McCain attacks Obama's drug use

John McCain's slam on Barack Obama last week is the first prominent attack on Obama's admitted drug use:

McCain responds to Obama in tough enough, if predictable, language:

"While Senator Obama's two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security."

But, McCain being McCain, he can't help himself and goes the next step in the statement's kicker:

"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."

Which is to say, "there is only one of us in this argument who has ever worn the uniform." (my words)

And if you still don't get it, a McCain aide blows away the anthill with, well, a rocket.

"Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."

Given Obama's racial background, the danger is that these attacks will be used to trigger ugly racial stereotypes about him, particularly once Republicans shift from bong jokes to talking about cocaine, which Obama admitted to trying in his first book.

Note also how McCain invokes the phrase "my service" as partial justification for his position, attempting to use his (laudable) experience as a Navy pilot in Vietnam to invalidate Obama's critique of the war. But previous military experience is irrelevant to the issue at hand -- there are veterans on both sides of the debate. More importantly, military service does not make one uniquely qualified to speak on matters of war; this is the same mistake that Democrats make when they attack "chickenhawks."

(By the way, Media Matters points out that "flack jacket" and "flak jacket" are both valid spellings.)

Update 5/31 3:14 PM: I have posted a response to Matthew Yglesias.

Comments

[Rob]

Let me get this right. The left has been sneering for the last eight years about George Bush's presumed (though never proven) cocaine use. But if Republicans should refer to Obama's admitted cocaine use, that might "trigger ugly racial stereotypes about him"?

Is this the first salvo in a left-wing preemptive attack on Republican mention of Obama and cocaine?

Neither in fact nor in popular perception is bong use or cocaine use a predominantly black phenomenon. In what strange universe of Brendan's imagining does a reference to bongs or for that matter cocaine have anything whatsoever to do with race?

[chris]

Is McCain running for the spelling bee?

There's a huge difference between cocaine a couple of times at age 17 and all the time until at age 40. Sheesh.

[Jed Lewison]

I heard that when he was in Iraq, John McCain couldn't tell the difference between his flack jacket and his Depends underwear.

I'm looking forward to throwing him a party for his 74th birthday this coming August. (Or was it 71st?)

I do hope people don't stereotype him just because he's old. Maybe he shouldn't run because the elderly in this nation don't need a bad stereotype?

[Steve Sailer]

If you would read Obama's autobiography, "Dreams from My Father: AStory of Race and Inheritance," you would see that Obama himself was the first to attribute his preppie drug use to his racial identity, writing that taking drugs was "something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind . . ."

Obama's Puhanhou School classmates, in contrast, in the many articles written by self-sacrificing reporters who spent the late winter in Obama's old tropical stomping grounds, seemed to find his explanation puzzlingly gratuitous. Many of them smoked dope on the beach, too, but they didn't need a racial identity crisis caused by the white power structure to justify their getting high. It was, like, Hawaii in the 1970s, you know? Maui Wowie, dude!

[Fred App]

There's a difference between some left-wing bloggers and a Republican candidate for president. As far as I know, no Democratic candidate ever talked about Bush's drug use or his alcoholism, either explicitly or implicitly. I would think we'd want to hold McCain to a slightly higher standard of discourse than, say, the Daily Kos. But maybe that's wishful thinking.

[Cliff]

McCain, STFU with your blatant inuendo.. "my service" Like he's some fvcking war hero.

[Cliff]

"consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security"
Is this the 2007 version of "they may posess weapons of mass destruction"??

[ZakB]

Now McCain is attacking Obama on "hope" by touting his time served as a prisoner of war. This is not only rhetoric in it's own right, but ignores the difference in their two upbringings. While McCain grew up with the privileges of class and race, Obama had a much tougher road to hoe. Hope became a part of his character virtually from day one. McCain's youth on the other hand was notoriously wanton and irresponsible.

[otbricki]

Bush never denied using cocaine either. When asked about it he refused to comment.