Wesley Clark Campaigns For VP Slot at UCLA

The following piece is published on OffTheBus as well as Pop and Politics.

Former NATO commander and retired four-star general Wesley Clark appeared at UCLA on Friday ostensibly to plug his latest book, A Time to Lead: For Honor, Duty, and Country, a memoir accompanied by a talking website.

The former 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, often criticized for his late, some say opportunistic, affiliation as a Democrat, stressed the importance of redefining American leadership in the face of the numerous foreign policy failures by the Bush administration.

"We've got some big problems," Clark said to the crowd of about 150 attendees. "After 9/11, there was basically a policy coup in this country," he said, lambasting administration neo-con strategists for embarking on "the most arrogant... the most reckless foreign policy in 100 years of American history."

Not exactly original material but delivered with verve! In fact, as the night progressed, Clark's carefully staged L.A. appearance begged a question. What was he really doing up there? Certainly the point wasn't to regurgitate long-standing leftist lore from the past few years. Was he there to hawk a book or was Gen. Clark (aka The Perfumed Prince, aka The Chameleon Candidate) speaking directly to the gross speculators of the blogosphere and beyond? In the end, it was impossible not to conclude that the whole thing was about finding a space on Hillary's platform for his spit-shined military shoes.

The devil's in the details.

Clark opened with an overly-dramatized reading from his book, recounting the day he was wounded in Vietnam, how he managed to bark orders to his platoon while doubled over, bleeding. He then outlined his suggestions for reestablishing American global stewardship. A foreign policy characterized not by hawkish isolationism but by the diplomatic engagement of those nations presently dubbed our enemies, Clark said, will restore America's role in "shaping the institutions of the rest of the world."

"We're at a dividing point in our strategy. Which way does it go? Toward hard-line isolation or toward engagement, toward opening it up and changing peoples' minds and working to resolve crises instead of provoking them?"

He cited George Kennan's famous Cold War containment policy. The Iron Curtain, he said, collapsed through an intricate web of diplomacy that included the aid of West Germany, the Pope, the AFL-CIO, and Citibank. The Soviet Bloc was engaged on all fronts, military and non-military.

Why turn from that success? he asked. Why interpret a winning strategy so narrowly as to miss the point? Containment was a long slog, a comprehensive program, but if it worked to defeat the Soviet empire, why not the likes of Iran? "If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to be a nail," Clark said.

He followed with a gem of an anecdote from the halls of the Bush-era Pentagon. He said that nine days after 9/11 he ran into "a military official" who began telling him of a classified DoD memo outlining the the invasion of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran over the next five years. Such mad flight of fantasy, Clark said, put us where we are today in the Middle East: bogged down in a blood and treasure sinkhole, our talk of freedom and democracy sounding for all the world like merely words. That's not the general's kind of leadership.

Clark's got the credentials. A decorated military hero, a commander in vietnam, the Balkans, first in his class at West Point, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, honors graduate from the National War College, he doesn't fail to impress. After his talk, he was lobbed softballs from the mesmerized audience-- basic questions on Ahmadinejad and Iran, Iraq as compared to Vietnam, Iraq as compared to Kosovo, and so on. Nothing he hasn't heard before. And damn if his answers weren't polished, swinging whatever came at him back to wonky prepared talking points, wowing the crowd with his ability to call it all up off-the-cuff, to roll out authoritatively on the sectarian conflicts in Iraq, for example.

Put together the subtle grandstanding and the timing of the book tour with Clark's formal endorsement of Hillary two weeks ago and it makes for a campaign politics "comprehensive program" that would make George Kennan proud.

Clark finished by posing a question to the "rational Democrats" in the room, asking them to name one instance where Hillary had shown "bad judgment." In the face of the general, no one dared mention even the striped slacks she favored in the sixties. Amazing.

The above piece is published on OffTheBus as well as Pop and Politics.

Comments

[jmundstuk]

Well, if he's campaigning for VP, I say, good. He should be VP. I liked him for pres in 2004 but his brief campaign showed he wasn't ready and/or didn't know how to campaign. He's much better now. Having a guy like Clark on the ticket with Clinton would help the ticket by ensuring that a general who actually ran a successful intervention would be in the new administration and couldn't be fired.

[ljm]

The book was in the works for a long time. The timing would have been perfect for Wes to have his own presidential run. However, he stuck his finger in the wind and decided it wasn't the time for him to run for president. You will notice on the cover of the book, many people praise it, from Al Gore to Al Haig. Bill Clinton says, "it's a powerful story." Douglas Brinkley calls it "a gem of a book." Bill Maher says, Clark's story is a timely reminder that the best way to be tought in the twenty-first century is to be very, very smart." Hillary Clinton doesn't have a comment on the book cover.

[pdxbohica]

Hack on Wes from his column at SFTT

Hack's Target
Reporting for Duty: Wesley Clark
9-22-03

Reporting for Duty: Wesley Clark

By David H. Hackworth

With Wesley Clark joining the Democratic presidential candidates, there are enough eager bodies pointed toward the White House to make up a rifle squad. This bunch of wannabes could make things increasingly hot for Dubya – as long as they don’t blow each other away with friendly fire.

Since Clark tossed his steel pot into the inferno, I've been constantly asked, “Hack, what do you think of the general?”

For the record, I never served with Clark. But after spending three hours interviewing the man for Maxim’s November issue, I’m impressed. He is insightful, he has his act together, he understands what makes national security tick – and he thinks on his feet somewhere around Mach 3.

...

No doubt he’s made his share of enemies. He doesn’t suffer fools easily and wouldn’t have allowed the dilettantes who convinced Dubya to do Iraq to even cut the White House lawn. So he should prepare for a fair amount of dart-throwing from detractors he’s ripped into during the past three decades.

Hey, I am one of those: I took a swing at Clark during the Kosovo campaign when I thought he screwed up the operation, and I called him a “Perfumed Prince.” Only years later did I discover from his book and other research that I was wrong – the blame should have been worn by British timidity and William Cohen, U.S. SecDef at the time.

At the interview, Clark came along without the standard platoon of handlers and treated the little folks who poured the coffee and served the bacon and eggs with exactly the same respect and consideration he gave the biggies in the dining room like my colleague Larry King and Bob Tisch, the Regency Hotel’s owner. An appealing common touch. .

Google is your friend

[TexasKat]

Just so you know, Hackworth apologized for his unflattering label of General Clark:

From: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34738

Hackworth: For the record, I never served with Clark. But after spending three hours interviewing the man for Maxim's November issue, I'm impressed. He is insightful, he has his act together, he understands what makes national security tick – and he thinks on his feet somewhere around Mach 3.

... Hey, I am one of those: I took a swing at Clark during the Kosovo campaign when I thought he screwed up the operation, and I called him a "Perfumed Prince." Only years later did I discover from his book and other research that I was wrong – the blame should have been worn by British timidity and William Cohen, U.S. SecDef at the time.

[DonnaZ]

Considering that Wes Clark is a senior fellow at UCLA, is on a book tour, and has something to say worth hearing, I conclude that your supposition about Clark's appearance being part of some covert desire to be included on Hillary's ticket is pretty lame. You know, sometimes a speech as part of book tour is a speech as part of book tour.

The curious part for me is why the audience failed to point out Clinton's abysmal judgement about the War in Iraq. That's kinda huge even considering the Senator's recent vote for the Lieberman saber rattling.

Update FYI: "Hackworth forthrightly confesses that his jibe at Clark as a "Perfumed Prince" was unfair and misguided. "I was wrong," he says. Then he just about endorses his fellow soldier:"

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/conason/2003/09/25/clark_limbaugh/index.html