Clark on McCain

So it has finally been said.

What I had been whispering to close friends and family for months is finally in the media. I didn't foresee how it would happen, but I am pleasantly surprised by this turn of events.

Retired General Wesley Clark has finally said the thing that he singularly, as a prominent member Democratic party, could say: McCain does not have the experience to be Commander in Chief. Full interview on CNN here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0D1hX9YXtd0 . Note the many admiring words Clark has for McCain, which I agree are well deserved.

The Republican response was textbook. They got an Admiral to say: "If Barack Obama wants to question John McCain's service to his country, he should have the guts to do it himself and not hide behind his campaign surrogates." Nice. Bring the Admiral to counter a General. Then ignore content and demote the General to a mere "surrogate", calling on Obama to say what he can only be branded un-American (yet again) for saying. What's wrong with McCain answering this, if surrogates are so unworthy of commenting? Afraid he can't make commanding a squadron at peace time sound experienced enough?

I just thank God that Clark's middle name isn't Mustafa (I can't believe the Hussein thing still gets mentioned constantly on Fox News).


My only criticism of Clark is minor and off topic. Still as a scientist, fighting for better public understanding, I'd like to add the following.

I certainly don't appreciate his comparing statement of developing a strategy for Iraq as being more difficult than "some guy writing on a blackboard E=MC²"*. He'd be right if he meant it's a terrible analogy, since that equation is a well known solution to an well-defined problem. On the other hand Iraq is a complex issue that has never been solved and due to its immensely complex and uncontrolled (read "non-scientific") nature could never have been solved before. Yet if he's referring to the developer of that equation (yes, it was Einstein) there's a gross understatement here of the experience, academic groundwork, dedication and time required, not to mention intellectual brilliance. The way I see it- both jobs require all of the above.

I find it hard to believe that he still uses that equation, especially considering the grief its mention gave him in 2004. True, most people aren't familiar with the form x=vt (which everyone actually knows as miles-travelled = miles-per-hour * hours) or understand what F=ma (Newton's second Law of Motion) means, but he could have omitted the equation itself and said "an equation on a blackboard." While still a poor portrayal of science, I expect the target audience mostly still has such a limited understanding of plugging numbers into equations.