Opinion: Barack Obama gets under John McCain’s skin
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Election Day is still more than five months away, and Barack Obama has yet to obtain the ‘presumptive nominee’ tag in the Democratic presidential race. But if the verbal brickbats John McCain hurled at him today are any indication, a prospective general election matchup between the two will bear little resemblance to the reasoned, civil campaign both have said they will strive for.
It’s been fairly obvious for some time that McCain not only has less respect for Obama than Hillary Clinton, but that it’s easier for the senator from Illinois to get his goat. McCain’s reaction today to a barb Obama directed at him removed all doubts on those fronts.
Obama, taking to the Senate floor in the morning before returning to the campaign trail later in the afternoon, personalized an impending vote on a veterans benefits bill by noting McCain was against it. After making a nod -- as he almost always does when mentioning him -- to McCain’s military record, Obama said, ‘I can’t understand why he would line up behind’ President Bush in opposing the measure.
A release from McCain, who was campaigning in California, followed quickly, notable for the unconcealed contempt expressed toward Obama.
It begins with a bold-faced quote from McCain:
‘Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election.’
So much for the Senate’s tradition of collegiality.
Then, in the longer statement that follows, McCain has this to say about his potential White House rival:
‘And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.’
In the past...
... McCain has been loath to play the ‘I wore the uniform, you didn’t’ card. After all, he could have laid it on the table during his often bitter battle with Bush for the GOP’s 2000 presidential nomination. And it was available again -- to be directed at both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- during McCain’s intense strategic disagreements with the administration over the Iraq war.
It was telling, in terms of his attitude toward Obama, that he set aside that resistance in his statement (all of which can be read here).
Obama, in a response statement, referred to McCain’s comments as ‘schoolyard taunts’ that ‘do nothing to advance the debate about what matters to the American people.”
The dispute over the veterans bill -- sure to continue to figure in the presidential campaign -- also will figure in some congressional races.
A liberal activist group, Americans United for Change, has produced an ad that will target four Republicans who opposed the measure in the House -- Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Steve Chabot of Ohio, Tom Feeney of Florida and Randy Kuhl of New York.
According to a release from the group, the ad, entitled Lip Service, will air over Congress’ weeklong Memorial Day recess in their districts.
The spot can be previewed here.
-- Don Frederick