McCain camp hits Obama over ally's war record jibe

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — John McCain's team Monday piled pressure on his Democratic foe Barack Obama, after one of his top military backers said the Republican's Vietnam war heroism did not qualify him to be president.

On a day when Obama moved to address slurs against his patriotism, a new campaign row erupted over McCain's naval service, sparked by comments by NATO's former supreme commander, retired general Wesley Clark.

Clark, a former Hillary Clinton supporter who now backs Obama, said on Sunday he admired McCain's service, but suggested that record did not in itself qualify him to serve as president.

"He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall, he hasn't seen what it's like when diplomats come in and say, 'I don't know whether we're going to be able...