Nice words for Clark

Taken from "Dude, Where's my Country?"
Michael Moore






Many months ago in the days leading up to the iraq invasion, i was flipping through the channels and i came across a general talking on CNN. Assuming this was just another one of those talking ex-military heads who had sprung up all over our networks, I was ready to keep flipping. But he said something that caught my ear, and I continued to listen. he was actually questioning the wisdom of Bush attacking Iraq. Long before it came out that Bush & Co were purposefully decieving the American people about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in iraq, he was questioning whether, in fact, Iraq was a true threat to the United States. who was this guy?
His name was Wesley Clark. Gen. Wesley Clark. First in his class at West point, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, and a registered Democrat from Arkansas. I started checking him out. And here is what I discovered.

• He is Pro Choice and a stong advocate for women's rights. Asked on Crossfire if he thought abortion should remain legal, he answered simply and to the point "I am pro-choice"
  
  
• He is against the Bush tax cut. Here is what he says "I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation. In other words, it's not only that the more you make, the more you give, but proportionately more because when you don't have very much money, you need to spend it on the necessities of life. When you have more money, you have room for the luxuries....One of the luxuries and one of the priveleges we enjoy is living in this great country. So I think the tax cuts were unfair"
  
  
• He is against Patriot Act II and wants the first one re-examined. Here's what he said: "One of the risks you have in this operation is that you're giving up some of the essentials of what it is in America to have justice. liberty and the rule of law. I think you've got to be very, very careful when you abridge those rights to prosecute the war on terrorists.
  
  
• He is for Gun Control. Says Clark: "In general, I have got twenty some odd guns in the house. I like to hunt. I have grwn up with guns all my life, but people who like assault weapons- they should join the United States Army, we have them"
  
  
• He is for affirmative action. Speaking at the brief he filed with the Supreme Court to support the University of Michigan in it's efforts to have affirmative action, he said, "I'm in favor of the principle of affirmative action.... what you can't have is, you can't have a society in which we're not acknowledging that there is a problem in this society with racial discrimination.... We saw the benefits of affirmative action in the United States armed forces. It was essential in restoring the integrity and the effectiveness of the armed forces"
  
  
• He is not for sending the troops into Iran or continuing with this axis of evil nonsense "Number one is that we need to use multilateralism for what it can do" says Clark. "Multilateralism, if you use it effectively, can put a lot of economic pressure and diplomatic pressure to bear. Number two, I think we need to be very careful about jumping to a military option too quickly, especially in the case of Iran, because we can overturn the government there, perhaps, we could certainly blow up some facilities. but that doesn't necessarily solve the problem"
  
  
• He is pro-environment: "Human beings do affect the environment and all you have to do is fly along the Andes and look at the disappearing glaciers down there and you recognize that there is something called global warming and it's just started as China and India modernize"
  
  
• He favors working with allies instead of pissing them off: " an administration which really hasn't respected our allies....If you really want allies, got to listen to their opinions, you've got to take them seriously, you've got to work with their issues"

So, here's my question to the lame-o Democrats: Why the hell aren't you running this guy? Is it because he might WIN? Yeah, how bizarre would that be-a winner! Don't want to try that, do you? Well, if I were looking for a stradegy to beat Bush the deserter, I'd run a friggin' four star general against him! Bush wouldn't stand a chance. This may be the only way to beat Bush, beat him at his own game. Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, will try to convince the American people that this is a wartime election - and you don't change presidents during wartime. That's what they're counting on-scaring the American people into four more years of BushII. If they've succeeded in frightening voters into believing that there really is some enemy threat out there, it may not be possible for us to undo that kind of damage. Instead, why don't we just roll with it and tell the American people, well, yes there is a threat out there- and who would you rather have protecting you: a guy who ran and hid in Omaha, or one of the top generals in the land? Clark has been awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the presidential Medal of Freedom. Thanks to the british and the Dutch, he's also got a couple honorary Knighthoods! I know this will some as a shock to many of you. "Mike, how could you be for a general?!"
Well, first of all, as I write this, I'not endorsing anyone ( except Oprah. Run, Oprah, Run!). This is how I see it. I had four years to help build a Green party or some independent alternative. I didn't do it. No One did it. Sure, I made my contributions, but it wasn't enough. As I sit here typing these words, the green party still is not on a majority of ballots in this country. And now we have an even greater task in front of us- stopping George W. Bush from totally dismantling our Constitution and the freedoms we so dearly cherish. We're stuck in a dilema, and sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.
If it takes a pro-choice, pro-environment general who believes in universal health care and who thinks war is never the first answer to a conflict, if that is what it takes to remove these bastards and do the job the Democrats should have done in 2000-then that is what I am prepared to do. This involves a huge compromise on my part-will the losers who run the Democratic Party be willing to admit their mistakes and meet the millions like me halfway?

