The General on the Edge (Newsweek Article About Clark)

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Late last week, operating out of an unprepossessing office in Little Rock, Clark, now 58, was measuring another leap, this one into the Democratic presidential race. “He’s out there on the edge,” said a close friend. A retired four-star general, Clark was the first commander to lead NATO in war, a successful campaign against the Serbs in Kosovo in 1999. But he was relieved of his command, and forced to retire, by bad bureaucratic luck and top-brass resentment of his high-profile style and back-channeling with the Clinton White House. Since then, Clark has built himself into a national figure, generating an ostensibly independent movement to “draft” him—in the manner of his hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower—to run. He scoffs at the notion that it is too late. “I’ve got recon out there,” he told NEWSWEEK. “I’ve got some heavy artillery that can come in. I’ve got good logistics, and I’ve got strategic mobility.” By late last week his closest friends were saying it looked like a “go.” Hoo-ah!

Clark would get attention, and perhaps more. “There’s an opening,” says Jennifer Donahue of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. “People here are still looking for a knight in shining armor.” In fact, what many Democrats are looking for is a credible alternative to Dr. Howard Dean, whose nomination they think would lead to a disaster akin to George McGovern’s humiliation at the hands of Richard Nixon in 1972. “The campaign is turning into Dean versus a player to be named later,” says a top strategist for one of the front runner’s rivals. But no one is sure any of the existing candidates can stop the former Vermont governor. Many yearn for Sen. Hillary Clinton—she was all the talk at Vernon Jordan’s party on the Vineyard recently, insiders say—and even Al Gore got yet another glance at a MoveOn.org speech in New York. But both say flatly that they will not run.

Which is where Clark comes in. He is as antiwar as Dean—and as liberal on social issues. He supports gay civil unions and abortion rights, and op-poses unspecified portions of Bush’s tax cuts. But Clark is from the other side of the ’60s: a West Pointer and a Rhodes scholar from the South who won a Silver Star for valor in Vietnam and who was despised by the Pentagon E-Ring for, if anything, being too gung-ho in Kosovo. A dedicated internationalist and critic of old-style ground wars, Clark opposed the invasion of Iraq and correctly predicted the problems the Coalition has been encountering there.

And he has the stars to go after the commander in chief. Clark harshly criticized George W. Bush’s speech of last week, in which the president portrayed Iraq as the central theater in the war on worldwide terrorism. “It was the best way to put a face on his hip-shot response of ‘bring ‘em on’,” he told NEWSWEEK. “You can’t win without a vision, and that means working with allies. It means using force when it is appropriate, and as a last resort, and not because it looks easy. Because, as we’re finding out in Iraq, it isn’t easy.”

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http://www.msnbc.com/news/959441.asp?0cv=KB10

DTH

Very, very intriguing line.

Complete, wild-assed-guess: the September 6 Bill/Hillary/advisors meeting is to discuss endorsing Clark.

DTH

it sounds like some in the dem party are very misguided as to who the real enemy is.

So please stop trying to create a wedge that isn't there.

As for Clark, if he decides to run, I'm sure it'll be because he feels he can offer the kind of leadership America and the Democratic Party are looking for, not to "stop" Dean.

DTH

Do you have any more details on this? Was it speculation, or based on anything substantive?

Thanks!

DTH

George Will and Joe Klien thought he was going to run. The other guy didn't think so. He said VP. Stephanapoulos was very positive about Clark. I felt that he likes Clark.

week said Clark was running for V.P.Clark is going to run and he's running to win.I support Clark 100%.I also like Dean,but I'm afraid he's going to crumble in the south.On another note it would be nice to have a list compilied of Dem friendly ,Dem negitive and unbiased media reporters and pundits.

Would be a strong combo, IMO. Maybe Clark/Graham.

I like Clark/Dean, too.

DTH

nt

Or it should be, anyway. So Feinstein is a bit of a "wasted" VP pick, IMO. If he's looking for a moderate woman for the ticket, I think Mary Landrieu of LA would be the way to go.

DTH

and Graham would be ... interesting.

His Florida organization is far better than Jeb's.

n/t

This is not a beauty contest. A lot of people aren't looking to the big picture. The goal is to beat bush. Not each other. This is nothing personal against Dean or any of the candidates. If Bill and Hill thought that Dean could beat bush they would be his biggest backers. However, they KNOW that polls show Dean dead last in a head to head against bush.

of associating himself with the Clinton's. Why should he be? Now if Hillary would only hand over her magic fundraising Rolodex Clark would be unstoppable.

Otherwise, if he were stoppable, he will not run.

