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Clark to the Fore

Well, it's taken him two whole days but General Wesley Clark has already become the Democratic frontrunner, according to a new NEWSWEEK poll. Clark was supported by 14 percent of registered Democrats and democratic leaners, followed by Howard Dean (12 percent), Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (12 percent), Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (10 percent) and Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt (8 percent).

What does this rather remarkable finding tell us? Most obviously, it tells us that--with the possible exception of Dean--those other folks have been wasting their time and ours for the past eight or nine months. Most Democratic voters simply are not crazy about any of them--and with good reason since they are either a) totally unelectable or b) sided with Shrub on the war and taxes.

My take on General (always, always General) Clark's waffle on how he would have voted on the war is that it won't hurt him any. Later in the campaign, it might have, but not on day two. Plus, it lets DLC Democrats and independents who supported the invasion of Iraq with reservations think that he's really one of them. And, hell, he might be.

The most revealing part of the poll is this:

When registered voters were asked who they would vote for if a general election if President George W. Bush was pitted against Clark, Kerry or Dean, none of the candidates were able to beat the incumbent, although Clark fared better than the others, polling at 43 percent to Bush’s 47 percent. Kerry was next, polling at 43 percent to Bush’s 48 percent. Dean fared worst, with Bush beating him by a full 14 points (52 percent to 38 percent).

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:35 PM

Friday, September 19, 2003

Of Trees and Men and Hurricanes

When my family moved to our place on a point at the head of Patrick's Creek, in York County, Virginia, there were three giant oak trees on the point. My most vivid childhood memories include being kept in the room at the back of the house, furthest away from those trees, as Hurricanes Hazel, Diane and Connie knocked them down--one every two years, just right it seemed for keeping us in wood for the fireplace. Only one fell toward the house, across the space that is now the garage, with one large branch smashing in the kitchen door.

It was, then, with particular interest that I read this Washington Post story. Check it out.

posted by John 11:54 PM

Oh, My God

Among the reactions to Isabel found in the Daily Press , the local paper in Hampton Roads, where my folks live in York County.

-------------

Even the blue skies that accompanied Friday's cleanup brought little relief to Bob Dorrman, who stripped the torn vinyl off his home and tried to restart two flooded cars in Harlowe.

"Look at it, it's like God apologizing," he said, squinting in the sunshine. "Well, too late, dude."

posted by John 11:26 PM

General Clark and the DLC “battle plan”

The Democratic Leadership Council has come up with a five point battle plan that they think will produce a winner in the 2004 presidential race:

1. Strong on national security
2. Attack the Bush record
3. Tell the American voter: “we will do better.”
4. Work for party unity now, not after the convention
5. Let hunger for a better president override anger toward this one

Clark supporters seem to think the general is more in sync with the DLC “battle plan” than the other candidates. But developing positions on key issues takes time, a precious commodity for General Clark. Clark’s strong national security background can’t offset the economy, education, social security and medicare, all of which require more than the technocrat’s touch. Debate-dodging a la Schwarzenegger won’t work either.

The worst-case scenario would find General Clark getting the job done right in Iraq while defaulting to the DLC “Bush lite” domestic agenda destined to mess with what’s left of our American social net. Remember, it was another general from Little Rock, Douglas McArthur, who turned his guns on the “bonus army” that came to Washington to get what Uncle Sam owed them for serving and winning World War I.

posted by Groom 4:40 PM

Kicking Ass

The DNC has a new blog called Kicking Ass. That fact that it's called Kicking Ass is a tribute, I think, to the spirit of the Internet which has re-energized the Democratic Party (remember the 2002 Last Tango strategy--roll over and pass the butter) and to Howard Dean, who had the courage to say the right things before they were popular and the foresight to tap into the Web community before everyone else recognized what a powerful political force it could be. Check it out and, if you feel like it, tell them to add us to their list of sympatico bloggers. We write circles around the usual suspects they have listed.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:11 PM

Things We've Always Suspected About California

"My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth, and we have people from every planet on the earth in this state. We have the sons and daughters of every, of people from every planet, of every country on earth." California Governor Gray Davis

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:04 AM

Clark and the Clintons

Over the next few weeks you can expect to see a lot of spin from the attack gerbils about how General Clark is a sock puppet of the Clintons, how he scaled the Army ranks with a little help from his fellow Arkansas native and Rhodes Scholar buddy—Slick Willie—and how he was fired from NATO, his last command, for being either a) too difficult or b) incompetent. (The fact that his sacking came on the ultimate authority of Bill Clinton will not deter Socratic scholars like Ann Coulter from making all of the arguments simultaneously).

