John, I've been wondering what you and the other Obama supporters on the thread thought about this event. I watched it this weekend.....where General McPeak made his charges during an Obama rally. This TPM article is the first mention of it I've seen so far. From it, I guess Obama's campaign is trying to shop the story?
Obama Campaign Manager Hints Clinton Camp Has "Pattern" Of Questioning Obama's Patriotism
By Greg Sargent - March 24, 2008, 10:17AM
On a conference call with reporters just now, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe came as close as possible to alleging outright that the Clinton campaign has a "history" and a "pattern" of questioning Obama's patriotism.
Plouffe was asked whether Obama stands by remarks by Obama surrogate General McPeak, who compared Bill Clinton to Joe McCarthy on the basis of this quote from Bill:
"I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."
On the call, Plouffe was asked whether Obama stood by the McCarthy comparison and how that squared with Obama's call for a new politics. Plouffe replied that he didn't think Obama would have used that "exact term," but described McPeak's general take as "a fair reading" of the former President's remarks.
Plouffe then alluded to Hillary's recent claim that only she and John McCain have passed the "commander-in-chief test," and said that there's been a "pattern" of the Clinton camp making such claims and then denying their implicit meaning. "Questioning patriotism, we don't think has a place in this campaign," Plouffe said.
I've been hesitant to weigh in on this, but here goes. I'm with Obama supporters Bill Richardson and Andrew Sullivan, both of whom disagree with the idea that Bill was questioning Obama's patriotism here. There's no mention whatsoever of Obama by Bill. He seems to be clearly envisioning an ideal world in which two people could run against one another without there being any questioning of their patriotism and without such charges being hurled back and forth.
Now, you can mock the idea of Bill yearning for such purity of discourse, given that he's certainly said some questionable stuff throughout this campaign. Nonetheless, it's a huge stretch to interpret these particular remarks the way McPeak, Plouffe, and the Obama camp have elected to here. Hinting that they prove a "pattern" is also a huge stretch. To interpret them in this fashion requires that you want to interpret them this way.
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