going to have to reduce your excerpts to 4 paragraphs for the moderators will lock this thread. :-)

 He's running for president, and he is not used to losing.  And if he gets the nomination, he'll go up and down this country and beat on President Bush like a drum.  He'll do 2,000 yards every morning; he'll rappel down any cliff he needs to; he will shake off any small-arms fire as if it were a swarm of gnats.  And he'll get better at the game each and every day.
He hates to lose.  And he doesn't run from fights.
And even if he's never played the game, he's never a beginner at anything.
Dismissed."

Thanks.

That backing Nader in 2000 helped put Dubya in the White House. This time we have to play to win, period.

Thanks for the great post.

a wake up call.

We can argue whether Clark is the only chance to defeat Bush. But I would make the following point. It is a fact that a minority of the party is normally involved in selecting the nominee. Will this minority look at the big picture, and consider Mr. Moore's point? At least if that is part of the decision making process then I think the best candidate will get the nod. And I am not saying it has to be Clark, just that we shouldn't summarily dismiss him as a candidate because he is a General.

I am involved in the Get Out the Vote for Clark process here in Tennessee. We are attempting to increase awareness that, in order for Clark to be the option in contrast to Bush, we MUST take advantage of our early-primary status (Feb. 10) and vote for Clark THEN.
Tennessee used to be a late-voting primary (late May or early June, depending) and many Tennesseans do not yet realize that we are in the cat-bird's seat this year. Therefore, many independents, who don't keep up with the political fray this early, do not realize that 1.) We're early bird's this year and 2.) As Independents, they can vote in the Democratic primary without having to register with a Party.
Seriously, we're having to overcome a Republican rally to get out the vote for that *ahem* other candidate who won't fare as well against Bush.
This is the trick we must overcome: there are many, many Independents in the South who may have voted for Bush over Gore, but who, in retrospect would not do that again if they're given a candidate who better represents their values. And that would be the Southern, military Clark.
Tennessee is definately a Clark state: all the Democratic Party leaders say so (except, of course, that Gore guy, who Tennesseans have learned to ignore). I've laid down a challenge to Zogby to say otherwise (LOL) because I have my own personal polling. ;)

Cool, sounds like you're doing great!

I have not gotten as involved as you...yet. I may do more here in GA when the time comes.

take care

and GO CLARK

:bounce:

But then I'm not like the folks on here who think their guy is the only guy, and if he doesn't get the nomination, they're going home.

Personally, I think Clark, Dean or Kucinich could kick Bush's ass around the block.

The only electable candidates, barring a huge surprise scandal or second recession that would cause necessary shifts in public opinion, are Clark, Edwards, and Kerry

samela    
http://bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=11&topic_id=4595&mesg_id=4599&page=

