The Hollow Clark Boomlet

Town Hall ^ | September 15, 2003 | Rich Lowry

[Credo]

The hollow Clark boomlet
Rich Lowry (archive)

September 15, 2003 | Print | Send

Call him "General Chutzpah." Former Gen. Wesley Clark, perhaps soon-to-be a Democratic presidential candidate, is riding high on his prescience about the difficulties of the current Iraq war. But he utterly lacked prescience about his own war, in Kosovo in 1999. It is just one reason why -- as a political commodity -- there is probably less than meets the eye to the telegenic general.

Back then, Clark was the NATO supreme commander and confident that the threat of bombing would make Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic buckle and relinquish plans to cleanse the Serb province of Kosovo of its Albanians. If Clark had been a TV pundit during the Kosovo war -- which he became afterward -- he would no doubt have subjected his own handiwork to his earnest, know-it-all tsk-tsking.

President Clinton believed, like Clark, that Milosevic would back down immediately. So, he began a limp NATO bombing campaign, and when that didn't work, he had nothing to fall back on except more of a limp NATO bombing campaign. Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon write in their account of the war, "Winning Ugly": "NATO did not expect a long war. Worse, it did not even prepare for the possibility."

To Clark's credit, he pushed for ground troops, but that was a nonstarter, because no one in Washington thought it worth the risk in a war that had little connection to the American national interest. Clark has criticized Iraq as a "war of choice." But Kosovo was even more so, conceived as a splendid little humanitarian war that would infuse NATO with new life. No one even bothered to try to argue that Milosevic constituted an "imminent threat" to the United States -- Clark's standard for the Iraq war.

Things turned out OK, of course. But 1 million refugees later, and only because one of Clark's subordinates, Gen. Michael C. Short, did an end run around him to institute an aggressive bombing campaign against Belgrade. Andrew Bacevich writes in "American Empire": "Clark found his control over ongoing operations eroding. Rather than the theater commander, he became hardly more than a kibitzer." The military brass blamed Clark for helping drag the United States into a near-fiasco, and he was effectively fired at the conclusion of the war.

Thus, the beginning of Clark's TV career. Clark backers with visions of Ike dancing in their heads should realize that Clark isn't famous as a heroic war general so much as he is as a smooth TV pundit. Clark has other limits. Although his biography is impressive, he has no obvious appeal to any Democratic constituency, not the unions, the minorities, the feminists or the doves (owned by Howard Dean).

Then there is Clark's personality, which turned off many of his Army colleagues who considered him arrogant and self-involved. Reviewing Clark's memoir in the online magazine Slate, Deborah Dickerson notes its "feigned artlessness, self-congratulation, stolen credit, wild contortions of ass-covering, and Amen-corner banalities tossed off like gems of Talmudic brilliance."

Most importantly, Clark's foreign-policy thinking is bunk. He is a former general who mindlessly wants to fight his last war. He has criticized Bush for losing international support by not fighting the war in Afghanistan through NATO and not indicting Osama bin Laden as a war criminal - presumably because we fought Kosovo through NATO and indicted Milosevic. But no one has seriously questioned the legitimacy of the Afghan war or our pursuit of the unindicted bin Laden.

Clark, like other Democrats, has scored Bush for not working through the United Nations in the Iraq war. But sometimes the United Nations just isn't willing to go along, and the United States must act anyway. Clark should know. When it seemed the U.N. Security Council wouldn't endorse the Kosovo war because of Russia's opposition, the Clinton administration bypassed the United Nations.

Clark apparently has a selective memory. And that happens to be the one quality that the Democratic field - with several candidates running away from their pro-war, pro-USA Patriot Act votes - already has in ample supply.

[Credo]

It will be interesting if the Democrats run this guy as a "War Hero" for veep or the big prize.

[NetValue]

Gen. Clark shopuld sit down and be quiet. He has a lot to be humble about.

[Peach]

This dance he's done over whether to run or not shows he is not a man to seriously consider for dog catcher, let alone the presidency.

He'll appeal to a bloc of Rat voters because he looks good and says a lot without saying anything of substance - much like Dean.

[Moby Grape]

If this guy runs, I would hope that the good guys run ads with EXACT quote after quote from this ass as he sat on his butt predicting disaster before we took Iraq.....then end the ad with the words..."He was so wrong about so much...do you REALLY want this guy to be Commander-in-Chief?"

[RJayneJ]

I recall him being on with another military adviser and I believe it was MSNBC. The wee hours in the morning he was predicting impending doom. The war had been going for several weeks and the troops were approaching Baghdad, but for the life of me I can't remember what he was predicting. I just know that he was 100% wrong and was proven wrong over the following two or three days. I recall commenting to my husband at the time that his prognosticating was the opposite of that of the FOX military expert. Maybe someone can fill in the blanks, but I know he was full of it... and himself.

[alloysteel]

Threats work. But only if the person or entity against the threats are directed respond to the threat. For some of us, threat alone is not enough, we need a sure promise that some stated course of action WILL be carried out if certain situations prevail.

Weasely Clark as a Presidential candidate is a threat, but by no means a promise at this point. He is a long way back in the field, not even sure of the numbers that Al Sharpton or Carole Moseley-Braun are getting.

Now Howard Brush Dean III, child of privilege, Birkenstock doc, and beneficiary of $3.8 million in trust funds, investments and financial instruments, is a more credible threat, but still no definite promise either.

[RJayneJ]

Your remarks are similar to mine. I wish I could remember what he said and in reference to what...

[RJayneJ]

With all the to-ing and fro-ing about running you can hardly call him a decisive leader.

[RJayneJ]

[Poohbah]

If Wesley Clark announces, a sizable minority of the voting public will say, "Wasn't he the bratty kid from Star Trek: The Next Generation?"

[military cop]

Wes Clark is an a-hole.

He was the CG at Ft. Irwin in the early 90's and was notorious for demanding that subordinates salute his car as his wife drove it to and from the Post Exchange.

He's a self-absorbed, non-leading, politically motivated (from way, WAY back)P.O.S.

I wouldn't follow him out of sheer curiousity.

[prairiebreeze]

The article brings out good points but leaves out the primary reason that Clark is UNFIT must never be elected to any position of authority. He nearly started WWIII and only by the grace of clear thinking, level-headed Generals who served under him and REFUSED to obey Clark's direct orders to bomb Russian soldiers was a major international incident avoided. He's incompetent.

Read about it here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/981521/posts

And spread the word about Clark! Many people don't know about this.

Prairie

[RJayneJ]

I can't understand why the guy can't make a decision. This every other day showing a little ankle, and then backing off again makes him appear more like a teenaged girl. What's he waiting for? A thunderbolt?

[Credo]

I wouldn't call Clark a Barracks Commando for the simple reason he holds the Silver Star. His actions in the 1990's strike me as one though. He is definitely one that was Peter Principle'd to his 4 star rank. Presidential politics is way out of his league.

I've heard Rush and others describe Dean as a ticking time bomb ready to go off. Kind of like Perot. Clark strikes me that way too. Can you imagine this pair on the same national ticket?

The funniest Rush parody was someone doing a Perot voice singing "They're coming to take me away aha" Clark and Dean strike me as fitting this to a tee.