The Politics of Mass Distraction

See, this is what happens when you validate erroneous positions and assumptions: Sen. John McCain's campaign and the candidate himself have now added Sen. Jim Webb to (ret.) Gen. Wesley Clark, in the alleged attack on his military credentials.

This is what Sen. Webb, appearing on MSNBC's Countdown Monday night, actually said:

"...we need to make sure that we take politics out of service. People don‘t serve their country for political issues.

And John McCain‘s my long-time friend, if that is one area that I would ask him to calm down on, it‘s that, don‘t be standing up and uttering your political views and implying that all the people in the military support them because they don‘t, any more than when the Democrats have political issues during the Vietnam War.

Let‘s get the politics out of the military, take care of our military people, or have our political arguments in other areas."

On Tuesday, the McCain campaign's spokesperson, Brian Rogers, sent out this statement to the press:

"If you didn't think this was a coordinated attack on John McCain's credentials before, it's clear now that it is. Barack Obama's surrogates are telling the McCain campaign to 'calm down' about attacks on his military record? Seriously? Now somehow Wes Clark's attacks are John McCain's fault? It's absurd. If Barack Obama can't control his own surrogate operation, how can he be trusted to run the country?"

When you apologize for a non-action, you validate the falsehood. How hard is that to grasp? Man, I'm getting pissed again...Alright, instead of any more "I told yo so"s, I leave you with this comment from Greg Sargent posted on Talking Points Memo:

"It's really unclear what exactly the McCain campaign is pretending to be outraged about. Whatever the wisdom of Obama's repudiation of Clark's comments, this is pretty simple: Obama doesn't stand by Clark's comments, and Clark does. Clark communicated as much to the Obama campaign.

How does this prove that Obama is 'encouraging or tolerating' the attacks? It doesn't, of course. At this point McCain advisers are simply manufacturing outrage, secure in the knowledge that they won't get called out for it. Oh, and by the way, Clark didn't 'attack' McCain's military service."

Yeah, well, good luck with that one, dude. Not with both the mainstream media and the right-wing commentators joined at the hip on this one. Jeez...