Opaque Lucidity

Pop Goes The Weasel

It was only a matter of time and, in retrospect, I'm surprised it took this long: the Left has begun attacking Sen. McCain's military record. Love him or hate him, John McCain's time as a naval aviator and prisoner of war in North Vietnam is as unassailable as personal histories can ever be. He endured pain and privations that would have killed or broken most of us and when offered an early release (because of his father's position as an admiral), he turned it down because other men had been in captivity longer. Even Sen. Obama has called McCain a hero, and I believe he really means it. God knows he certainly should.

The upcoming attacks on McCain's military record will, of course, be outside of the Obama campaign. He will condemn them, but they will continue. The opening shot was fired by retired General Wesley Clark, a man with nearly forty years of military service under his belt when he retired in 2000. I won't besmirch Clark's military record in the same way he has besmirched McCain's, but suffice it to say that Clark's history with the Army is one of an academic with almost no combat experience who clearly had the political savvy to rise to a four star rank. Clark criticizing McCain is a little like a casual yachtsman giving his opinion on the tactical genius of Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar: sound and fury signifying nothing.

Now that the floodgates are open, we will soon see columnists, bloggers and other assorted fellow-traveling nitwits jump on McCain. Most of the these cowards would urinate on themselves in the face of danger, but yet their "noble" positions will be held up as relevant and worthy of discussion. Through it all, John McCain will be what he has always been: a man of honor, better than the sniveling, limp-wristed shrews who inhabit most of the media's dirty halls.

We are still five months from the general election and I'm already disgusted. I wonder what I'll be like in October.