Posted on 11/29/2007 9:23:03 AM PST by Kaslin
Hillary Clinton has been working closely with decorated anti-war retired Gen. Wesley Clark on foreign policy, fueling rumors he could be vice-president on a “Clinton-Clark” ticket in 2008.
In recent months Clark has joined Clinton several times on the campaign trail, has been publishing a number of profile-raising editorials, and is making a substantial effort to keep his slick PAC website updated with his media schedule. He also promotes email campaigns that solicit names and contact information, as he did in his recent push to remove Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Radio.
Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize President Bush to use force in Iraq has haunted her, but having a former military general as a running mate could boost her foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail. In 1999, Clark led efforts to remove Slobodan Milosevic during the Kosovo War as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war.
Clark also has presidential campaign experience, as he unsuccessfully ran for president in 2004. Like Clinton’s husband Bill, Clark is also originally from Arkansas, which could help Clinton’s standing in southern states.
Independent of his work with Clinton, Clark is positioning himself as an authority who could stave off a future war with Iran planned by President Bush. Two weeks before he endorsed Clinton for president, Clark released his memoir “Time to Lead” in which he claims a “senior general” told him after 9/11 that the Bush administration planned to bring regime change in seven Middle Eastern countries, which include Iraq and Iran, by 2006. The other five countries allegedly included in this plan were Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Iran.
So, are the rumors true? Is Clark preparing to jump on a 2008 ticket with Clinton?
Here’s a look at how they’ve been working together over the past few months.
September 4: Releases his memoir “A Time to Lead” that claims the Bush Administration plotted regime change in seven Middle Eastern countries after 9/11.
September 9: Writes in The Independent that the “The US should take a lead in talking to Iran – now.” This is a position he modifies later after Clinton rules out negotiations with Iran in a televised Democratic debate.
September 16: Formally endorses Clinton for president.
September 16: Defends Clinton on CNN when Wolf Blitzer asks if she was right to say in a televised Democratic presidential debate that she would not engage in talks with Iran.
Clark says, “Senator Clinton is exactly right. You don't go to these summit meetings at the head of state level without knowing what's going to happen there. You always have some deliverables when you have a meeting like that. You don't run out as president of the United States and start shaking hands with people and say, “Gee, what can we talk about?’ These things are worked intensively behind the scenes because each one of these meetings carries consequences. And you want to make sure you get the right consequences.”
September 16: Publishes an op-ed in the Washington Post titled “The Next War” that suggests the U.S. will take military action against Iran.
September 18: Holds a conference call with liberal blogs like MyDD and TalkLeft.
September 19: Attends a New York town hall fundraising event with Clinton
September 19: Appears on the Daily Show with John Stewart
September 20: Appears with Clinton at a New York fundraiser
September 27: Launches an email campaign to get conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s program removed from Armed Forces Radio through his “Help Democrats” website.
On October 12 Paul Greenburg, editorial director of the Clark’s home state’s Arkansas Democrat*Gazette, calls this effort “sad.”
October 14: Publishes an op-ed in the influential New Hampshire Union Leader titled “Clinton's approach deters a rush to war” that defends Clinton’s vote in favor of a non-binding resolution sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R.-Ariz.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I.-Conn.) to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization.
October 15-16: Campaigns with Clinton in Iowa.
Mid-October: Clinton sends a mailer to Iowa activists in which Clark defends her vote to authorize Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
October 16: Delivers a lecture at the University of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service and the Arkansas Committee on Foreign Relations.
October 26: Appears on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Mahr”
October 30: Blogs at Daily Kos and defends Clinton’s vote to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as foreign terrorist organization, but says the U.S. should also talk to Iran. Clark wrote, “Use sanctions against their terrorist elements as a way of underscoring our purpose, but talk, and talk without pre-conditions to explore their interests, understand their motives, and seek some common interests.”
October 31: The New York Observer reported Clark fires up the crowd for Clinton at the MSNBC debate. Journalist Jason Horowitz’s article says: “In front of the dozens of Hillary volunteers, Wesley Clark stood on top of a short white stepstool in a dark suit yelling into a bullhorn. ‘And she’s got a secret weapon,’ said the retired general and Clinton supporter. ‘Hillary is a great person. She’s warm. I like her. Don’t you like her?”
October 31: Campaigns with Clinton in New Hampshire.
November 8: Finishes his three-part series in Fortune magazine about the “nature of power.”
November 15: Writes an op-ed for the Financial Times urging Turkey not to invade Iraqi Kurdistan.
November 19: Makes a “surprise” appearance with Clinton at an unscheduled campaign stop at a diner in Des Moines, Iowa. They both ordered fruit bowls. Later that day a writer on the liberal MyDD.com declares Clinton-Clark would be his “dream ticket.
He is a Left wing nut who was a Rhodes scholar, Army General, and PH winner, not to mention a Clinton suck up. For the Dems, it is all about resume not performance. Remember Strobe Talbot?
Waco Wes? It would be fitting, in a way.
The stupid leading the blind.
Agreed. I predict Evan Bayh. He'd deliver the consistently red state of IN and probably get the bleed-over into Ohio and Kentucky. His success at talking the conservative role while advancing liberal agenda is precisely what Hillary covets. He comes across reasoned, genial, great family man, etc.
Wesley Clark may be preening for the job, but, imho, the pact is already in place. Bayh had just thrown his hat in the presidential ring when he abruptly withdrew after only about a week--coincidentally, right after his return from some overseas junket with Hillary.
First, where is he living now?
Second, why couldn't he just pull a Cheney?