The New York Times today has a front page article that provides reasonable and straightforward answers to all of the charges. Clark knew the Clintons only casually back in Arkansas; unlike Tommy Franks and Laura Bush, they didn’t go to school together; Clinton was in no position to help Clark’s career, at least not until near the end of it; Clinton did approve his firing as commander of NATO but he was tricked into doing so by Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who didn’t like the General’s flair for publicity, and a group of rival generals who told Clinton that that General Clark's regular tour of duty as NATO supreme allied commander was up and that they had to find a spot for Joe Ralston, a popular Air Force general and Cohen’s right-hand man.

I hear the rightwingers screaming already—who says so? General Clark? Bill Clinton? We know what a liar he is. Actually, the source is David Halberstam, who wrote in his 2001 book, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals: "Clinton signed on, apparently not realizing that he had been snookered.” He added that Samuel Berger, Mr. Clinton's national security adviser, had told General Clark that the Pentagon had fooled the White House.

Now, David Halberstam takes himself far too seriously and may well be the most boring writer alive but his credibility is unimpeachable. Let's see how they spin this one.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:51 AM

Sloppy

American soldiers in northern Iraq mistakenly fired on a car carrying the Italian official heading up U.S. efforts to recover Iraq's looted antiquities, killing the man's Iraqi interpreter, an official said Friday in Rome. AP, September 19, 2003

Iraqi policemen. 14-year-old kids out to buy cigarettes. Italian diplomats. You have to wonder if the strain isn't getting to our troops, leading to a breakdown in discipline.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:10 AM

The Education of Shrub Bush

John Walcott of Knight Ridder Newspapers has an interesting piece this morning suggesting that Shrub has finally begun to challenge the hard-line policies of Lords Cheney and Rumsfeld. Nothing like shrinking poll numbers to concentrate the thinking of politicians.

Specifically, Walcott quotes “senior administration officials” as saying the president has begun to retreat from some of the administration's controversial allegations about Iraq and to consider sharing power with the United Nations in postwar Baghdad.

"The course we were on - insisting that we must prevail in Iraq and that Congress and the allies must give us whatever we ask for - wasn't sustainable," one such official is quoted as saying. "The allies have made it clear that they won't pay to dance to whatever tune that we call. The Congress is alarmed by what Iraq is costing and fed up with officials who go up to (Capitol) Hill to give orders instead of consulting and answering questions. When you think about it, the Congress and the French have about the same reaction to our Iraq policy: 'You didn't ask us, so why should we pay?'

Walcott reports that Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, is concerned about new polls that suggest sinking support for the president's handling of Iraq, as well as a potential schism between traditional Republican conservatives wary of spending huge sums in Iraq and neoconservatives who want to remake not only Iraq but also Iran, Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. Even some of Bush's strong support from military families appears to be ebbing, one official said, as overseas tours are extended and casualties mount.

Faced with the further embarrassment when David Kay’s report on Iraqi WMDs is released in a week or two, it looks like Shrub is finally coming down with a dose of that famous “humility” he used to brag about.