The Clintons' endorsement would be huge. I'm holding out hope for it. :-)

DTH

They have had numerous private conversations relating to foreign policy.
Dena's policies mirror Clarks perfectly.
This says to me Clark is not running but setting things up to become the VP candidate.

Dean's hopeful motivation combined with CLarks military and foreign policy experience.
Dean/Clark is a totally unbeatable combination!!!

I'd venture to say that it is DEAN's positions that mirror CLARK'S perfectly, not the other way around.

People really like to get mileage over that one sentence--we don't know when the meetings were, we don't know the content of those meetings, we don't know how these meetings came about (did Trippi see Clark on TV and ask him to talk to Dean about the specifics?)...

Just because they like each other (and Dean would be a fool not to like the guy who was helping him flesh out his foreign policy decisions) doesn't mean that Clark is running for VP.

I'm well aware of their links. And I like Dean a lot. I think Dean/Clark would be a pretty strong ticket.

But Clark/Dean would be significantly stronger, in my view. Foreign policy expertise is not something that "transfers" easily, IMO.

DTH

George Will declared this morning that 1) the General will not run and 2) the General is a third rate mind looking for a third rate solution.

So George_Wesley's hit Rove's radar huh? Hey, and your diatribe about liberals...Wow what a shock.

Almost every one of them that gets face time to pontificate about politics is intellectually and morally bankrupt and would not recognize a superior mind if one were to possess their own weak bodies.

Imagine Will's world for a moment. Migraines, screaming abuse of his family and George W. Bush the epitome of intellectualism.

:wow:

he said that he is going to run and everybody knows it?

Can't wait to see this article... is this going to be in Monday's Newsweek?

I think that means it comes out on Tuesday.

DTH

I believe he'll be on Bill Maher's show this Friday night

...that Clark is the Clintons' candidate. I believe the connection is very deep. He may have made a deal with them of some sort regarding Hillary's future ambitions.

And I'm sure that Rove has had some covert ops watching the connection in the hopes of tying Bill's baggage around Clark's neck.

a pissed-of Bill Clinton slamming Whistle-ass at every turn. A lot of people like the Big Dog and when he speaks scathingly, it cuts to the bone.

the Clintons are completly backing Clark,it appears to be going more and more in that direction.Bill and Hill along with Al Gore are the power brokers in the Democratic party.Whoever they push will be to reckon with.I hope Clark is their guy.The rope was tossed to Gore earlier this month by Mairo C.It dosen't appear that Gore is going to grab it and jump in,so that pretty much leaves it there for Clark to grab.I believe Clark is just waiting for the rope to be tossed to him.When and if he gets the go by the big three thats when the real Dem nomination will start.Don't be surprised to see some drop out before the first primary.A general rule of thumb is Democrats have to put up their best to win a predidential election and If Gore or H.C. don't run I personally believe Clark is the best shot the Democrats have.If he had the name reconigition as Gore or H.C.he would be a shoo-in for the whole thing.

from the CNN gig.

but unfortunately the people who watch CNN and the ones that watch Suvivor and The West Wing are not all the same people

In terms of trying to make Iraq the centerpiece of The War on Terror:

“It was the best way to put a face on his hip-shot response of ‘bring ‘em on’,”

Methinks Wes is feeling pretty liberated as a civilian... :-) It simply has to bring joy to a former four-star general to be able to characterize the Commander-in-Chief's "bring-em-on" quote as a "hip-shot response."

Go Wes Go!

the candidates then Clark entering late should be no problem.

If Clark runs, it will only take a few weeks for his name to be a household word.

MzPip
:dem:

GMTA, MzPip!

:-)

DTH

into the fray is not a problem........ it's an asset. He will get a great deal of additional milage out of it because it will be the new story in a dem race that's gotten kind of stagnant and monochromatic. (Unless you want to talk about Lieberman and his desperate swings on the way down but... blech)

Clarks delay in declaring his party affiliation is also an asset to the minds of WAY MORE of the voting public than it will be a problem with. It puts him above partisanship bickering.

If he gets a hand up from the big man, Hillary and Al, the other candidates will be left behind faster than egg salad left too long in the summer sun.

If he gets a hand up from the big man, Hillary and Al, the other candidates will be left behind faster than egg salad left too long in the summer sun.

That would be an incredible coup.

I just hope they do it! Even if he runs, I don't know whether they'd risk going out on a limb for a mere primary candidate.

DTH

Clark-Clinton for 2004

Unbeatable, imho

But I would be afraid that the conservative attack machine would instantly say that it was really Clinton vs. Bush, rather than Clark vs. Bush, and that Clark was just a Clinton lapdog being used for their master plan. Regardless of its validity, you can be that they would pound that message every chance they got.