Third, I really think she believes she is going to roll in with a landslide, and she'll probably look at Reagan and Bush 43 and say to herself, "They didn't need it, so I don't either."
But yeah...I think she'll pick Richardson.
She supports the left
But she’s leaning to the right
Bill get’s the nod. How lucky could a poor boy be?
Very quite in Virginia lately, you may be right.
Confirmed. The only way he'll be a contender for VP is if he gets blown out of the water in the early states, and I can't seee a scenario that makes him a train wreck in the early primaries but leaves him strong enough to be a viable running mate.
Part of me thinks it's Bayh or Warner for sure, but another part thinks it's Richardson because he'll be easily controlled and easily pushed aside for the real VP, Bubba.
It is going to be a lot of fun watching the GOP nominee bring up statements by Her Heinous or Barack “The Dumbest 46 Year Old Man on Earth” Obama saying the surge couldn’t possibly work, and then saying “This twit wants to be commander-in-chief.” It will only be worse if Clark is the VP candidate...same with Richardson, who wants to pull out on Inauguration Day. Even if Her heinous or Barry pick a Dem with a relatively sane position on the war (such as Biden) the embarassing questions will just be something like this: “How do you feel, Senator, about Senator Dipstick’s failure to see the surge as a workable strategy even after it was working? Is he or she really qualified to run this war?”
I asked his harassed-looking aid if he always treated Lieutenant Colonels and Civilians that way and the aid sincerely apologized and implied that Clark never felt adequate unless he could humiliate someone, anyone.
Clark is short, with a short man's complex. He might be very intelligent, but he is short on common sense and totally ego-centric.
Double poof ticket.
Hillary is queer.
I’m not sure if it’s so much that Hillary is lesbian as that Hillary loves herself. She’s like Bill that way.
General Wesley Clark — who provided Reno’s troops with the armor and weapons to assault and massacre the Branch Davidians.
Wesley Clark’s career in the U.S. military was solid but not stellar. It included a variety of backwater assignments as well as one high point, White House Fellow 1975-76.
But an unexpected bolt from the blue suddenly ignited Clark’s life, turning mediocrity into a skyrocket ride that could yet land him in the Oval Office. He was named Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, III Corps, at sweltering Fort Hood southwest of Waco, Texas.
On a late winter day in 1993, Texas Governor Ann Richards suddenly called the base, later meeting with Clark’s Number Two to discuss an urgent matter. Crazies at a Waco compound had killed Federal agents. If newly-sworn-in President Bill Clinton signed a waiver setting aside the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits the military from using its arms against American citizens within our borders, could Fort Hood supply tanks and other equipment?
Clinton did. Wesley Clark’s command at Fort Hood “lent” 17 pieces of armor and 15 active service personnel under his command to the Waco Branch Davidian operation. It is absolute fact that the military equipment used by the government at Waco came from Fort Hood and Clark’s command.
The only issue debated by experts is whether Clark was at Waco in person to help direct the assault against the church compound in a scene remarkably similar to the incineration of villagers in a church by the British in Mel Gibson’s movie “The Patriot.”
What happened at Waco was the death, mostly by fire, of at least 82 men, women and children, including two babies who died after being “fire aborted” from the dying bodies of their pregnant mothers.
Planning for this final assault involved a meeting between Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno and two military officers who developed the tactical plan used but who have never been identified.
Some evidence and analysis suggests that Wesley Clark was one of these two who devised what happened at Waco.
As Leftist journalists Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair noted, the ruthless tactics and attitude on display at Waco are strikingly similar to those Clark has used on other battlefields in his career.
Odd, isn’t it, that the Leftist establishment press has told you nothing about the connection between General Wesley Clark and Waco – or what happened to him immediately after the service he rendered the Clintons at Waco?
Immediately after Waco, Wesley Clark’s flat career began an incredible meteoric rise.
In April 1994 he was promoted to Director of Strategic Plans and Policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In June 1996 Clark was named Commander in Chief of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama and put in charge of most U.S. forces in all of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In June 1997 President Clinton appointed him Commander in Chief of the United States European Command and SACEUR, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, in command of the forces of NATO, a position Clark would hold until May 2000.
As SACEUR General Wesley Clark would collect a truckload of honors. He would also prosecute Clinton’s war siding with Muslim Kosovars against Serbian Christians in the Balkans.
This war was largely fought from high altitude aircraft to minimize American casualties, an approach that increased civilian casualties on the ground. Clark soon acquired a reputation as someone who lied about such casualties, lies reported even by Time Magazine.
Democrats who support Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich for their anti-war stance should know that when Russians landed and took over one provincial airport in the region, General Clark commanded British forces to attack the Russians. British General Sir Mike Jackson reportedly refused, saying: “I’m not going to start the Third World War for you!”
Would peacenik Democrats really want General Wesley Clark, with a reputation for brutal and erratic behavior, one of those behind the events at Waco, to be only a heartbeat away from having his finger on the nuclear button? If he were Vice President, how safe would a liberal President be from attacks by fanatic former combat veterans? Can you take the risk of electing General Clark as your Vice President?
AMENDMENT XXII
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,...
You are right on this. I always thought he was a tall, imposing figure like the media seem to make him out to be. I never realized this until I saw him at the Peabody in Little Rock about a year ago. He has to be 5'7" or less, but the way he controls the people around him (making people in the bar move so he can sit where he wants for example) screams Napoleon complex.
Bumparoo.
The 22nd doesn’t prohibit Bill from being either VP or President. He could even be appointed to VP — like Ford was and become President in case Hillary was impeached and then resigned or was removed. Bill as VP would be the perfect “poison pill” to prevent any impeachment of Hillary.
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