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:00 AM

Reshuffling the Deck

USA Today reports that Wesley Clark advisor Mark Fabiani has confirmed that Kym Spell, former New Hampshire press secretary for John Kerry, is joining the Clark press office in Arkansas. Kerry’s campaign manager Jim Jordan said Spell, who quit the Kerry campaign this week, denied she was going to work for Clark but was nonetheless given five minutes to clean out her office. Spell, who was deputy communications director for Gore's 2000 campaign, could not be reached for comment. Spell's departure comes one week after Kerry communications director Chris Lehane resigned. Lehane is Fabiani's longtime business associate, but said he is focused on his consulting business in California. And if a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his ass so much.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:06 AM

Thursday, September 18, 2003

Yesterdays

Today’s New York Times brought the sad news that La Côte Basque, one of the last of the great old romantic New York restaurants will close next Valentine’s Day—after 45 years of catering to people whose notions of sophisticated Manhattan were shaped by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and never got over it. I have not been there in years for reasons too complicated to go into but let me say that if you’ve never had chef Jean-Jacques Rachou’s Dover Sole with an emulsion of mustard and hollandaise, washed down by a chilled bottle of Puligny Montrachet, in the company of a long cool woman in a black dress then you have not properly lived.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:28 PM

Bye-bye American pie

It’s appropriate that one day after Richard Grasso is forced out at the NYSE the folks over at AOL Time Warner announce that they are dropping AOL from their name.

If anybody got off easy during the Grasso era, it was AOL Time Warner: the merger that was hyped to heaven and wound up in hell. Due in large part to problems with the online service, the company last year posted the biggest write-down known to corporate America. Never mind the window dressing accounting procedures and the inflated membership numbers in an effort to boost investor confidence. They got a nod-and-a-wink from Grasso's crew, and from the Feds.

At the git-go, AOL’s online service offered people an opportunity to go online (not directly onto the internet, mind you) creating the illusion of demystifying the high-tech cyber world with a few points and clicks. Just what a lazy, post-industrial, bread and circuses society needed. Like the bait-and-switch on Iraq, nobody bothered to look under the hood until it was too late.

Sign away your privacy rights for a better online experience… no problemo. Daughter Susie created three new accounts and joined a $69/month shopping club by clicking on some pop-ups… that’s not our problem. Parental controls that can be defeated by a fourth grader… here’s three free months of AOL to shut you up.

Like Dick Vitale says, it’s all about choice, baby.

posted by Groom 4:13 PM

Rapping on Wes

It didn't take long for the Mighty Wurlitzer to get the rap out on Wesley Clark. He's ambitious, insensitive to subordinates, strong-willed, disliked by many of the good old boy officers who served with him (and were rivals for the same appointments). He doesn't listen to advice and is sometimes dangerously impulsive. As proof they offer the 1999 incident when Russian troops, in defiance of NATO, rushed to occupy the airport at Pristina in Kosovo. A British general, with the unlikely name of Michael Jackson, disobeyed Clark's order--cleared with NATO higher ups--to block the runway of the airport to keep more Russian troops from arriving, supposedly declaring "I'm not going to start World War III for you." At the time, some wingnuts applauded Clark's "steely resolve," bemoaned Bill Clinton's misguided attempt at international military cooperation and grumbled that Clark should have had General Jackson shot at sunrise. Now, of course, they see the incident as a sign of his intemperance.

Beyond that, the General is high-minded and high-handed and, most damming of all, he is friends with the Clintons.

Well, folks, I have a flash for you. In American celebrity-hood, it doesn't matter much what you are like "in real life." What counts is how you come across on television. Bill Clinton is an insufferable gas bag. Shrub Bush is an arrogant prick. It doesn't matter--the people who like them really believe that Clinton "feels their pain" and that Shrub actually enjoys reading oversized books to kids.

All Wes Clark has to do to win is to come across on TV as a moderate--sensible, level-headed, tough on security but compassionate. So far, he's done kindly uncle Wes pretty well. As Groucho Marx used to say: "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:53 AM

Saudis seek WMD capability

Thanks to lax security we let them destroy the World Trade Center. Will we let them get the bomb? The Guardian reports on Riyadh’s efforts to move out from under the US nuclear umbrella.

posted by Groom 9:36 AM

Clark's Timing Is Seen as a Handicap
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 Gen. Wesley K. Clark will be seriously handicapped in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination because of his late start, many political strategists in both parties and students of elections said today.

