The blogs have been all abuzz over a comment by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a
West
Virginia Democrat and Barack Obama sup****ter, about John McCain. As the
Charleston Gazette re****ts:
Rockefeller believes McCain has become insensitive to many
human issues. "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided
missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit.
"What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground?
He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people.
McCain never gets into those issues."
Apparently Rocky was wrong--McCain was captured in 1967, before
laser-guided
weapons were used in Vietnam. In any case, McCain complained and
Rockefeller
apologized, as Fox News re****ts:
Rockefeller . . . personally apologized to McCain on the
Senate floor for suggesting to a West Virginia newspaper
that the Arizona senator does not care about "the lives
of people" caught in the wars he champions, dating back
to his Navy service in Vietnam. . . .
But McCain advisers told FOX News Tuesday that they see a
trend in Obama not personally addressing these comments,
and that it conflicts with his message of bringing a new
kind of politics to Wa****ngton.
"Why does Sen. Obama refuse to personally condemn this type
of despicable attack? Sen. Obama has run for president on
the basis that he represents a new kind of politics, yet
every day there is another smear that Obama refuses to
repudiate," McCain spokesman Tucker Bonds said in a written
statement.
It strikes us that both McCain's complaint and Rockefeller's apology miss
the
point. What was appalling about Rockefeller's comment was not the slight
against McCain, but the underlying assumption that someone who serves his
country in war is acting in an "insensitive" or ignoble way.
It's reminiscent of John Kerry--not the "war hero" of 2004, but the
antiwar
activist of 1971, who slandered his fellow veterans as war criminals. "We
sup****t the troops" has become a mantra of those who oppose their mission,
but
gaffes like Rockefeller's lead one to doubt that they really do.
--
"You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you
do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do
well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
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