Mad as Hell

I try to keep my political blogging on this site heavy on snark and light on self-righteous outrage, so I apologize if this post and the next one come off as particularly Howard Beale-esque, but I guess I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Remember that time when some crackpot went in the media and impugned the honorable service record of a combat veteran. No, I'm not talking about Wesley Clark's appearance on Face the Nation. I'm talking about the moronic Swift Boat Veteran for "Truth" campaign in the 2004 election. The one that claimed that John Kerry faked or simply didn't receive the injuries that led to his Purple Hearts as part of some elaborate 35 year plan to one day run for President at a time when our nation is in great peril so that he can defeat our noble leader and surrender to the Terrorists. Or something. Of course, none of them were there for either of incidents they were talking about. Some of them weren't even in Vietnam at the same time as John Kerry (note: when I first published this the sentence said Iraq instead of Vietnam. Talk about a Freudian slip). But they were just so patriotic that they knew the exact details of every attack involving a swift boat. To summarize, the whole thing was mind-bogglingly stupid. The traditional media's response to this: play the ad nonstop on the news and raise vague questions about whether or not it was accurate.

So let's fast forward to 2008, when Wesley Clark said that he doesn't "think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." The media exploded in outrage. There were claims that Clark had criticized McCain's service, "impugn[ed]" his "heroism," or questioned his patriotism. This despite the fact that people said THE EXACT SAME THING about John Kerry in 2004. Rightfully so. I know a lot of people who served in the military, but I don't necessarily think they are automatically qualified to be President.

The extreme fetishization of John McCain's military service has become one of the major narratives of this campaign. The media is so enamored of him that they require any opponent to automatically cede authority on issues of security and defense to McCain, despite the fact that in his time as a legislator he has shown remarkably poor judgement on these issues. If this how its like in July then we are in for a long five months.