ABOUT FACE [WESLEY CLARK HAS MORE EXPLAINING TO DO]

Time ^ | October 18, 2003 | MICHAEL WEISSKOPF

[RobFromGa]

About Face

Another videotape has emerged in the Wesley K. Clark collection of kind words for the Bush administration.
By MICHAEL WEISSKOPF

From Day One as a Democratic presidential candidate, Wesley K. Clark, the retired general, has had to defend his past praise of the president's national security advisers—some of those compliments coming in a speech Clark gave at a GOP fundraising dinner in Little Rock in May, 2001. At that event, he singled out top officials from Vice President Cheney to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, calling them a "great team" and saying that "we need them there."

Those remarks raised the hackles of Clark's rivals for the party's nomination, veteran Democrats who questioned whether Clark—who says he voted for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan—is a closet Republican who changed political stripes out of opportunism. Clark says at the time of that speech he had quiet doubts about Bush's team, but wanted it to succeed. "I still could have hope in early 2001 that this administration would learn its lessons," he said at a recent Democratic candidate debate in Phoenix, Arizona.

But another Clark speech recorded by videotape suggests that his hope wasn't snuffed out too quickly. Eight months later, even as some administration officials were making the case for war against Iraq, Clark still applauded the U.S. mission in Afghanistan as he addressed a large audience at Harding University, in Searcy, Arkansas. "I tremendously admire, and I think we all should, the great work done by our commander-in-chief, our president, George Bush," he said in the January 22, 2002 speech. The university provided TIME a videotape of his remarks.

Clark's presidential campaign adviser Mark Fabiani said that the former general was simply crediting Bush for the Afghanistan campaign for which "90 percent of Americans would have agreed" at the time. Fabiani said it was the president's Iraq policy, which had not fully flowered by the time of the Harding speech, that was the "turning point" for Clark and launched his political plans.

[RobFromGa]

Wesley is toast.

[Dog]

Oh this is good .....the media is out to get him.

[Dog]

Clark still applauded the U.S. mission in Afghanistan as he addressed a large audience at Harding University, in Searcy, Arkansas. "I tremendously admire, and I think we all should, the great work done by our commander-in-chief, our president, George Bush," he said in the January 22, 2002 speech. The university provided TIME a videotape of his remarks.

Rut Roh!!!!!

[RobFromGa]

The stronger that Dean is, the less likely that Ol' Krusty will ever defile another White House sofa. The Klintoons don't control Nikita and the General was their best hope to derail Dean.

Now HRC either needs to commit soon and get in the race for 2004 or Dean is going to claim the prize and hold on like a dog with a bone. What is the cutoff date for Dem primaries?

[Dog]

Let me research that ....

[RobFromGa]

I posted this in Breaking, I guess the moderators don't think this is a big deal, not even knocked down to Front Page News.

And somehow Political Humor/Cartoons got added as a Topic.

[CyberAnt]

Hillary must really have some dirt on this guy .. whatever it is, it needs to be exposed.

[Peach]

Clark - another major Flipper. Between he and Dean, the Rats just can't seem to take a position on any one thing and stick with it.

[Dog]

Drudge has it now..

[ex-snook]

"The Klintoons don't control Nikita and the General was their best hope to derail Dean. "

Sounds right to me. Clark sounds like a Grade-A phony.

[Dog]

Miss Marple has theory Dean is going to throw a major tantrum at a debate.......he looks like he is wound up real tight...

[jocon307]

"Wesley is toast."

Yeppers.

[Mo1]

. "I tremendously admire, and I think we all should, the great work done by our commander-in-chief, our president, George Bush,"

Ok .. now why are they going out of their way to take down the Clinton's pick for Pres or Vice Pres??

[Dog]

This is a Texas Death Match......winner of this match controls the MONEY.

I suppose Dean has a few friends in the media who are helping him with these stories..

[Miss Marple]

Yes, I do think he will lose it. He almost did so last week at Princeton, talking to a bunch of university students. (I bet he is a real authoritarian father, too, judging from his response to a student.) However, note this quote:

. The university provided TIME a videotape of his remarks.