I, too, believe Clark could begin the process of healing the nation
from the years of damaging partisan divide which prevent us from moving
forward and grasping a new vision for the 21st century. I, too, believe
he has the ability to make progressive principles palatable to a nation
seeking leadership and humanity more than a particular ideological
bent. I believe he can repair our relations and standing in the world
and move us toward a position of leadership in human rights and
enlightened discussion with both allies and foes. I believe his promise
to balance the allocation of resources for defense with a new
allocation of resources for ways of engaging in peace will mark a major
shift in American policy. I believe his personal commitment to science,
technology, and the arts as ways of reinfusing life into the American
economy and spirit will usher in not only a new era of prosperity but
an era of pride in the American genius. I believe his commitment to the
potential for personal achievement in each American is genuine and real
and will inspire young people. I believe he will not rest until access
to health care and improvement of health care is achieved. I believe he
can bring us out of Reaganism for good.
I am not naive. He is neither a saint nor a miracle worker. What I
found in Wes Clark was an exemplary life, an exemplary mind, an
exemplary compassion, and an exemplary tenacity to set goals and
achieve them. I found someone whose passions over a lifetime have been
marked by equal portions of action and study. His interests in Latin
America and Africa are personal, informed, and real. His understanding
of why we must not compete but rather cooperate with Europe is grounded
in pragmatism, scholarship, and experience. His knowledge that more
often than not there are no military solutions to a problem comes from
experience. His personal beliefs about education as process rather than
a result are mine. His perception of the dangers of capital flowing
increasingly into the hands of a few are based in solid historical
understanding of economic principles. His commitment to affirmative
action is lived.
It's really corny and perhaps naive, but I found in Wes Clark a role
model, an inspiration. A life of the mind combined with a life of
action. A person who confounds expectations and shatters stereotypes. A
person of trust and character. A person outside of politics who can
perhaps restore our faith in governance. An American who has been a
citizen of the world.
As I've said before, I don't know if he can get the nomination, but I
will not regret throwing my lot in with someone I admire and who in a
few short months has shown me a different kind of American spirit I
barely knew existed.

The Man for all Reasons
http://cris.forclark.com/bestof/for/2003/11/18/185117/66/g84FiM8hwoI/
displaystory//Blog/

If you are lucky, once in your lifetime a truly exceptional person will
cross your path. I met and know such a person: General Wesley Clark.
For three years, I had the privilege of working for General Clark when
he served as Supreme Allied Commander-Europe. I can attest to the fact
that he is a general's general and a soldier's general.More...

>
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/975530.asp
> I strongly dispute your portrayal of Gen. Wesley Clark as an
> obsessive, relentless, driven, practically friendless man "who made
> more enemies than he defeated." I have known Wes Clark from the time
> he and I were teenage roommates at West Point. You quote a "friend"
> who never saw him relax. Wes and I played pinball in Colorado (he
> whipped me), tobogganed onto a frozen river in the Finger Lakes, shot
> eight ball one-on-one in the NATO chateau and played Foxtail catch in
> front of his dumbfounded bodyguards. Wes roared with laughter when we
> escaped his military hospital intensive-care ward in Japan, even as
> he cried out in pain from nearly ripping open the stitches from his
> Vietnam wound. Your claim that Wes is a brown-nosing Eddie Haskell is
> ludicrous. Wes was fired as Supreme Allied Commander for speaking out
> against his bosses. He has always been an independent thinker. In
> 1972, I returned from a year at a European university and made an
> appointment with West Point's academic dean, a colonel, to review my
> cadet records. When the colonel saw my sandals and ponytail, he
> immediately postponed the meeting and culled the records. Wes, a
> captain, invited me to attend the political-science class he was
> teaching there, and even asked me to speak. He didn't give a hoot
> what the big brass would say. As you report, Wes Clark is indeed
> intense, brilliant, bold and independent, with extraordinary
> confidence. But he is also a warm, humorous, charming human being.
> - Theodore P. Hill Atlanta, Ga.
>

HERO V ZERO

Does W trouble ya?
Does Rumsfeld disturb
Do you worry 'bout Wolfowitz's
neocon blurb?

Is the real Colin stolen?
Do you feel that for certain?
Do you suspect that Dick Cheney's
Pimpin' for Halliburton?

To de-louse the White House
We need a new leader,
A thinker, a statesman,
A soldier, a reader.

For duty, not booty
Should underly service
And that's why one man
Makes George W nervous.

