Wesley Clark continues to step on landmines all over the place.
First, he flips, flops, and flips again on his Iraqi invasion position, thoroughly analyzed on CommonDreams.org: ["Clark Says He Would Have Voted for War"] and ["Gen. Clark Says He Would Have Voted No on Iraq War"]. So, which is it, Gen. Clark?
Then, there is something I already expected about Clark – his involvement with the Clintons: ["Gen. Clark: Hillary Made Me Do It"] ["Wesley Clark, Clinton’s choice to prevent a Dean disaster"] and the flow of Clinton’s people to Clark.
From the Concord Monitor’s Capital Beat column, not yet posted online: Former Edwards, Gore, and Kerry press secretary Kym Spell has taken a job with Clark. When Kerry's folks found out that Spell was chatting with Mark Fabiani, a Clark adviser, about employment, she was given five minutes to clean out her desk. Former Kerry staffers: Spell and communications advisor Chris Lehane – all out the door. While Kerry says Howard Dean’s campaign is imploding ["Kerry Says Dean Is 'Imploding'"] it really looks to me like the opposite is occurring.
But how does Dean feel about all this Clark stuff, especially after encouraging him to be his VP? Some say he is speechless: ["Dean Speechless as Clintons Hijack Campaign"]. Here’s hoping we all see some more of Dean's now infamous hotheadedness.
While I am on the subject of Kerry and Dean, I have to promote this great column written by The Winchester Star's reporter Kristina Arvanitis about Democratic candidates trying to appeal to the youth vote via pop culture: ["Pop goes the Democratic candidates"]. It is such a great piece. Here is a great paragraph discussing one of those uncomfortable viewing moments:
"One was Kerry's horrific mangling of simple chords on his electric guitar and how he held the instrument like it was a live grenade. The second was my surprise that the socially liberal Moby decided to choose such a centrist candidate for president. The third – the most relevant reason – was that the concert was another sad attempt to appeal to disillusioned Generation-Y voters."
But let's get back to Clark for a moment. There was another scathing piece posted on counterpunch.org concerning the general's true military service: ["Wesley Clark for President? Another Con Job from the Neo-Cons"]. Some of this was posted in the Guardian.
I am beginning to wonder: With the PATRIOT Act and Operation Garden Plot still on the books, with the backing of the Clintons, DLC, and the same neo-con mentality that currently controls our foreign policy, and the fact that we don't know his positions on much of anything; do we really want a life-long military person in control of the nation?
Recent national polls show him vaulting into the lead. And when you consider everything posted above, it is reasonable to worry. However, since the national polls are irrelevant [note the post below entitled "State of the game, 2004" posted last Sunday, for a more thorough argument on why these polls are meaningless], I am not going to waste your time by posting this data. However, as the state by state polls start coming in, with Clark included in them, it will be interesting to take a look at his campaign’s affect on the race.
