What do you do when your candidate has military service and the opposing candidate doesn't?  According to the Democratic presidential campaign playbook, you hype it unceasingly.  But what do you do if in the next election your candidate has no military experience, but the opposing candidate is a war hero?  Well of course, you demean the war-hero status and claim that military service has nothing to do with being president.  

In a stunning reversal from what he said four years ago about John Kerry, Wesley Clark now says military service is no qualification for the presidency.  Speaking as a surrogate of the Obama campaign, Wesley Clark said in an interview with CBS' Bob Schiefer that military service did not qualify John McCain to be president.  However, in 2004 in a speech to the Democratic convention, Clark extolled the merits of military service as a qualification for the presidency when he spoke of Sen. John Kerry. 

In 2004 Democrats thought they held a strong advantage over the Republicans because their candidate, John Kerry, served in Vietnam, while Bush hadn't.  They never missed an opportunity to use Kerry's military record as a way to attack Bush as being less qualified.  

According to Clark during a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, for John Kerry "hearing the thump of enemy mortars and seeing the flash of tracers" was a qualification for the presidency because through that he had "proved his physical courage under fire and he's proved his moral courage too."   "John Kerry fought a war and I respect him for that", General Wesley Clark said during the 2004 speech.  

Listen to Audio of Wesley Clark's 2004 Convention Speech, extolling the virtues of John Kerry's military service

"John Kerry's combination of physical courage and moral values is my definition of what we need as Americans in our comander and chief."

However, by 2008 Clark apparently changed his definition of what we need in a commander and chief when he said this last week about John McCain:

"In the matters of national security policy making it's a matter of understanding risk... and it's a matter of being held accountable.  John McCain has never done any of that in any of his official positions."  [John McCain] hasn't held executive responsibility.  That large squadron in the Navy he commanded, it wasn't a war-time squadron."

Listen to Audio of Wesley Clark Demeaning John McCain's Military Service

If you go by Clark's 2004 definition, then McCain is far more qualified to be president than John Kerry was.  In 2004 Clark said Kerry's "physical courage under fire" was one of the things that qualified him to be president.  John McCain not only showed physical courage under fire when his plane was shot down and he was captured by the North Vietnamese, but he showed far more courage than John Kerry ever did, when he refused to leave the prison camp until all of his fellow soldiers could be released too.  He actually chose to stay in a North Vietnamese torture camp longer than he had to as a way of supporting his men.  John Kerry lied about his service, and came home and lied about the activities of his men.  This is what Clark called John Kerry's "fighting for the peace".  

Now that the Republican candidate is a war hero and the Democratic candidate never spent a day in the military, Clark's tune has changed.  Now suddenly, military service and showing courage under fire aren't key characteristics he looks for in a president.  He insulted and demeaned John McCain's service by saying McCain has never been held accountable in his official duties.  He insults his military service by saying the squadron he commanded wasn't a war-time squadron.  McCain commanded the largest fighter squadron in the Navy and General Wesley Clark says that's not good enough because it wasn't a war-time squadron.  However, it certainly shows superior leadership to anything John Kerry can lay claim to.