John McCain, taking questions from reporters aboard his Straight Talk Express: The Airplane Edition, said it was time for the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama to cut retired Gen. Wesley Clark loose.
“I think it’s up to Sen. Obama now to not only repudiate him, but to cut him loose,” McCain said to a small group of reporters somewhere between Indianapolis, IN, and Cartagena, Colombia…
Onboard his plane Tuesday, McCain was asked if Obama — who did reject Clark’s comments on Monday –had done enough to repudiate the general. He didn’t take the bait. “That’s up to others to decide,” said McCain. “I’m not going to worry about the comments General Clark made.”
And so the great mock-outrage chess match continues, Obama occasionally taking McCain’s pieces and McCain occasionally taking his. Question: Why is it incumbent upon Obama to throw Clark under the bus when McCain himself declared not long ago that he wouldn’t play referee with 527s attacking Jeremiah Wright? The difference, presumably, is that Obama has some sort of formal relationship with Clark whereas McCain has none with third-party groups (and thus can’t exercise control over them), but what relationship, exactly? Until just this month, Clark was a Clinton supporter. A cursory googling identifies him as a “military advisor” to Obama but I can’t find anything definitive to suggest the title’s anything more than an honorific. Why demand that Obama get rid of him now when you could use his retention of Clark as a much more effective bludgeon later in the campaign if he chose to keep him?
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