It's hero v zero
A contrast so stark
That Anyone But Bush
Has one name: Wesley Clark.

That's a great poem!!
Thanks for posting that! :yourock:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97689,00.html

"HUME: What about those who suggest that his character reflects a kind of unbridled ambition that puts his career above all things, fair?

SCALES: No. No. Unfair. Again, like I say I've known him all my adult life. He is an individual who is committed to a higher calling. I mean he's got three holes in him and a Silver Star from Vietnam. He has a…the word patriot only partially describes his commitment to public service. And for as long as I've known him, he's always looked, you know, beyond himself and he's been committed to serving the nation. And I think what you are seeing happen here recently is an example of that."

It's really a great testimony in Clark's favor and on Fux, no less!

... it appears he's doing it again in 2004. but the puff-piece you quoted is only a rehash of Clark's own propaganda. it doesn't mention the many ways in which Clark doesn't measure up to Moore's stated ideals. the depleted uranium issue alone should be enough to disqualify. Moore needs to clear the stars from his eyes and do more research before he opens his trap.

http://www.lifes-abeach.com/vidclips/mooreonclark.mp3


you should download this mp3 and hear more on his reasons for a liberal to back Wes (Its about 1 megabyte)

And that 'other candidate' ISN'T a long shot?

I take it you live in that bubble also inhabited by media pundits.

;)

GENERAL WESLEY K. CLARK, USA (Ret.)
Respected for his military expertise, keen intellect, and diplomatic skill, General Wesley Clark has distinguished himself as a soldier, scholar, and statesman. Graduating from West Point at the head of his class, he set a standard of excellence that has been his lifelong benchmark, whether serving in Vietnam; as a key negotiator of the Dayton Peace Accords; or as head of the U.S. European Command. As Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he led the 19-member alliance to a historic victory in Kosovo in NATO's longest and most difficult military campaign. For his outstanding leadership and dedicated service, General Clark has earned the respect and admiration of a grateful Nation.
Can anyone seriously believe for one minute that Clark was sent down early for reasons having to do with his character and personal integrity? It's ludicrous. After this week, the latest buzz on the trail:

SPACE-SAVER
by Michael Crowley
Candidate: Wesley Clark
Category: General Likeability
Grade: A
It's been said that Clark is insufferably arrogant, a man happiest in front of the mirror. So you might think that his lengthy new autobiography, Winning Modern Wars, would take the time to detail one of the most bravely heroic moments of his life.
The episode in question was detailed in a profile of Clark in today's Boston Globe. The Globe's Michael Kranish recounts how Clark responded in 1995 when a French armored personnel carrier, part of a convoy Clark was riding in to Sarajevo, plunged off a mountain road. "Suddenly, shooting broke out, followed by explosions," Kranish writes. "The noise may have been Serbian gunners, or the munitions in the French vehicle, or both." Clark, then a senior general, didn't flinch. "Clark found a rope, tied it around a tree, and rappelled to the burning vehicle," Kranish continues. "'Bring a fire extinguisher!' Clark yelled, according to <richard>Holbrooke's account, but none could be found."
Clark couldn't save any lives--he returned from the ravine to report that the casualties below were "the worst thing you've ever seen." But the point here is not so much Clark's bravery. It's how he treats the incident in his book. As Kranish puts it: "It was one of the most extraordinary, difficult, and dangerous days of Clark's life. Yet in his 479-page autobiography, Clark devotes less than one paragraph to it. In an interview ... Clark explained that Holbrooke had described the event already, and that he had some space constraints in his autobiography."

http://bestofblogs.forclark.com/story/2003/11/28/81836/095
Samantha Power's meticulously researched and notated 600+ page Pulitzer prizewinning tome, "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide."
.

General Clark is one of the heroes of Samantha Power's book. She introduces him on the second page of her chapter on Rwanda and describes his distress on learning about the genocide there and not being able to contact anyone in the Pentagon who really knew anything about it and/or about the Hutu and Tutsi. She writes, "He frantically telephoned around the Pentagon for insight into the ethnic dimension of events in Rwanda. Unfortunately, Rwanda had never been of more than marginal concern to Washington's most influential planners" (p. 330) more...

