The real question about Clark is one of credibility in the eyes of Dems

[Caution]

Is he sincere? That's what it really all comes down to. The attacks cropping up against Clark on the right are mostly absurd (the world war III quote being my favorite), the attacks from the left are more interesting. The left questions (mostly) whether or not Clark was a republican (conservative) in the past, and whether or not he voted republican in the past (this seems to be about 90% of the attacks anyways). Clark has come out with some pretty clear statements recently on his positions on the issues, and most of the time he falls in line with the Democratic Party ideals. So the question becomes, if he wins the nomination, can we as Democrats trust that he will follow up his rhetoric with definite policy? I don't know the answer to that question (and until march I wont really care, I am most likely NOT voting for Clark in the primary). If he wins the nomination, then I will try to evaluate his credibility. Until then I will base my primary vote on who I think best represents my views and who I think has the best chance of winning the overall election and balance it from there.

So basically, in what ways has Clark shown that we should not believe what he is currently saying? What has he done to show us that we should believe him?

As far as I'm concerned the single biggest knock on Clark is that he has no political experience outside of the military which is highly dogmatic and obsequieous to authoritarian structures.

Outside of that my tendency is to take the man at his word about his views on the issues.

[Brucey]

1. Right. But lots of questions remain about Clark...

and most of them are reasonable questions we want answered before we decide who to support for the presidency of our country. I am leery about having a career militarist as civilian president.

[Caution]

4. I absolutely agree

Just addressing the current attacks being levied. I am also very leery of career military in civilian roles. This is one of my personal primary reasons for not voting for Clark in the primary. It'll be interesting to see if the republicans attempt to use that as an argument against Clark shoudl he win the nomination. I'm still surprised by the level of hypocrisy from the repubs but i wonder if they would stoop that low?

[returnable]

9. I understand your concerns

I'm a Clark supporter, but I can see where his military background gives people pause on whether he can tackle the MIC.

It's not dissimilar to how I have doubts that a physician can solve this nation's health care crisis. MDs, as a whole, have not lobbied for patients' best interests IMO. They protect their own bottom line first.

In the end, we just have to analyze each candidate's proposals and trust our instincts.

My biggest beef here is that the General isn't the only one with baggage.

[Hamlette]

27. Not all General's are evil

Did you see General Zinni last night on nightline? He was trashing Bush and the war in Iraq. He knows the history of the Tonkin Gulf resolution and it freaks him out. We need that kind of institutional history.

My experience is that the career militarists I know are liberal and anti-war in the sense that is always the last option and the last time it was really justified was WWII. They know where the bodies are buried, how the war mongers twist the facts, what really happened and happens. I know not all of them are like that but some people serve in the military for reasons other than the chance to start a war! Some are even human.

When it comes to advice on war the people I trust the most are maverics from the military. Look for someone who was fired. Makes Clark my dream candidate.

I'm flying on blind trust here but I'd have to do it with each of the 10 candidates. I wanna see the team he builds. I wanna hear him on social issues.

During the debate last night he answered a question about business or something (I admit I don't pay much attention to stuff like that.) He said something about making the Board of Directors independent, answerable only to the stockholders. (my brain hears "blah blah") My husband is a banking lawyer. He was the bank regulator in our state throughout the 80s when savings and loans and thrifts were going broke. When Clark said that, hubby said "that's exactly how they fixed the banks. It worked." I don't think he really knew anything about Clark. He's liberal but not as political as I am.

(edited to say "arrrggghhhh I can't believe I made Generals possessive." Can't fix subject lines I guess. My bad.)

[Cappurr]

2. You know Democrats eat their own....

You are not "concerned" about Clark's democratic ideals. You just want to bring them up over, and over, and over again.

Please. Dont vote for him. Its as simple as that. Since you clearly have no intention of reading what others who have worked with him (like Sidney Blumenthal) say about him, since you have no intention of reading Clarks own book. Just keep speculating and vote for another candidate.

[Caution]

5. Did you actually READ my post?

You might want to try that sometime. I stated pretty clearly that I personally take Clark at his word and that my objections to him come from the tack of lack of political experience and a mistrust of the military in general. So before you get all snippy you might want to actually concern yourself with something beyond the headline.

[Cappurr]

6. Yep

I read your post. And I've read other posts of yours on the same or similar subjects. And I've read the by-now nearly a hundred "concerned about Clark" posts.

