Military service: A diminished campaign asset?

But by the beginning of 2004, Democrats were able to turn the tables, in effect arguing that their leaders were the military veterans, not Republicans like Dick Cheney, who obtained a student draft deferment during the Vietnam War.

Kerry’s precious asset in the 2004 Democratic primaries was his service as a Navy officer who conducted river patrols during the conflict. Kerry’s supporters said that the combat experience convinced them of his decency and courage.

Kerry invulnerable on national security?
"I have two nephews who served in the Army in the Vietnam War," Lois Dencklau, a Kerry supporter in Fort Dodge, Iowa, said in January 2004, right before the state's caucuses. "I felt exactly the way Kerry did: It was a terrible war. But that didn’t stop him from being there and serving his country."

The Republicans, Democrats said, would never be able to attack Kerry on national security or impugn his patriotism.

And in case anyone missed the message, Kerry himself opened his speech at the Democratic national convention in Boston by declaring, with a snappy salute, "I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting for duty."

But Kerry’s supposed invulnerability on national security was exactly what Republicans did attack, first by questioning what he had done with his Navy medals and then in August of 2004, with Swift Boat ads that disputed the account of his time in Vietnam.

It was a reversal of the common political strategy of jabbing away at an opponent’s perceived weak spots. Instead, it took a strength and tried to tarnish it.

With Clark’s argument that getting shot down is not a qualification to be president, the long-running political fight over "did you serve or didn’t you?" has evolved to "you did serve, but that’s not really relevant."

Obama rejects Clark's commentary
Sen. Barack Obama rejected Clark’s comments Monday. And Tuesday morning on ABC’s Good Morning America, Clark said the Democratic nominee "had nothing to do with this."

But in campaigns, once an argument is out in the public domain, a candidate distancing himself from an ally, or vice versa, serves only to point listeners back to the original comment.

And Clark continued making his case Tuesday in an interview on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell, saying, "There’s a distinction between having shown your courage and commitment as a soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine in the United States armed forces, and having learned from that the judgment that will make you a better president. I think ultimately this is a question about who has the better judgment to be commander-in-chief."

That judgment theme fits neatly into what Obama has argued from the start: that he, unlike rivals Hillary Clinton and McCain, had the good sense to not support the 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq.

Obama was not serving in the Senate in 2002, so he did not have make the decision on whether to vote for the resolution. McCain did, and he voted for it.

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