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2000/t05022000_t501koso.html
Q: This is General Clarke's last visit to Kosovo today. Any word on how he has performed his job?

Sec Def.: He has done an extraordinary job. General Clarke is one of our most brilliant officers. He undertook a mission that is perhaps one the most complicated and complex and carried it out successfully. As I mentioned in my remarks, this air campaign was the most successful in the history of warfare. We had over 38,000 sorties that were flown. We had only two planes that were shot down and no pilots lost. That is a record that is unparalleled in the history of warfare. So, General Clarke and his entire staff and subordinates and all who participated deserve great credit.

Q: Why is he leaving office, then?

Sec Def.: He is leaving because we have General Ralston who will become the new SACEUR. We are now replacing many of our CINCs throughout the world.

Q: It is not a reflection on his performance?

Sec Def: No reflection at all. He has done an outstanding job as the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Southern Command, and he did an outstanding job here as EUCOM Commander and also as SACEUR.

Straight from the horse's mouth! Anyone who brings up the rehashed Shelton smear against Clark from now on should be referred to this quote.

http://www.arkansasnews.com/279853299867856.bsp
He said there were two things I needed to
know. One was that the general was an
uncommonly regular guy. "You don't have to
bring him his coffee in a fancy cup. He gets up
and gets his own, and a refill for you."
The other was that Clark believed in "parallel
planning," meaning to proceed on two
options as if already decided in favor of each, so that
he would be prepared to go either way when
the time came.
snip
I asked Edwards if it was true, as I'd
heard, that the little black Mazda Miata with a hardtop
attachment parked to the side of the
headquarters was the general's vehicle, and that Clark
was driving himself.

"Yes, and I'm riding with him," Edwards
said. "I'm getting chauffeured by a four-star general.
I told you about him."

Before I decided to support Clark during the "draft" I did a lot of research and part of that research was a conversation with a friend of mine from Albania. If ever you want to be inspired, spend some time with someone like my friend and you will come to learn the real meaning of strength, character and courage.

We had a long conversation about the history of Kosovo and the ethnic cleansing that was taking place. At the end of our talk she told me I had to understand --

"he didn't just save our lives, he gave us an opportunity for a new life".

There will no endorsement that means more to me than this.

nice endorsements and words robbedvoter
thanks a lot dude

From Eric Massa:
http://www.primarymonitor.com/news/stories2003/112703clark_guy_2003.shtml
"He had questions I didn't expect from a military man," Massa said. "He asked me if I was familiar with Greek literature, if I read Homer, what I thought about the Illiad.

"And the last 20 minutes were devoted to people questions," Massa said. "He asked me what I would do if a young soldier came to me and told me his wife had died. Or a homosexual soldier told me he was being harassed. His whole thing was treating people with dignity and respect."

_________

"If Wes Clark asked me to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, I'd ask him if he wanted it done in the summer or the winter," Massa said.

thanks robbedvoter :)

I see enough of Clark propoganda here, without paying $25 to read it.
Guess I'll buy Corn's Bush Lies instead.

Hiss!!!

during the general election.

Only people I ever hear giving Dean raves are his supporters.

How about old friends, former employers/employees?

I have watched every debate, listened to every televised Dem speech/
political event, & I still don't get Dean.

"I asked a whole lot of my friends who were generals and colonels and majors, who served over General Clark and under General Clark, and every last one of them said to me that this is a good man, and if he were leading our nation they would be proud." - Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young, December 21, 2003


on edit: inserted "UN"

I heard Clark speak, and I read his position papers. He would be a president I could be proud of.

