Wesley Clark's Comment in the Swiftboat Context

Ironically there has been almost no activity so far one could call "Swiftboating", yet the big media is so hungry to make that case they are pulling even soft comments like Wesley Clark's snippy response to a question as evidence of attack politics.

Clark was being political of course, but said nothing unreasonable when he suggested that McCain's service alone does not necessarily qualify him to be commander in Chief. He did not even say McCain is *not* qualified to be President!

Here is the issue we should be discussing:

The World is a complex, potentially dangerous place. Candidates must understand a lot about current military issues to be a good commander in chief. A great one would cut the military budget significantly while increasing security using advanced technology and targeted spending and military activity. However almost nobody is willing to consider that because most Americans are effectively brainwashed by their own stupidity into thinking Government effectively spends half the global military budget - some 550 billion each year. We don't spend it effectively, and it's an outrageous drain on our economic security, and neither candidate will deal effectively with this.

Whether McCain or Obama has more strategic military inspiration is almost a trivial issue. Asymetric warfare and the global economics of the military have changed the game so significantly that it's not clear what skills are needed.

Tim Russert RIP

Tim Russert was a fine journalist - clearly a guy who loved his country but did not let that get in the way of reporting the good, the bad, and the ugly of our American experience.

I do have to agree with this Slate Article, however, that suggests the media has spent more time on Russert than was warranted by his many years of fine journalistic service to NBC. Of course the media *always* gets relevance totally wrong. Network news spends at most a a few minutes monthly discussing the Military spending despite the near-insanity of the current US Military budget (even though you pitch in thousands as an average taxpayer, I bet you cannot guess this number to within #100,000,000,000 of the right answer. Yet you think this is probably money well spent? It is not. Yes, you should be ashamed and NO, this extraordinary level of waste, fraud, and abusive spending is not keeping the USA safer than smart spending would. Also YES, we should be cutting social services massively as well. The founders would be completely outraged about how Government has absorbed so much productivity in the name of good national stewardship.