The problem is they are all based on bullshit the posters are getting from the right wing. I must have typed this sentence ten times: Clark was a military man. He was not ALLOWED to engage in politics. So before he left the military of course he is a blank slate. And that was only three years ago. I don't believe he even registered with either party.

I trust what Blumenthal said about him. Blumenthal's book was written before Clark even thought of running. And Blumenthal describes him as progressive and not a yes=man to the point he put his own career on the line and did what he thought was right. He brought Milosovich to his knees and got fired by the petty jealous brass in the Pentagon.

That shows me courage and conviction. And I like that. Still don't know enough about his domestic policies, but I'm willing to give him a chance that has nothing to do with "concern" that he spoke at a Republican fundraiser. Oh and by the way....Read Josh's talkingpoints today. He has the story. Clark ALSO spoke at a Democratic fundraiser at the same time. For Gods sake, he was the hero of the Kosovo war. EVERYONE wanted him to appear.

[Caution]

10. you may have read but clearly you didnt UNDERSTAND

I am asking the question, which was pretty clearly stated: why should we trust him and conversely why shouldnt we trust him. I've seen many attacks levied but none with a shred of evidence. I've seen people suppoort him but again without a shred of evidence.

As for the military thing, yeh no shit he can't participate in politics. This doesnt mean that just because he can't that he is capable of participating in politics. He has NO track record.

I'm not voting for him in the primary becuase I personally distrust the military and anyone who has had a leadership role in the military. I stated that very clearly. You, rather than actually attempting to answer the questions i posed simply dismissed them as so much more rhetoric. Your approach is no different than Donald Rumsfeld when he looks at a reporter and tell them their question is absurd.

I quite clearly stated that I DO take him at his word. I'm not concerned about Clark in the least as if he were some kind of republican conspiracy plant. I think he makes a great candidate and I will support him if he gets the nomination, though your zealotry and immediate dismissal of a valid question makes me a lot less likely to consider changing my position on clark for the primary. If his own supporters can't answer a valid question about his past than how do you expect the man to win? And no, saying that you trust sidney blumenthal's book doesnt make me leap up and say "whoa what a revelation! yay Clark for president!"

As a supporter of Clark, don't you think it might be a good idea to attempt to sway a voter and activist to your candidate through some actual examples of him living up the ideals that you say he represents?

For those reading this who are against Clark, how about some actual examples of Clark actively pushing a conservative agenda?

I have seen NO evidence of either side of this argument regarding Clark other than his own rhetoric (which I have CLEARLY stated my tendency to accept at its face value).

[Cappurr]

12. First of All I am NOT a Clark Supporter

I am just sick of the Clark bashing. I haven't made up my mind. It is either Clark or Dean. Both have postives, both have negatives.


Now your reason for not supporting Clark....because he was in the military....makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. If memory serves, George Washington was in the military. I was narrried to a military officer for ten years. There are military and there are military. I agree with you that those who follow blindly and walk over a cliff just because they are ordered to are not terrible imposing leaders. But Clark is far from that. He was very unpopular in the Pentagon because he wouldn't follow the line. And yet he was very popular with NATO commanders because he knew how to work diplomatically with them. Don't you think we might need some good diplomacy in the mess we are in today?

[Caution]

14. I apologize for assuming you are a Clark supporter

but I think you should apologize for taking this thread as a bash of clark. I did no such thing. I simply asked for information from both sides of the argument so that I might be able to make a more informed decision.

[Cappurr]

17. OK Caution...

If I misunderstood you, I apologize. But you have to go look at all the "I'm Concerned" about Clark threads posted in the last few days that are really licences to bash.

I've watched Clark. I'm impressed with him. And I, too, have an inherent suspicion of military men. I grew up near Ft. Monmouth and refused to date any servicman until my husband. Naturally, like a fool, I married him :eyes: But I've seen how the military operates. And I've seen the little guys at war (I was in Vietnam as a civilian for a year). I saw the hell they went through. So I learned there are differences in military men. You need to be careful of some of those Generals, for sure. I just don't happen to think Clark fits in that category.

[Ruby Newsbee]

22. Sick of the Clark bashing already?

It hasn't even started yet. lol There's nothing wrong with bashing candidates. It provides food for thought and who knows, sometimes people change their minds as time goes on. Clark has a long way to go in proving himself. His military record doesn't mean squat when it comes to domestic policy.

