Gen. Wesley Clark’s late-starting presidential campaign shifted into second gear last week with a stop at the Citadel, where he questioned the Bush administration’s Iraq policy and laid claim to being the Democrats’ peace candidate.
But the retired NATO supreme commander did little to dispel suspicion that his run for the White House is being stage-managed by former President Bill Clinton for the benefit of his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), both of whom deny it.
“Force is best used as a last resort,” Clark told an audience of some 250 cadets at the South Carolina military college, “and never because it just feels right.”
As it turns out, Clark was not asked to speak by Citadel officials, who charged his campaign $650 for the use of a parade field. [I was wondering about that!] The invitation came from Philip Lader, a visiting professor of government, who served as Clinton’s envoy to Great Britain. Lader, who founded Renaissance Weekends, the high-level self-awareness getaways where he met the Clintons, was once dubbed “ambassador touchy feely.”
Clark’s new spokeswoman, Mary Jacoby, former Washington correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times, also has close ties to the Clintons. Her father, Jon Jacoby, is executive vice president of Stephens Inc., the Clinton-connected Little Rock investment bank where Clark was employed after leaving the military. Jacoby has never worked on a political campaign before, but she once had a job as a file clerk at the Rose Law Firm, where Hillary Clinton was a partner. [At least she's well qualified, at least by Clinton standards] The Hill
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Another tidbit from The Hill (from the "With friends like these ..." file):
Javier Betancourt, onetime deputy press secretary for Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) embarrassed the Democratic presidential candidate several weeks ago by writing in a mass e-mail that Graham not only “lacked the charisma” to be chief executive, he doesn’t even want the job. “I know in my heart that Graham is really aiming for the VP slot (or rather, his wife is), so all he needs is an invitation,” wrote Betancourt, who suggested that Graham and ex-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) would make the perfect “Bush-beating machine.”