In a morning conference call with reporters, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Orson Swindle defended McCain's military and Senate experience as more than enough to qualify him to be president, despite what retired Gen. Wesley Clark claimed on a Sunday morning talk show, and hit Obama for his own experience.

Although Obama seemed to denounce the comments and pay respect to McCain's military record in a speech yesterday in Independence, Mo., the McCain campaign believes Obama's camp is using a "wink-and-a-nod" rejection of Clark's comments, by denouncing them yesterday and then calling the criticism of Clark unfair today.

Swindle appeared to be the most perturbed by Clark's comments, and went so far as to say Obama has "no qualifications and no experience" to be president.

"When you're in a tough political race, and you have no qualifications and no experience and your opponent has a world of experience...you gotta do something," Swindle said. "And it seems quite obvious with the succession of people who make these comments...they come as no coincidence. One would have to believe that this is pretty much a deliberate effort to tear down the credibility and experience of John McCain so that we'll be on par with the lack of experience of Barack Obama."

"He can't even lead his surrogates," Swindle said. "He's not going to do a very good job in leading the armed forces."