The Obama campaign has a new statement out condemning Wes Clark's comments in an interview yesterday in which he questioned whether John McCain's military service means he has the qualifications to be commander in chief.
"As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark," said Obama campaign spokeman Bill Burton.
But what did Clark actually say? In the course of arguing that military service alone doesn't qualify you to be a commander in chief -- a topic Clark himself knows something about -- he said: "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."
It's unclear how anyone can construe what he said -- unless they're trying to cook the facts, of course -- as an attack on McCain's military record.
So what does Obama disagree with about what Clark said? Clearly, the Obama campaign didn't want the dispute over the Clark comments to overshadow his big patriotism speech today. And they probably saw no percentage in getting into an in-the-weeds dispute about what Clark meant.
But still, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that by condemning Clark's line of argument, the Obama camp is strengthening the McCain camp's ability to suggest that his POW bio does make him more qualified to be president than Obama is. And that really is one of the key rationales for McCain's candidacy.
Late Update: Surprisingly, the McCain campaign isn't accepting Obama's disavowals.
Late Update: Here's video of Obama top strategist David Axelrod discussing the Clark comments...
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