Wesley Clark Lobbied Bush Administration for Contract for Arkansas Firm to Get Security Work

Prnewswire ^ | Sunday January 18, 11:33 am ET

[Brian Mosely]

Press Release

Source: Newsweek

NEWSWEEK: Wesley Clark Lobbied Bush Administration for Contract for Arkansas Firm to Get Security Work

Sunday January 18, 11:33 am ET

Profile Of Dean At Prep School Reveals Independent, Earnest Roots 'He Didn't Suffer Fools,' Says Football Coach

# NEW YORK, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- As an Arkansas businessman, Wesley Clark lobbied Vice President Dick Cheney, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, aides to FBI Director Robert Mueller and his former chief deputy commander in Europe on behalf of a company eager to get post-9/11 security work, Newsweek reports in the current issue. The aim: to get a contract for Acxiom, a Little Rock firm whose "data mining" techniques are useful in tracking terrorists.(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040118/NYSU006 )

The lobbying -- for which Clark was paid about $400,000 -- must have helped: Acxiom got a contract. Everything was aboveboard and disclosed, says Chris Lehane, who does opposition research for Clark. But Clark's eagerness to do a deal was ironic, given his more recent criticism of the Bush administration's handling of security, report Chief Political Correspondent Howard Fineman and Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff in the January 26 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, January 19). And the Howard Dean campaign, furious at weeks of attacks on their own candidate, took the occasion to fire at will. "Clark portrays himself as an outsider when he's really just another Washington insider," says Dean spokesman Jay Carson. "It turns out that this guy was a registered lobbyist long before he was a registered Democrat."

In a separate story about Dean's background, Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Klaidman talk to family members, former schoolmates and teachers about Dean during his prep school days and offer insight into his personality. This week in Iowa and next week in New Hampshire, voters will have to decide whether Dean is reassuringly confident -- or unnervingly cocky. Dean himself is not likely to engage in meaningful self-analysis and he declined to be interviewed for the Newsweek article.

As Newsweek reports, many boys at St. George's prep school snickered or yawned at the do-good exhortations of the school and became investment bankers or lived off their trust funds. Dean, in contrast, was unapologetically earnest-a "straight arrow verging on goody-two-shoes," according to his classmate Jim Torrey. Dean was not much of a quipster. "He didn't suffer fools," says his football coach Chris Corkery. "He was short with people."

Dean was one of five elected senior prefects, charged with looking after the younger boys. The solitariness of single-combat appealed to Dean, says his former wrestling coach Rev. Hays Rockwell. "I think he liked it out there alone, where you can't blame anyone else."

[anniegetyourgun]

"He was short with people."

Hey now, that's just the temperament we all seek in a leader, eh?

[07055]

A leader with his finger on the nuclear button no less....

[expatpat]

"He was short with people."

Yeah, he's pretty short, especially with Kerry, but not so short near Kucinich.

[Carolinamom]

Dean is on now w/Carter at a press conference in Georgia. (CNN)

[FRgal4u]

I am betting this Calrk-Acxiom deal will ultimately doom Clark's campaign. Think about it - he profited from the 9/11 lobby connection, Axciom is into big brother stuff, datamining all our records - with the left and some in the right paranoid about the snooping stuff in the Patriot Act - this axciom thing will grow more serious. It is just another link that Clark is a phony, he is confuse who he really is - a D or a R - did he run because of political opportunism? What does he really believe in anyway? will the real wes Clark please stand up! Do we ever want a President who is confuse, muddle with issues when we are dealing with a situation like the 9/11. Watch the dems to eat Clark alive with this Acxiom thing!