Does John McCain understand the Army? Posted by Moira Whelan

Hat Tip to E&P for catching this one and alerting folks to it:

From David Hulen at the always-valuable Alaska Politics blog at the Anchorage Daily News (www.adn.com) tonight:

"Candidates spend a lot of time talking, and they all misspeak sometimes. But did anyone else notice this, from Wednesday's much-covered McCain-Palin Town Hall event in Grand Rapids,Mich., where Palin answered questions from people in the audience? 

"McCain said this near the end of the clip below, as he's talking up Palin's foreign policy/national security credentials:

'I also know, if I might remind you, that she is commander of the Alaska National Guard. In fact, you may know that on Sept. 11 a large contingent of the Alaska Guard deployed to    Iraq and her son happened to be one of them. So I think she understands our national security challenges....'

"The ceremony Palin attended at Fort Wainwright last week didn't involve the Alaska National Guard. Palin's son is in the Army, and his unit - 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division - deployed to Iraq."

To some, confusing the Army National Guard and the Army would seem a small thing, but to someone with John McCain’s family history, this is a pretty big slip up. Culturally in the military, there’s a tremendous difference between Guard and regular Army, and John McCain must know that.

You add to this McCain professing to understand the impact of deployments on our force structure and it’s a bit confusing as to how he actually could manage to conclude this. He claims he talks frequently to commanders on the ground and is constantly monitoring the well being of our forces. If this is the case, you’d know the Stryker Brigade. If you were Senator who had to vote on the funding for this and really paid attention, “Stryker” isn’t something you’d forget about…

Finally, it's pretty obvious that when your running mate is a governor, you'd know if she was sending a unit off, or simply telling her son goodbye. If you are a governor, you don't really confuse these two things. If you are a Senator, you don't either.

Three possibilities arise in my mind: First, he just doesn’t know the Palins that well. If you told a person in the military that your son was in the Stryker Brigade and was deploying, they wouldn’t forget. This is a pretty notable basic piece of knowledge. They would not confuse it with the Alaska National Guard. However, if this person were hearing from a staffer or someone else…or is not in any way a friend of yours, it’s possible that they’d get it mixed up. The second possibility is age. I hate to say it, but these really obvious gaffes are getting just a bit too frequent. Perhaps the incredible pace McCain is keeping up is taking a toll on him physically and we should admit that. The third possibility is that McCain does get it, and is simply trying to pull one over on voters to beef up Palin's non-existent national security creds. If this is the case, then it's just condescending.

This one shouldn’t be overlooked. In military circles, people would look at him funny with this sort of mix up. On the hill, defense types would note this as realizing they’ve got a lot of teaching to do, because this guy doesn’t totally “get it.” Anyway, it just doesn't say "Commander-in-Chief" to me.

Comments

[jseattle]

Between his meanness, moments of senior mind-fade, and shoot-from-the-hip recklessness I think McCain will simply Giuliani himself into comic irrelevance witinin the next few days.

[TE Lawrence]

America can't afford 4 more years of a leader who doesn't understand the military, or know how to lead it.

We need change.

[matt]

Isn't it just as likely that he thought her son was in the Guard, not the Army? It's not like he knows her all that well; it'd be easy for him to lose track of Track.

[Peace]

Maybe it was not a gaffe but a deliberate lie. For the past two weeks the McCain campaign has lied about the role of the governor in directing the national guard. The McCain people have stated that the governor can order the national guard overseas even though it is unconstitutional. Therefore thay gave the impression that Palin ordered the naitonal guard to Iraq on her intiative and thereby has foreign policy experience. By adding another lie that her son was in the national guard and not the regular army, it gives the storyline that Palin delibrately ordered her own son to Iraq. Most foreign policy experts and political pundits will see right through this lie, but the McCain campaign does not seem to care.

[Jay C]

Maybe, (pace Peace), Sen. McCain's misstatement about the AKNG was neither a "gaffe" not a "deliberate lie"; but that he was just reciting a sentimental anecdote to make Gov. Palin look good/knowledgeable/sympathetic to the audience. Who might not know the different details of NG/Army deployment. And, given that most of the McCain campaign's "town hall" addresses have been given to pre-screened and carefully vetted audiences inclined to vote for them, anyway, probably don't care, either.

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Nail on the head. Good shit, Moira.

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