Is a Howard Dean-Wesley Clark ticket the Dem dream team for ‘04?
The two have met, and Dean has publicly asked Clark to join the
race, if not yet his ticket. Clark is about to announce that he
will run for president, and an alliance with Dean seems illogical.
Why would a four-star general who is banking on his military record
want to link up with a man like Dean who has the needle pegged on
the whackometer? All you need to know is that Clark — whatever
else he may be — is a member of Team Clinton.
It’s redundant to say more to prove Howard Dean’s unfitness for
the presidency than he has already said himself. His vitriolic
attacks on President Bush are not just McGovernism, they are
Michael Mooreism. In a recent Dem gabfest, he said that we
shouldn’t take sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He sticks
to the line that the Iraq campaign has made us less secure, not
more, and was a diversion from the war against terrorism. He would
beg the U.N. for 50,000 foreign troops to join ours in Iraq. If we
elect Dean, we might as well hand the keys to the Oval Office to
Kofi Annan and eliminate the middle man. Maybe they would start
renting out the Lincoln Bedroom again.
Dean is too shrewd a pol to think that he could win in ‘04 with
“hate Bush” as his only claim to office. That’s why he is pushing
the former NATO commander to run for president. In Dean’s mind,
Clark would be a perfect balance to him as a #2 on the Dean ticket.
But Dean should know where the General’s loyalties lie, and they’re
not with him. Clark is, above all else, a member in good standing
of Team Clinton. Which means Dean is toast if Clark can have any
say in it. And he will.
For months, Clark has been teasing the media about his possible
candidacy, but hasn’t gotten past that Dan Quayle-like deer in the
headlights look he gets every time he’s asked an unexpected
question. We know he’s for “reproductive rights,” against private
ownership of assault weapons, and was strongly against the Iraq
campaign. There is precious little else we know about the man.
Because he may announce his candidacy as soon as tomorrow, it’s
time to learn more.
When I mentioned to a few sources that I was interested in
Clark, I began receiving what soon became a flood of e-mails all of
which said that Clark was a faux-soldier, a pretty face, the
General from Central Casting, and not too smart. The other common
theme was that as a commander, he knew little about how to fight,
and had to be bailed out of bad decisions almost every day. Some of
that is true. Most of it is not.
People who know him assure me Clark is brilliant, and his
personal courage is unquestionable. Another Rhodes Scholar from
Arkansas, Clark was first in his 1966 class at West Point. He won a
Silver Star in Vietnam, which is only a couple of steps down from
the Medal of Honor. He’s an intense man with a tremendous work
ethic. One senior Air Force officer guessed that Clark must have
not gotten more than four or five hours of sleep during the Kosovo
campaign. That’s the good Clark.
The other Clark is the Friend of Bill, a man with a Jimmy
Carter-like personality. Clark is a micro-manager of the worst
sort. He distrusts his subordinates and injects himself into little
decisions so much that he loses track of the big picture. He trusts
his superiors even less. That’s what got him fired from NATO.
Ever since Clark and Lil’ Billy got together (which apparently
happened in 1968, in their overlapping months at Oxford) Clark has
been a FOB. Years later, when the army had made Clark a two-star,
it had no future plans for him. But the Clintons did, and put him
in line for three- and four-star jobs, culminating in the NATO
command.
Clark and his wife are good friends with the Clintons, but that
didn’t save him from being fired from the SACEUR — Supreme Allied
Commander, Europe job. Clark was fired not by the Clintons, but by
then Defense Secretary Bill Cohen. Clark got cross-wise with Cohen
for routinely going to Clinton around both Cohen and then-Joint
Chiefs Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton. He did this all the time both
indirectly — through his pal Madeleine the Short — and directly
on the phone and in person with Clinton. Clark was such a publicity
hound, that Cohen once ordered a subordinate, “Tell Clark to get
his f#$%^&g face off television.” Cohen, no small ego himself,
thought Clark was hogging the camera.
Clark was fired because of his overweening ego and because he —
like so many others — misjudged Clinton. He might have thought he
could get away with what he was doing going around Cohen and
Shelton, that Lil’ Billy would protect him. So Clark was fired and
to no one’s surprise (except perhaps Clark’s) Clinton didn’t
protect him. Now, the Clintons are using Clark again.
Clark wants the presidential nomination and the Clinton team —
who never act without clear orders from Billy and Hilly — are
lining up to get it for him, or at least use him to deny it to
Dean. According to U.S. News & World Report’s
“Washington Whispers” by Paul Bedard, “Many of Clark’s team in
waiting are Clintonistas, like the former president’s handyman
Bruce Lindsey, scandal spokesman Mark Fabiani, and maybe even
ex-Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, who’s close to New York Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton.” With a team like that behind him, Clark
isn’t aiming to play second banana. (Unless Hillary runs in ‘04,
which is pretty unlikely. A Clinton-Clark ticket? I wonder how many
ashtrays the general has had tossed at his head?)
As I said a couple of weeks ago, the Clintons are fighting
against the Dean candidacy because they recognize that if Dean is
nominated — and goes down like McGovern did — it will take a
decade or more for America to again take the Dems seriously. That
would mean Hillary would never make it back to Pennsylvania Avenue.
Clark’s job is to keep the Dems from following Dean off the
McGovernik cliff. But how will he do that, given his positions?
Clark isn’t clear on that many issues, and he may yet cleave to
the center. But Clark is pro-abortion, against the Bush tax cuts,
and opposed to the expansion of law enforcement powers in the
“PATRIOT Act.” Clark opposed the Iraq campaign, and has said again
and again that the Iraq campaign was an “elective” war and that “we
went into Iraq under false pretenses.” He thinks we now have to
“establish legitimacy” by getting the U.N.’s full endorsement
(which means turning Iraq over to Kofi, Dominique, and the rest of
the U.N. clown show). No wonder he gets along so well with
Madeleine.
Clarks’ solution to the war on terrorism is pure Clintonism.
About a month after 9-11, Clark gave a speech in which he said,
“Our best protection is not going to build a wall around America.
It’s not going to be to create a missile-defense impenetrable
shield. It’s going to be, instead, to create a community of common
values and shared responsibilities and shared interests in which
nations and people get along. That really is ultimately the only
protection.” Or he can lead the world in a chorus of “Kumbaya.”
Clark will leap over the sure-losers among the Dem candidates by
sundown on the day he announces. According to a CNN poll, he would
be #5 of ten immediately. He’d be ahead of the Breck Girl, Al,
Carol (even with her NOW endorsement) and Dennis the Menace but
behind Kerry, Lieberman, Gephardt and Dean. Still, I don’t see how
it’s possible for a military man who isn’t a proven die-hard leftie
to get the Fonda-McGovern party’s nomination.
Clark won’t want to run as anyone’s Number Two Boy, far less any
likely loser such as Dean. But that’s the catch. After gaining
credibility in a primary run, Clark would be established as a
national political figure in a way he will never be otherwise.
Simply to keep his prominence, he might take a #2 slot at the Demo
convention, especially if they make a big publicity splash drafting
him. And if he is someone’s #2, and they lose, it leaves him in
competition with Miz Hillary in ‘08.
Which is the point the Clintons lose control over Clark. He is
enough of his own man to want the prize, and not settle twice for
second place. What Clark doesn’t realize that he won’t — ever —
become such a luminary that the Hollywoodenhead fundraising stars
and the others the Dems rely on will defect from Hillary to him.
Forget it, general. They’ll use you and suck air out of your bubble
whenever it pleases them. Sooner or later — and I bet sooner —
Clark will join the rest of those who have been used and discarded
by the Clintons.