Imagine that, after being embarassed for the past 3 years, I could be proud of my president.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

"He's got a sack full of guts." - Bill Clinton, Los Angeles, September 18 2003

The following year, Major Clark worked as a White House fellow, serving as special assistant to the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

His stellar work led James T. Lynn in the Office of Management and Budget to state, "Major Clark is the most able White House fellow I have known during my seven years in Washington. He brought to his work a brilliant mind and rare common sense. He has initiative, style, imagination, moral courage and integrity each in extraordinary degree. He has a rare sensitivity to others and a remarkable ability to motivate and lead them. He is totally dedicated to public service as a military officer."




The next couple snippets come from a nice long article at:
http://www.oxfordamericanmag.com/oa_extras/murrell.pdf

Ambition is human nature," Clark says. To suggest a soldier should have no ambition, that he should just offer up his body without question or desire for anything else, is to misunderstand him. It is a dangerous way of thinking that leads to soldiers being treated as interchangeable parts, statistics in a body count. "The question is, what is your ambition for? And what are the limits on it? What are you constrained by? What's your character? If you're ambitious to do a good job with the responsibilities you've been given, and if you have healthy boundaries -- you're not going to abuse your authority, you're not oing to abuse the people who work for you, you're not going to do unethical or illegal things to advance yourself or your organization -- then I think you should be fired up and full of energy and go out and do it. Don't apologize for it." (The context was that Clark was explaining how after Vietnam the Army began to look unfavorably on intellectuals and 'whiz kids' so officers began to put on an act of being country boys, but that just means they hid their ambition.)

Why Clark was so passionate about saving the Albanians: He was the general in charge of plans for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the officers asked to look at the events in Rwanda, and how the US could respond. "We said, Okay, here's our plan: we need, like 10,000 or 20,000 troops to occupy the country. And we said to ourselves, Who's going to give those troops? Well, nobody in Africa. So you think the Brits and the French are going to put 20,000 troops in there? Not without American leadership. And I remember having a conversation with one of our key leaders, and he turned to me and said, "Wes, do you think this government, nine months after Mogadishu, is going to put 5,000 or 10,000 Americans on the ground in the center of Africa? When we have no overriding national interest there?

Clark credits press coverage of the massacre, in particular Philip Gourevitch's writing in The New Yorker, with clarifying the enormity of a failure he'd had a hand in. "All these bodies hacked up, and priests killing parishioners, teachers killing students, people begging to be shot rather than macheted to death, and so forth -- I thought, God this is sick. I don't want to be part of something like this again." Clark says when he looked at the situation in Bosnia, and later in Kosovo, he remembered that feeling of failure.



After ten weeks of bombing, much of it ineffectual, the United States agreed in theory not to rule out the use of ground forces. The Serbs sued for peace within two weeks. The threat of ground combat -- coupled with the fact that Russia, Serbia's only possible protector, had chosen to side with NATO -- finally caused Milosevic to roll over.

The war ended. The Clinton administration had been typically ambivalent about it, allowing the strategic and diplomatic discussion to disintegrate into something of a grudge match between the State Department and the Pentagon. Clark fought the war the way no general would want to: hamstrung by an elaborate target-approval process, with an incremental (rather than overhwleming) use of force, and no ground troops. Yet somehow Clark had succeeded.






met with president Chirac of France General Clark was awarded 'Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur' by the Minister of Defence, Mr. Alain Richard. It is the first time in almost 25 years that a Supreme Allied Commander Europe was granted this high decoration.



In his speech Minister Richard mentioned that General Clark had a prominent role in the Dayton negotiations, development of ESDI, adapting the strategic conditions of the twenty-first century, developing and putting forward a global security vision for the Balkans and, he highlighted the key role that General Clark had in OPERATION ALLIED FORCE. Mr. Richard also said that it is important to appreciate General Clark’s role in the recent developments concerning the European pillar of the Alliance.

"General Clark was a remarkable ally for France and Europe. The importance of his contribution to European security and to the quality of the transatlantic relationship is recognized by all; his heritage will have positive effects in Europe for many years".

:kick:

This thread was a welcome oasis from all the other threads!

:kick:

to nice words for Clark.

He simply must be the Dem nominee IMHO!

:kick:

DemEx