The Pampered Prince, Wesley Clark, had this to say in a conference call this afternoon:

In the national security business, the question is, do you have — when you have served in uniform, do you really have the relevant experience for making the decisions at the top that have to be made? Everybody admires John McCain’s service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There’s no issue there. He’s a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot — and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam — that doesn’t prepare you to be commander-in-chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn’t give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.

As I think of Clark’s involvment with the Waco siege and his time as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe during the Kosovo crisis, I can’t help but wonder what “relevant experience” Clark feels is necessary? He promptly continues:

If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as the First Lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, her representing the U.S. abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think she’s the most experienced and capable person in the race, not only for representing am abroad, but for dealing with the tough issues of national security. this about Senator McCain’s credentials:

My jaw just dropped and hit the deck. Then I read that retired Admiral Bill Owens had this to say:

I would just say that I agree with Wes on that.

*forehead slap*

More from instapinch:

Peggy Noonan looks at the past few weeks of Senator Clinton’s campaign and the awakening that appears to be taking place in the electorate. Noonan does so under the light of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s true greatness; something Senator Clinton can never reach.

Margaret Thatcher would no more have identified herself as a woman, or claimed special pleading that she was a mere frail girl, or asked you to sympathize with her because of her sex, than she would have called up the Kremlin and asked how quickly she could surrender.

Thatcher achieved what Senator Clinton thinks she can achieve: the status of a being a true leader, while also happening to be a woman. Leader first, woman second. That can’t be done by playing the gender card, making statements that play on traditional roles of a woman, and by repeatedly displaying through actions, an inability to deal seriously with matters of importance and otherwise.

Can we get a Thatcher here in the States?