1115.org

General Wesley Clark criticized John McCain on CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday for lacking executive experience.

Clark said that “in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk, it’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. … He hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. …”

Pressed further by Schieffer, Clark then delivered perhaps the day’s marquee quote:
“I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

The McCain campaign had what I consider to be a perfectly bewildering response (that’s not how it’s playing in the media, though). McCain spokesman Brian Rogers didn’t reject, rebut or even dispute Clark’s lack-of-executive-responsibility charge at all. He just pretended that Clark had demeaned and attacked McCain’s military service record, rather than questioned his lack of executive experience:

If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to question John McCain’s military service, that’s their right. But let’s please drop the pretense that Barack Obama stands for a new type of politics. The reality is he’s proving to be a typical politician who is willing to say anything to get elected, including allowing his campaign surrogates to demean and attack John McCain’s military service record.

Maybe Rogers just missed the part where Clark called McCain a hero and underscored that he was not attacking McCain’s military service record, only his lack of executive experience?

I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war.

Or maybe the reality is that Rogers just couldn’t come up with anything to actually defend McCain against Clark’s real charge?

Which would be pretty telling, since Clark first made this charge almost three weeks ago. The McCain campaign has had ample time to prepare a fitting response, but they still prefer to punt?