The New York Times reports that “in private discussions with friends and colleagues, some of them have pointed out that McCain, who was shot down and captured in 1967, spent the worst and most costly years of the war sealed away, both from the rice paddies of Indochina and from the outside world. During those years, McCain did not share the disillusioning and morally jarring experiences of soldiers like Kerry, Webb and Hagel, who found themselves unable to recognize their enemy in the confusion of the jungle; he never underwent the conversion that caused Kerry, for one, to toss away some of his war decorations during a protest at the Capitol.”  

Ed Morrisey  wrote in response, “[Senator Max] Cleland says that he didn’t know which heart and mind would blow him up, but McCain didn’t have to wonder at all which would torture him. He got a good, close look at the evil that totalitarians produce for over five years ‘on the ground.’”

Morrisey went on to note that later McCain  studied the war in great detail at the National War College, served for over twenty years on Senate committees overseeing the armed services and their strategies and tactics and that “for almost 40 years, McCain has kept himself not just informed but critically involved in matters of national security and defense.”

On the other side of the aisle, Barack Obama has served just over three years in the U.S. Senate and in addition to making irresponsible statements regarding foreign policy he has shown a thin skin when those statements are criticized – and sometimes even when they aren’t.

Even with the problems many conservatives have with McCain on issues such as campaign finance reform and immigration, they must realize that on the issue of national defense John McCain vastly differs from his Democratic rivals.  There are other issues, such as abortion and spending, where McCain’s policy is in line with conservatives and is 180 degrees different than either Obama’s or Clinton’s policies. National defense, though, is the area where the President has the most direct control and at this place in history it is the one area that we cannot afford to gamble on a careless, inexperienced, and ill-informed candidate – no matter how pretty he can speak.

What matters is not how well the candidate speaks, but what he says and time after time Obama has shown he is simply not qualified for the job.  Even if it is on this one issue alone, national defense, conservatives must support John McCain in November.  McCain spoke this week about the things he imagines seeing in the year 2013, at the end of a successful first term.  If Obama is commander-in-chief those four years, I don’t think I want to imagine the result in 2013.