yesterday. Problem is, he never mentioned the outfit by name. Given his capacity for both supposedly opposing gay marriage at the same time he supports DOMA and supporting the Supreme Court decision overturning the DC gun ban he supported, it's clear that Barack is capable of saying a lot of things that sound good but ultimately don't mean all that much. So how 'bout someone actually asking him if he was referring to MoveOn.org?"

Obama III: Speech Reax

Shaun Mullen lamented what he perceived as a need by Obama to overcompensate for many Americans' prejudices against him: "That Barack Obama felt compelled to give a speech today on patriotism speaks volumes about the lousy state of political discourse in the U.S. That few minds will be changed although the speech was a noble effort is a fact of life for this African-American with a foreign-sounding middle name and an opposition with toxic intentions. That there are so many real issues crying out for attention in this deeply troubled land as the July 4th holiday draws near and he feels the need to wrap himself in the flag is disheartening. ... Oh, and by the way, Obama was wearing an American flag lapel pin."

Matthew Yglesias, an Obama supporter, was unimpressed by the speech: "I thought it was a little bit lame and defensive, frankly, though certainly not nearly as lame as the campaign's decision to hang Wes Clark out to dry for making a clearly true observation. ... All that said, ... despite all these winning weeks McCain is losing the election by a comfortable margin. ... Right now, McCain's flailing around and not getting traction with anything, and Obama seems to have retreated into a super-cautious mode just focused on parrying McCain's feeble blows."

BooMan sees a reaction like Yglesias's as the pitfall of high expecations: "It was another moving, excellent performance of the kind we've come to expect from Obama. Apparently, we now take it for granted that Obama will give a great speech, because we no longer give him any credit for them."

TNR's Eve Fairbanks thinks Obama gave a "shout-out" to VP contender/Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA): "Obama's good, though not great, patriotism speech today in Independence, Missouri, contained two interesting lines: an aside about the 'wrenching poverty ... of the hills of Appalachia' and a forceful condemnation of how '60s 'counterculture' types refused to honor Vietnam veterans when they came home, which, Obama said, 'remains a national shame to this day.' Both are among Webb's very biggest pet causes -- the enduring stain created by our mistreatment of Vietnam vets is a political obsession that's especially unique to him."

TNR's Marty Peretz was thoroughly impressed by that criticism of '60s counterculture: "Frankly, I do not recall a major Democrat brave enough to utter this reproach to his own supporters. Obama did this in the context of a reproach to the Republican opposition which makes it a habit to question the patriotism of others, as G.O.P. operatives and their subterranean allies have questioned his."

NRO's Yuval Levin was less impressed: "Barack Obama's speech on patriotism today is, of course, very nice in many ways, and speaks highly of the country that Obama no-doubt loves. It is, however, also driven by a peculiar paranoia and defensiveness, and it offers a very strange depiction of America's ideals, which he takes, more or less, to add up to the pursuit of greater perfection in the face of imperfection. This was also the theme of his speech on race in Philadelphia back in March, which was also marked by the same sort of defensive posture and attempt to change the subject from anything in particular to everything in general. ... There is no question that dissent is (in all but a few rare and extreme instance) not unpatriotic, and in some instances it can even be a function of patriotism, to be sure. But is it really the core of American patriotism, or America's greatness?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Pride v. Stride

Peter Beinart: "Conservatives know America isn't perfect, of course. But they grade on a curve. ... When evaluating America, they're more likely to remember that for most of human history, tyranny has been the norm. By that standard, America looks pretty good. Conservatives worry that if Americans don't appreciate -- and celebrate -- their nation's past accomplishments, they'll assume the country can be easily and dramatically improved. And they'll end up making things worse. ... If conservatives tend to see patriotism as an inheritance from a glorious past, liberals often see it as the promise of a future that redeems the past. ... For liberals, America is less a common culture than a set of ideals about democracy, equality and the rule of law. American history is a chronicle of the distance between those ideals and reality. And American patriotism is the struggle to narrow the gap. Thus, patriotism isn't about honoring and replicating the past; it's about surpassing it."

LEST WE FORGET: I Lose My Choice!

The Onion: "Seventy-six-year-old grandmother Anita Graney told reporters Monday that she was 'overwhelmed with pride' for having lived to see the first viable female presidential candidate in the nation's history so successfully run into the ground by vicious media attacks and hubristic, arrogant miscalculations. 'Hillary [Clinton] showed America that a woman can be politically destroyed just as completely and heartbreakingly as any man,' said Graney, a lifelong feminist. 'What an amazing example for today's young women who aspire to fail spectacularly at the highest levels.' Graney expressed hope that one of her granddaughters might someday be the first woman to get utterly eviscerated in a nationwide general election."

Posted by Chris Bodenner at July 1, 2008 12:53 PM