[Kool Kitty]

15. Madeline Albright worked with Clark, also,

and yesterday she was on the "Brian Lehrer" show (on WNYC, an NPR station). She spoke very highly of him.

[meegbear]

3. I think all the Democratic candidates are sincere ...

it's just a question of who do you feel will do the best for the people of the US and the world.

[Padraig18]

7. I agree, largely

I'm a Dean supporter, but I also tend to take him at his word, absent hard, credible e-v-i-d-e-n-c-e to the contrary. It's far too easy to take single statements or events out of context and use them to smear a candidate (we know this all to well).

I want to hear what he has to say, and plan to give him the chance to do so; I will not join in the early 'piling on'.

[poskonig]

8. I'm glad Clark is on our side.

If the GOP thinks they can make me go third party this election on this issue in the improbable event Clark wins the nomination, they are sorely mistaken.

[Fabio]

11. I basically agree.

This is not a knock on Clark.
He may truly be pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, pro-environment, etc. But to me, the question is what will he really fight for. We dont have a record of the fights he's chosen, only where he stands. And I think action's speak louder than words. This does not mean he is well intentioned, but as one of 280 million interviewers for the job of presidency -- this hole in his resume causes me concern.

I am not a Howard Dean fan, but I think we know, because of his demonstrated leadership in this area, that he will pursue a thoughtful national healthcare policy and fiscal "sanity" -- though I dont agree with his notion of total repeal of the tax cuts.

John Kerry, whom I do support, has a long history for standing up for the environment and civil rights, as well as corporate reform. We know that these things would be a thrust of his presidency.

It goes on and on -- ie Dick Gephardt is clearly on the side of american worker. It's a long term and demonstrated commitment.

The other candidate that makes me a little uneasy in this regard is John Edwards -- because of his short public record. However, I am a fan of his and wish him the best of luck during this cycle.

[Cappurr]

13. Go back in time for a minute....

What did we really know about Clinton's policies. He was a two term (two year terms) Governer of a small, poor state. What had he done? What was his foreign agenda? He was pro-death penalty. He wanted to reform welfare. He raised taxes on vehicle registrations in Arkansas (a regressive tax). And we knew about Gennefer Flowers and he opposed the war in Vietnam. And he didn't inhale :eyes:

But we voted for him. And we were right (even though he was a mess his first two years). Why? Because you could feel something from the man. You could feel it and you knew it was real.

My problem in this election is that I feel something from Clark. I don't from Dean, but I like Dean. Kerry turns me off completely and Edwards is a cutie pie for another election, in another decade.

But those feelings are what make a difference in elections. I only really felt something strongly about three candidates....JFK, Clinton and Nixon (and NIXON was totally negative). Oh yeah...and Bush. I hated him from the first too.

[CWebster]

16. And here is why

"What do we know about Wesley Clark?

* He voted for Nixon and Reagan for President.

* He was first in his class at West Point, a Rhodes scholar, and "his leadership experiences have taken him," his bio states, "from Vietnam to Latin America" and beyond.

* A decorated Vietnam vet, he was head of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, overseeing all U.S. forces in Latin America and the Caribbean at a time when the drug war and the massive build-up of U.S.-supplied weapons in Colombia was raising serious human rights concerns.

* As NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander he was relieved of his duties early by superiors who saw him as trigger-happy and not a team player. Clark ordered NATO forces to strike at Russian troops after the air war was over—threatening to "start World War III," according to British General Michael Jackson, who defied the order.

* A photo of a grinning Clark now circulating in newspapers and magazines and on the web shows him as NATO Supreme Allied Commander, shaking hands with Ratko Mladic, a Serbian army commander who was the subject of multiple U.S. war crimes charges at the time and who is still wanted as a war criminal. Clark visited Mladic, flouting a U.S. State Department directive not to meet with Serbian army leaders accused of ethnic cleansing. The picture shows the two men wearing each other’s hats and mugging for the camera.

* His latest career, as a consultant to military contractors, places him squarely in the middle of the military-industrial complex—just what General Eisenhower, to whom Clark is often compared, warned us about."





http://www.progressive.org/oct03/rc092403.html

[Cappurr]

20. And just about everyone of those allegations

(Except for the voting record) came from right wing lies. He did NOT almost start WWIII. That ISNT why he was fired from the Pentagon. He was fired because he pushed for ground troops. The bombs were not working they were not stopping the genocide. He pushed first for Apaches. The Penagon went nuts. Then he pushed for ground troops and he convinced Clinton. Four days after ground troops were authorized, Misolvich Crumbled. And of course, the Pentagon went nuts. THATS why he was fired. Because he wouldn't follow their line over the cliff.

