Our friends at PoliticsTV put together this great compilation of the best web moments thus far in the 2008 race. We are debuting the video here on DoubleSpeak for the first time! Enjoy and please send this around too all of your friends.

A guest post from DoubleSpeak reader LB.

When I talk to my friends, particularly the uncommitted ones, about why I support Barack Obama, one of the things I often cite is that he doesn’t pander. But I can’t use this argument anymore.

When Senator Obama did not stand up against the FISA bill and telecom immunity, I accepted his reasoning that the telecoms should not be punished for the government’s misdeeds (I know this is an oversimplification of his opinion).

But when I learned that the Obama campaign had “rejected” Wes Clark’s comments about John McCain, claiming they impugned McCain’s patriotism, the first word that came into my mind was “pander”. On Face the Nation, General Clark, who surely has the authority to discuss national security and other military matters, said this:

Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. 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 to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it-’

When Bob Schieffer pointed out that Obama had also not been tested in this way, Clark went on to say:

I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President… But Barack is not, he is not running on the fact that he has made these national security pronouncements. He’s running on his other strengths. He’s running on the strengths of character, on the strengths of his communication skills, on the strengths of his judgment. And those are qualities that we seek in our national leadership.

In response to this, after goading from the McCain campaign, Bill Burton issued this statement on behalf of the Obama campaign:

As he’s said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark.

I don’t get it. I don’t see anything in Clark’s remark that required rejection from the Obama campaign. Moreover, I’m incensed that the Obama campaign would, as many others have said, “throw Clark under the bus” for these comments made in support of Obama. The only reason I can see is that the campaign felt they needed to mollify the flag wavers that have, in the past, criticized Obama for not wearing a flag pin. I admire the way Obama tries to make nice with his opponents, but in this case he went too far. I am very disappointed.

Moreover, I think it’s a legitimate question: How does being a prisoner of war prepare a person for being president of the United States and commander in chief of the most powerful military force in the world?