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Ukraine needs heavy weapons and air support. Tanks, multiple-launch rockets, self-propelled artillery, air support — MiGs and Sukhoi aircraft — and mobile air defense. They need hundreds of thousands of 152mm artillery rounds. The US-supplied Javelins and Stingers are necessary but no longer sufficient. Why? Because there is a window of opportunity now — for a week or two perhaps — in which Ukraine can counterattack in the north, south and east to expel Russian forces. This will require mobile armored forces and air power. And if this window is lost, the future is darker and more uncertain. [cut] NO...

It is upsetting when current or former military personnel tear apart the troops in some way. Supporters of the military and those currently serving become incensed when individuals with military backgrounds like Congressman John Murtha, D-PA, Senator John Kerry, D-MA, and General Wesley Clark make anti-military remarks. General Wesley Clark is particularly disturbing. Unlike Murtha and Kerry, Clark was actively involved in directing troop movement with a very high military rank in the recent past. While Democratic supporters boast about his Army background, few mentioned his sour condescending nature toward the military. Clark stuck his foot in his mouth back...

General Wesley Clark speaking at Yearly Kos Convention in Chicago, 2007) General Wesley Clark is not attending the Democratic National Convention. I was told by General Clark's personal office in Little Rock that he would not be attending. Clark was informed by Barack Obama's people that there was no reason to come. General Clark has been given no role of any kind at the convention. Rubbing salt in the wound even more, the "theme" of Wednesday's Democratic convention agenda is "Securing America." Wesley Clark's PAC also happens to be called SECURING AMERICA. This is a mistake in my view. There...

Because the Obama camp has announced the theme for Wednesday night will be "securing America's future," and that the VP nominee will speak on that night, many have openly pondered about the VP being General Wesley Clark. How would Clark rate as the VP nominee? A few days ago, I posted a column on the Obama campaign's choice to thematically tie the Vice Presidential nominee to their Wednesday night agenda on national security and foreign affairs. Obama's people have titled Wednesday night as "Securing America's Future." Coincidentally, or perhaps not, this slogan also happens to be the mantra of WesPac,...

There’s speculation on the US site, VP Watch, this evening that Barack Obama might be considering the former general and 2004 contender for the presidential nomination - Wes Clarke - for the VP slot. This is the report: “Gen. Wes Clark’s slogan — “Securing America’s Future” — is the theme for the night Barack Obama’s running mate is scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention. Clark’s political action committee is called WESPAC — Securing America’s Future. It could just be a coincidence. After all, Clark appeared to dash his hopes of running with Obama in late June when he...

John McCormack catches Wes Clark in a couple of egregious errors on the surge today on Morning Joe. The lesser mistake is Clark’s insistence that the surge didn’t involve Anbar at all, when as McCormack notes the Marines sent two extra battalions to the hotbed of terrorist activity as part of the increased deployment. Worse, though, Clark tries to tell Scarborough that the surge had nothing to do with the Marines, and everything to do with the Saudis paying off the Sunni tribes: This isn’t exactly a lost history. Actually, 4,000 extra Marines went to Anbar. The extra Marine battalions...

He was a fighter pilot in World War II, bombing targets in Europe to stop Hitler. But former Senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern says that didn't qualify him to run the country--and the same goes for GOP presumptive nominee John McCain. ``I don't have any regrets about that,'' the antiwar Democratic stalwart said in a brief interview yesterday on Capitol Hill. ``While bombing is a terrible thing, we smashed Hitler's oil refineries all over Europe.'' ``But I don't recall ever saying that experience as a bomber pilot equipped me to be very strong on how to run...

It looks as if Wesley Clark is waving the white flag -- sort of -- in an attempt to avoid more discussion of his remarks on "Face the Nation" a week ago suggesting that John McCain's military experience didn't at all qualify him to be president. When the former general and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate was criticized for those remarks, he dug in and defended them. Then members of his own party begged him to get off center stage. "On a scale of 1 to 10, Clark's words were a 10 in terms of unhelpfulness," a prominent Democratic consultant told...

With 68 percent of Americans believing George Bush has done a poor job, and 82 percent saying the country is on the wrong track, the election of 2008 will turn on one issue: Barack Obama. If Sen. Obama can convince the people he is "one of us," and not some snooty radical liberal from Chicago's Hyde Park, who looks down upon white America as a fever swamp of racism and reaction, a la the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the senator will be the next president. The election of 2008 thus mirrors the election of 1980. Then, the country wanted Jimmy Carter...

If you’re Barack Obama, and you’re looking for a retired general to make the implausible case that you’re ready to handle America’s national security concerns, you can’t afford to be choosy. So Obama is stuck with Wesley Clark – a man whose public utterances are usually bizarre and often hilarious. Clark stepped in it a week ago on CBS’s Face the Nation when he offered the following scintillating assessment of John McCain’s qualifications: “Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.” Oh, to be sitting with Obama as he...