Now why would the university do that? Well, where are the highest concentrations of Dean supporters? UNIVERSITIES!!

I will bet you 10 bucks that any college or university where Clark spoke (with the exception of the service academies) is on the hunt for a speech by him, and for that matter I bet they are looking for speeches by all of the Rat candidates. Dean probably is offering a bonus for anyone who can find one with juicy sound bites. Impoverished students are combing all archives to see what they can find. HILARIOUS!

Dean is going to kill his own nomination with that arrogant, mean behavior though. My daughter, who isn't that much into politics, HATES him and is horrified he is even running! HA!

[Mo1]

I will bet you 10 bucks that any college or university where Clark spoke (with the exception of the service academies) is on the hunt for a speech by him, and for that matter I bet they are looking for speeches by all of the Rat candidates. Dean probably is offering a bonus for anyone who can find one with juicy sound bites. Impoverished students are combing all archives to see what they can find. HILARIOUS!

I'll bet you are 100% correct ..

[Cold Heat]

People like Clark who play these games should always get caught.

Unfortunately, the Clintons pulled similar stuff and the media gave them a pass.

I am not so sure they have the power that people credit them with. It appears that Clark has little or no protection.

I wonder who his sugar daddy was when he was in the military?

[RobFromGa]

Dean probably is offering a bonus for anyone who can find one with juicy sound bites.

Sounds right to me, Miss Marple. I love to watch the 'Rat party eat its own.

I just hope that in the 2008 election cycle, the GOP primary is a slam dunk. With Cheney on the ticket in 2004 and not running in '08 it could get a bit heated. We'll see..

[jos65]

You beat me to it.

My sentiments exactly.

[RobFromGa]

From the Harding University archives here

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Gen. Wesley Clark tells audience
to look beyond borders in war on terrorism

Searcy, Ark. - Gen. Wesley Clark told a Harding University audience Tuesday night that beating Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network is only part of the battle.

"The question isn't will we win," he said. "We will beat al-Qaida. The question is much deeper - will we deal with the larger issues that have spawned the issue of terrorism."

While Clark said some people trace the roots of this brand of terrorism as far back as Mohammad, others look at the Zionist movement, and still others look at the Cold War, he said those are all just factors. The real cause, he said, was in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell.

"When the U.S. lost its adversary, we lost our strategy in the world," he said. "For two generations we knew that the real purpose of America in the world was to contain the expansion of Soviet communism."

By the early 1990s, he said, the U.S. found itself struggling for resources for Gulf Storm - the size of U.S. armed forces had been significantly reduced - but more fundamentally, the U.S. was struggling for a global strategy.

"What we didn't understand was that the very power of global communications and commerce that had made us so great made us vulnerable in a way we had never before experienced."

Clark said the U.S. first saw this clearly when the U.S.S. Cole was attacked in Yemen in October 2000. "We began to realize that our very security was at stake."

He said there are three principle tasks that remain: dismantling the al-Qaida network, being sensitive to Muslims, and tending to other problems beyond our borders. "We must finish the job against al-Qaida, but we can't win it with just our military forces," he said. "We've also got to understand that al-Qaida represents a part of Islam at war with another part of Islam.

"This is a new era," Clark emphasized. "It will take a new America that reaches out not only at home, but abroad. The United States has to stay engaged with the majority of people who are beyond our borders."

Clark, a Little Rock, Ark., native and a military analyst for CNN, was at Harding University's Benson Auditorium as part of the American Studies Institute Distinguished Lecture Series.

Currently associated with Stephens Group Inc., Clark works as managing director for Merchant Banking and is a noted speaker on high technology, strategic leadership, and foreign and military policy.

As the supreme allied commander in Europe from 1997 to 2000, he was responsible for the overall command of NATO's military forces in Europe, protecting an area extending from the northern tip of Norway to the eastern border of Turkey. Clark led NATO's first major combat action, the largest air operation in Europe since World War II, in response to the Kosovo crisis.

His book, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat, was released in July 2001. Clark has confirmed he has an interest in seeking public office, and his name has been mentioned a number of times as a possible candidate for governor or senator.