Media can't see McSame for who he really is Now

For some time now I have been troubled by the assumption on the part of first Sen. Clinton and now Sen. Obama that John McSame is qualified - on the basis of his service in Vietnam and his five years as a prisoner of the Vietcong - to be president. I simply have not been able to understand the basis for this conclusion, which seems to me to fly in the face of everything McSame does and says. In other words, what is it about being a war hero - and McSame was a war hero - that qualifies someone to be president?

Sunday on a talk show Gen. Wesley Clark finally raised the same question. And Obama rushed to the nearest microphone to back off Clark's remarks. Here's how the AP characterized the candidates' responses after Clark made his comments:

A day after retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, now an Obama supporter, discussed McCain's experience as a Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam on a Sunday talk show, his remarks set off the pattern that has become familiar from innumerable earlier flaps over surrogate remarks during the presidential election year: The candidates, Obama and McCain, took the high road while the bare-knuckled language was left to their surrogates.

Toward the end of the same article reporter Beth Fouhy quoted McSame's "high road" remarks:

McCain himself said,

If that's the kind of campaign Sen. Obama and his surrogates and supporters want to engage in, I understand that. But it doesn't reduce the price of gas by one penny. It doesn't achieve our energy independence or make it come any closer. Doesn't make any American stay in their home who's at risk of losing it today. And it certainly doesn't do anything to address the challenges Americans have in keeping their jobs, homes and supporting their families.

If that's the "high road," I'd like to see what it looks like when McSame takes the "low road."