It all started with Wesley Clark who essentially said that being a war hero did not qualify someone for the Presidency. This is absolutely true. And since Clark was acting as the unpaid, unofficial front man for Barack Obama, the appropriate response would have been that having no experience at all is less of a qualification for becoming President. Of course in the age of the internet, it was inevitable that the Left-wing blogosphere would chime in with comments that were not true and were shameful (if the Left had any shame). And this was picked up by Leonard Pitts,...

On Red-Eye just now Greg Gutfield did his Greg-A-Logue which was actually REALLY good. He compared the left to a crazy ex-girlfriend that Obama is now dumping. He said the left is cutting up Obama's underwear. He also said it's funny that if you're a liberal and want to get elected you have to fun from your beliefs. Then he said Obama was dropping Wesley Clark like a "Bug Infested Potato" Does Clark still work for Fox or did they drop him?

Kosovo war commander and decorated Vietnam vet Wesley Clark was never shot down during war. Maybe that's why the retired general, ex-NATO war leader and former presidential candidate chose this aspect of John McCain's war record to carp about last Sunday, when he said, "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." Yet McCain wasn't just shot down. He also was brutalized and tortured during five years of North Vietnamese captivity, a period during which McCain gallantly refused the early release his captors offered because he was an admiral's son....

Four days after his controversial “Face the Nation” appearance, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark is taking a break from the presidential campaign — but many Democratic insiders think he has already been crossed off the list of Barack Obama’s potential running mates. Sunday morning on CBS News, Clark argued that John McCain’s military experience — and his years as a prisoner of war — in no way qualified him to be president. Following his appearance, one prominent liberal blog, apparently seeing the genie as out of the bottle, launched into a considerably harsher attacks on McCain’s service headlined “Honestly, besides...

Let’s leave aside for a moment General Weasley Clark’s increasingly embarrassing attempts to defend his “Face the Nation” claim that “his hero” John McCain is actually unqualified for the presidency. When asked by a half-dozen interviewers to specify one area in which his candidate, Barack Obama, is actually MORE qualified than McCain, the Weasley One always returns to the same word – “judgment.” Obama’s qualified, in other words, because he displayed better judgment than McCain on the issue of the Iraq War. But there’s an obvious follow-up to this argument that General Clark hasn’t yet faced.. He suggests that “judgment”...

It was perverse -- not to mention tone-deaf and foolish -- for Barack Obama's supporters to pick the week of July Fourth to attack John McCain's military background. The cliche rings true: With political friends like these, Obama doesn't need enemies. First up was retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who told CBS' "Face the Nation" that "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." That was tame compared with a vile posting by the nut-roots liberal Americablog.com headlined "Honestly, besides being tortured, what did McCain do to excel in...

WASHINGTON - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an advisor to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, says being shot down in an airplane doesn't qualify one to be president, a reference to Sen. John McCain's experience in Vietnam. He is absolutely correct. But it also doesn't make him any less qualified. In fact, it gives McCain a perspective on war and its horrors that his opponent, who quickly disavowed Clark's unapologetic comment, certainly doesn't have. And from that standpoint it puts the presumptive Republican nominee even further up on the Oval Office qualifications meter. It is doubtful many voters would...

Retired General Wesley Clark has gotten into hot water for his remarks expressing doubts about John McCain's fitness to lead the nation, despite McCain's Navy service and status as a former prisoner of war. It's a good Clark has 23/6's resident PR expert to defend him: STATEMENT FROM THE WORLD'S WORST PR GUY: Ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you for meeting me at this Captain D's Seafood Kitchen as I elaborate on the comments of my client, Wesley Clark. First off, Gen. Clark's comments were taken wildly out of context. Yes, he said, "I don't think riding in...

The list of people Sen. Barack Obama probably wishes were passive, rather than active, supporters of his bid for the presidency is growing. Already on the list are the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Rev. Michael Pfleger. Obama may be ready to add retired Gen. Wesley Clark. Clark, not a stranger to foot-in-mouth disease, on Sunday took a shot at Sen. John McCain's fitness to be president. Stressing that he views McCain as a hero, Clark said of the Republican candidate for president, "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification for...

Outlook 1. From the standpoint of morale, enthusiasm, and confidence, the presidential election can be called no contest—Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain. The Republican candidate has not used the long period since he clinched the nomination to establish an effective campaign strategy. The level of depression among Republicans outside the McCain inner circle is worsening as Obama inches his way rightward, toward the middle of the road (at least rhetorically). 2. Actually, it still looks like a close race on a state-by-state basis. Despite the enthusiasm gap, this remains a winnable race for McCain in a terrible Republican...