Air Force Col. George E. "Bud" Day, a Medal of Honor recipient who was McCain's cellmate in North Vietnam, said Clark's "backhanded slap" was "one of the more surprising insults in my military history." Day was a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that led a campaign to challenge accounts of Kerry's performance in Vietnam.
Day rejected a comparison between the work of the "Swift boat" veterans and the comments by Clark.
"The Swift boat, quote, attacks were simply a revelation of the truth; the similarity does not exist here," Day said.
Weighing in, Kerry -- an Obama supporter -- said that Day's comments "only further highlight the McCain campaign's disregard for a new kind of politics." He noted that McCain had denounced the 2004 attacks on Kerry as "dishonest and dishonorable" and called on him to condemn Day's remarks.
As the debate over duty and service played out, Obama made the case for his own patriotism.
Speaking against a blue backdrop adorned with four large American flags, the presumptive Democratic nominee said that his political opponents had unfairly sought to stoke fears about his devotion to the U.S.
He wore a flag lapel pin, an increasingly common Obama accessory.
"I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged -- at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for," Obama said.
In making patriotism a focus, Obama seemed intent on addressing a potential vulnerability. McCain was held captive during the Vietnam War for 5 1/2 years. Polls have shown that some Americans think Obama shares the values of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., a caustic critic of U.S. policies in some of his past sermons.
"I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign," Obama told a cheering crowd of 1,150 in the city where Democratic President Harry S. Truman was raised. "And I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine."
After a tour of Truman's home, Obama spoke briefly about why he chose the location for his speech: "It's a place where I think there's not a lot of pretense or fuss or trying to use patriotism in ways that divide us. So I thought it was an appropriate site."
In his speech, Obama sought to define patriotism, suggesting that military service is not the only criterion for patriotic feeling.
He mentioned that his grandmother worked on bomber assembly lines during World War II, while his grandfather served in the Army.
When he was a 4-year-old in Indonesia, he said, his mother would read him "the first lines of the Declaration of Independence."
"That is why, for me, patriotism is always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people," he said. "Instead, it is also loyalty to America's ideals."
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peter.nicholas@latimes.com
maeve.reston@latimes.com
Nicholas reported from Independence, Mo., and Reston from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Robin Abcarian contributed to this report.
