WASHINGTON -- It has become the battle of the Vietnam War heroes, pitting a former four-star general against America's most famous ex-prisoner of war.
And Barack Obama's campaign is getting wounded in the crossfire.
John McCain. left, wife Sindy visit in Colombia Tuesday with Colombia’s president Alvaro Uribe, right.
Senator John McCain's campaign on Tuesday accused Democrats of making a "deliberate effort to tear down" the Republican presidential candidate by questioning the value of his service as a former U.S. navy aviator.
The uproar was triggered Sunday when retired army general Wesley Clark, an Obama supporter, said of McCain: "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."
Clark, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, stood by his remarks Tuesday even after Obama publicly denounced them as unacceptable.
"John McCain as a young officer demonstrated courage and character, but the service as president is about judgment," Clark told ABC's Good Morning America. "The experience that he had as a fighter pilot isn't the same as having been at the highest levels of the military."
McCain, now 71, was shot down while on a bombing run over Vietnam in October 1967. He broke both his arms, one leg and was beaten and tortured during 5 1/2 years of captivity in North Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton." At one point, McCain refused an offer by his captors to be returned home.
The Arizona senator's military service and imprisonment have featured prominently in campaign ads touting his character, honour and service to the nation.
"I do believe that general Clark has made a huge mistake here. No matter how he sugar-coats it, he's trying to question John's service," Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on a McCain campaign conference call. "And I just don't think this is going to set well with the American voter."
Former marine lieutenant-colonel Orson Swindle, who was imprisoned alongside McCain, said "this is pretty much a deliberate effort to tear down the credibility and experience of John McCain so that it will be on par with the lack of experience of Barack Obama."
Clark, a retired four-star general who also suffered combat wounds in Vietnam, said "Obama had nothing to do with" his remarks, and apologized to the Democratic candidate for becoming a distraction to the campaign. Still, he refused to back down.
Clark, a former NATO Supreme Commander who led allied troops in Kosovo, called McCain a "hero" but said his navy experience is irrelevant to the presidency because he never reached the highest ranks of the military.
-- Canwest News Washington Correspondent
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