All's fair in love and war records

OK, there’s nothing much in the Japanese press today except that gas prices have gone up another 10 yen a liter. Speaking of which, I was wrong about the translation of the gas prices I’m paying. 1 gallon is 3.78 liters not 4, my mistake. So I’m actually paying $6.77/gal, not $6.80. (Big !$#%ing deal!)

What I’d like to talk about today is Barack Obama and his decision to take the high road with regards to John McCain. Gen. Wesley Clark Ret. Made some long overdue comments yesterday regarding the logic of equating wartime presidential leadership ability with a military career that involved no wartime command duty whatsoever. Today, Next President Obama said that this was inappropriate, that Gen. Clark was not speaking on his behalf, and that he has no plans to attack the service record of John McCain.

This just goes to show that Barack Obama is simply a better person than John McCain. McCain’s service record is his main selling point, yet nobody is examining it that closely. The general idea is that you don’t attack the record of an ex-POW veteran with several impressive metals attached to his chest. That’s all well and good, but where was that logic 4 years ago when the GOP ripped John Kerry to pieces with false information about his war record?

The double standard extends to this election as well. One reason that nobody is attacking McCain’s record is it is equated as attacking his patriotism or attacking American troops in general. Again, that doesn’t stop the GOP from attacking Obama on the same issues, but what the hell. This is ridiculous of course. Examining his service record is just looking to see if he was any good at his job. It has nothing to do with courage, patriotism, or anything else. It’s about seeing if the foundation of the McCain campaign is strong enough to hold up the entire free world. Kinda important, donja think?

I don’t see what the problem is with looking at McCain’s background. It's ok to look at Obama’s background and experience and evaluate him as a potential POTUS but not ok to do the same to McCain. Why? Because he was in the military? The military contains the same crosscut of individuals as the rest of the population. I say from first hand experience, there are people in the military that I wouldn’t trust to run a cub scout den, much less a country (including some of the peoplewho ran MY cub scout den). Is it because John McCain was a POW? Well, I’m sorry if this sounds crass, but if you crash your plane behind enemy lines and are captured by said enemy then something went very badly wrong! And you automatically deserve to be the President of the United States solely because of that serious screw up. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t add up for me.

While we’re on the subject, would somebody please define the word patriotism or patriot for me? Over the last few years a patriot appears to have come to mean someone who never questions what they are told, a person who never disagrees with the authority figure, a person who proclaims the greatness of their flag and nation without knowing anything about its inner workings or history, a person who is proud of their ignorance, and most importantly a person who is a Republican. And not just a republican, a Bush/Rove republican. That can’t be right. If it is, then I am not a patriot and I am damn proud of it.

Getting back to the point, I just hope this impressive show of class by Obama doesn’t come back to haunt him. Not retaliating in kind when you are attacked and not stooping down to the lowest common level is seen as a sign of weakness under the modern political paradigm. This is a bad idea for the GOP. They are hearing the message “I’m going to be a nice guy while you attack me.” hidden in Obama’s message when they should be hearing, “. . . you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”