Senator John McCain argues that Senator Barack Obama talks the polite debate talk, but has yet to walk the walk.

Quite right: “John McCain is making the claim that Barack Obama seems unwilling to personally condemn the controversial remarks of supporters and prominent Democrats after Sen. Obama relied Tuesday on a campaign spokeswoman to criticize Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller for a slight against Sen. McCain.”

Here’s what Rockefeller said:

The original remarks were drawn from an interview Rockefeller had Monday with The Charleston Gazette, where he said McCain is too far removed from the repercussions of war to deal with them.

“McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit,” Rockefeller told the newspaper, which published the article on the interview Tuesday.

“What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues,” he is quoted saying.

Nice.

What’s remarkable about what Rockefeller said isn’t that he tried to insult John McCain – that’s logical in American politics. What is remarkable is that Rockefeller didn’t just insult McCain, but every other fighter pilot the United States had, has and will have in the future.

And all that, at a time that many people are already arguing that the Democrats don’t have a whole lot of respect for the military.

Back to McCain vs. Obama: Obama supporters constantly insult his political opponents, and then a little while later, the Obama camp sends out some memo condemning whatever is the prominent supporter said this time. But seldom do we hear Obama, the person who pretends he is a reformer, do something about this kind of rhetoric, let alone condemn it in the strongest words.

And that is, I think, an important part of Obama’s character. He talks about reforming politics, and the tone of the debate, but he’s not a reformer. It’s as with his pastor, who said outrageous things for years, yet Obama only spoke out against it – more or less – when he was forced to do so by the media and public.

No, nothing new to see here.