First, in a press conference in Ohio on Tuesday, Barack backtracked significantly from his initial rejection of Clark's statements.
“I guess my question is why, given all the vast numbers of things that we’ve got to work on, that that would be a top priority of mine?” Obama said, responding to a reporter who asked the candidate why he hadn’t called on Wesley Clark to apologize for his remarks yesterday. “I’m happy to have all sorts of conversations about how we deal with Iraq and what happens with Iran, but the fact that somebody on a cable show or on a news show like Gen. Clark said something that was inartful about Sen. McCain I don’t think is probably the thing that is keeping Ohioans up at night."While I would prefer to see Obama take charge of the issue head-on and confront the matter of McCain's military experience as automatic presidential qualification directly, this bob-and-weave strategy has been working for him and will continue to be effective. It actually mirrors his strategy on the Jeremiah Wright situation pretty closely, and I think he handled that about the best he could have given the fine line he had to walk. Also note that it took him a couple days to find a clear voice in the wake of the Wright "scandal", but thereafter he successfully redirected the conversation by straightforwardly and vocally refusing to acknowledge these petty attacks as a serious campaign issue.
As a corollary, I am becoming more and more convinced that General Clark would be the best choice for Obama as a running mate. This episode is solid evidence that the two can effectively play off each other going after McCain's record in a good cop-bad cop sort of manner. I still think Edwards would also be a great pick, of course for different reasons. However, Clark is probably the safer choice at this point, balances some of Obama's negative attributes (inexperience) and would allow Obama to focus almost entirely on offense. With the good General, the chances of a landslide would be pretty significant as McCain's true nature is gradually exposed.