And the picture? What your right wing sources aren't telling you is that the picture was taken two years before the ethnic cleansing.

You are just spreading a bunch of right wing bullshit. And if the right is going to all this trouble....don't you wonder why they are so afraid of Clark? Look what they did to Clinton. They were afraid of him too.

[CWebster]

23. Oh, so you are calling "the Progressive" a right-wing site now?

It is scary how naive you are.

[Cappurr]

28. Actually, it is more scary how gullible you and the press is

From Josh Marshal's Talking Points"

Are those same "senior administration officials" who blew Valerie Plame's cover to Bob Novak bending his ear again? You don't have to look too hard at the avalanche of mud being pushed against Wes Clark to get a very clear idea of who the White House doesn't want to run against next November.

In any case, back to Mr Novak, our cog in the machine. Novak's column today accuses Clark of hobnobbing with various and sundry war criminals. In particular he describes a meeting between Clark and Bosnian-Serb arch-war criminal Gen. Ratko Mladic. They were in fact photographed wearing each others' caps.

Thus Novak ...

Clark was a three-star (lieutenant general) who directed strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington. On Aug. 26, 1994, in the northern Bosnian city of Banja Luka, he met and exchanged gifts with the notorious Bosnian Serb commander and indicted war criminal, Gen. Ratko Mladic. The meeting took place against the State Department's wishes and may have contributed to Clark's failure to be promoted until political pressure intervened. The shocking photo of Mladic and Clark wearing each other's military caps was distributed throughout Europe.
...

U.S. diplomats warned Clark not to go to Bosnian Serb military headquarters to meet Mladic, considered by U.S. intelligence as the mastermind of the Srebrenica massacre of Muslim civilians (and still at large, sought by NATO peacekeeping forces). Besides the exchange of hats, they drank wine together, and Mladic gave Clark a bottle of brandy and a pistol.

Now, why would Clark meet with a man who'd masterminded the Srebrenica mass-killing? Perhaps because the event hadn't occured yet. Clark met with Mladic in late August 1994. The Srebrenica massacre happened in July 1995.
Now, we knew Mladic was bad news well before Srebrenica. So in itself this doesn't settle the matter. And this incident deserves to be looked at in the context of all of Clark's activities in the Balkans -- which stretch through much of the 1990s. But I put it forward as an example of the caliber of honesty and integrity in reporting that we're dealing with in this case.

Certainly we can expect more and more of this from the usual suspects.


-- Josh Marshall

So you see.....this naieve woman (who probably has a lot more years, education and experience than you imagine) is right. The damn picture was taken BEFORE the massacre. If anyone is a fool it is the Progressive for printing Bob Novak's lies and you for passing them off here as gospel.

[OKNancy]

24. I already see an error

"* A decorated Vietnam vet, he was head of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, overseeing all U.S. forces in Latin America and the Caribbean at a time when the drug war and the massive build-up of U.S.-supplied weapons in Colombia was raising serious human rights concerns."

Clark was head of the Southern Command for one year. 1996-97.
Total exaggeration of Clark's part in the "drug war".

[dfong63]

25. that's not an error

[CWebster]

26. Write Ruth Conniff and tell her

the filthy Leftist pinko progressive!

[wyldwolf]

18. Agreed, although I see another issue...

..a popular saying here for a while was "Anybody but Bush." But now that a least one poll says Clark (and Kerry) would beat Bush, I sense an "Anybody but Bush accept Clark because he's not dem enough" mentality.

I STILL believe "Anybody But Bush." That means if someone much further left than me could beat him, that person would get my vote.

I sense that the opposite (people further right) doesn't apply to some here.

[chadm]

19. He is a war profiteer

that's all I need to know. He doesn't represent me.

[tjdee]

21. I mostly agree with you.

That is what it all comes down to.

His political experience, or lack thereof, isn't a big deal to me. I'm certain he is capable of doing the day to day work of the presidency. Even braindead Bush can do that. Whenever people say that his political experience is somehow a challenge...well, I've not seen any evidence. What exactly do you think he'll have a hard time with?