Attention, Obama worshippers

I went to one of the Obama Unite for Change events last weekend. Rather than go to the one here in our small town, I went to the bigger one down in Santa Rosa. It was a good event, run well, which is one of the things I was looking to see. The campaign was selling the usual swag: lawn signs, buttons, bumper stickers (bought one of those for each of our cars). They were also selling T-shirts, which I noticed had something a little unusual: besides the logo, it had a picture of the candidate. From the last cycle, I don't remember Dean shirts, or Kerry shirts, or Bush shirts that had the candidate's face. And I don't remember seeing that in the primaries this time, either.

In conversation with some of the other attendees, I was struck by how much some of them seemed to have invested in Obama personally; one guy gushed that he thought that Obama would "heal the racial divide in this country." Another woman professed her love for Obama in a way that I thought was borderline creepy.

The Obama campaign is smart; they've purposely worked on making their guy an icon. But some of his supporters are just a bit out of whack. Which brings me to how many on the left are freaking out now that the primaries are over and Obama has started tacking to the center.

Really, what were they thinking he would do? Obama wants to win. He's a politician who will do whatever it takes. Personally, I absolutely want that from a Democratic candidate. If, in the middle of one of the debates, Obama stands up, emits a bloodcurdling scream, opens his mouth larger than humanly possible, and eats John McCain's head, I will applaud our new demon master.

In the meantime, some of his strategic moves make me roll my eyes, like his sop to the superstitious yesterday. But that's politics. No doubt we'll see more of that.

To the lefties that have taken to the fainting couch about those moves, I heartily recommend that they read this post from John Scalzi.

I know who I trust. It's Wes Clark.

We all have to gauge the national security qualifications of the two candidates for president. I have no experience there, so I look to people better schooled in that area than I am for their opinions.

John McCain was fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis. He's admitted that he was constantly having problems with discipline and authority. I would normally applaud that, but he was in the Navy. After Annapolis, he crashed two planes, and ran another into some power lines. This is a picture of a mediocre pilot, not some hotshot. He went to Vietnam, was shot down and became a POW for six years, during which he suffered from torture by his captors. Upon his return and physical rehabilitation, he commanded a Florida training squadron.

He was never offered a significant sea command, which led to him retiring from the Navy as a captain. So it appears that aside from his POW experience, John McCain was not an exceptional or especially well regarded Naval officer. I presume that those Navy promotion boards knew what they were doing.

When Wesley Clark, West Point valedictorian, Rhodes Scholar, four-star general, and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, says this about John McCain:

John McCain is running his campaign on his experience and how his experience would benefit him and our nation as President. That experience shows courage and commitment to our country - but it doesn't include executive experience wrestling with national policy or go-to-war decisions. And in this area his judgment has been flawed - he not only supported going into a war we didn't have to fight in Iraq, but has time and again undervalued other, non-military elements of national power that must be used effectively to protect America. But as an American and former military officer I will not back down if I believe someone doesn't have sound judgment when it comes to our nation's most critical issues.

...I'm going to believe Clark's assessment. Clark is making a judgment about McCain's experience and fitness to be President, based on his (Clark's) superior knowledge of the national security arena. I think that Clark is far better qualified to make that judgment than I am, and far better qualified than virtually all of the weenies on the right and the left that are criticizing him for daring to tell a hard truth about the Sainted McCain.