See the rest of the story at The New York Times

posted by John 4:00 AM

Clark's In, The Knives Are Out

Talk about a nasty. Big slash at Clark with a swipe at Dean along the way. Who is this SOB?

posted by John 3:37 AM

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Get Me Rove, Sweetheart

You would think the wingnuts could get their conspiracy theories straight. For months now, Republican attack gerbils have been peddling the notion that the Clintons are secretly rooting for Howard Dean because he is so far left that he’s bound to get trounced by Shrub, leaving a clear shot for Hillary in ’08.

Now you have Jed Babbin at The American Prowler arguing that “ the Clintons are fighting against the Dean candidacy because they recognize that if Dean is nominated -- and goes down like McGovern did -- it will take a decade or more for America to again take the Dems seriously. That would mean Hillary would never make it back to Pennsylvania Avenue. Clark's job is to keep the Dems from following Dean off the McGovernik cliff.”

Then there are folks like Lowell Ponte at FrontPage Magazine who are portraying General Clark as a stalking horse for Hillary or as a sock puppet for Bill.

Which is it, folks? Time to call the RNC for those talking points so we can all get on message.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:01 PM

Was Saddam Involved in 9/11?

"We don't know. We've learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s." Vice President Dick Cheney, September 14, 2003

“I’m not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it. I think what the realization to me is -- the fundamental point was that terrorism had reached the scale completely different from what we had thought of it up until then. And that it would only get worse when these people got access to weapons of mass destruction which would be only a matter of time.” Paul Wolfowitz, August 1, 2003, Laura Ingraham Show.

“I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that. We know he was giving $25,000 a family for anyone who would go out and kill innocent men, women and children. And we know of various other activities. But on that specific one, no, not to my knowledge.” Donald Rumsfeld, September 17, 2003

''We've said all along that there's no evidence to suggest that that we've seen.'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan, September 17, 2003

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11 attacks." George Bush, September 17, 2003

Let’s all say it together now: Dick Cheney is a lying sack of shit.

posted by Jerry Bowles 5:40 PM

Slipping the punch… Congressman Darrell Issa

Speaking of the California recall... my homie from Cleveland, Ohio. The self-made millionaire whose moolah got the California recall into high gear. Arrested twice for illegal weapons in addition to a car theft charge. His brother and partner-in-crime, Billy Issa, did time in Ohio for auto theft and receiving stolen property. Not the kind of boys from Cleveland’s Arab-American community that Donna Shalala’s parents would have wanted her to go out with.

But that was thirty years ago, Issa says. Right…Shrubby dodged the draft thirty years ago. Heck, Whitewater was nearly thirty years ago. The media in California did very little probing until last Summer, when the recall- and Issa’s quest for the governorship- became a reality.

Issa, the ex-joyrider, or car thief, made his millions in- what else- the car-alarm business. Yes, that really is his voice saying “please step away from the car” on the Viper alarm system.

After probing by the California press outed Issa for his misdeeds he withdrew from the recall election. His “Darrell Issa for Governor” website is still in operation, suggesting that the public donate funds to his campaign. You’re no Gary Condit, Congressman… not yet. We’re waiting for the other alarm to go off.

posted by Groom 3:38 PM

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown

It's a well-known scientific fact among New Yorkers that living in southern California subtracts 5 points a year from your IQ. I have friends who use to be quite normal who live there so I speak from personal knowledge. That's why the spectacle of a bunch of rich rightwingers overthrowing a Democratic governor, creating a huge, costly mess, and then losing the recall because they can't agree on a single candidate, strikes me as not particularly newsworthy. These folks are d-u-m-b.

As a sideshow, though, it is an enormously entertaining spectacle and you got to love those cheeky justices on 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who cited Bush v. Gore as a precedent for delaying the recall. Should the matter now go to the Supremes, they will find themselves in the awkward position of working around their own logic in their highly partisan coronation of Shrub in 2000. It's payback time.

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:11 PM

Where’s the education candidate?

Just a few minutes after Democratic presidential candidate General Wesley Clark gave several un-leader like responses to Matt Lauer’s questions on NBC‘s Today, Bill Gates and Caroline Kennedy reminded the rest of us that one third of all US kids starting high school this year will not finish. That figure jumps to half when you look only at minorities, Gates added. The pair have teamed up to fund a pilot school project in the New York public schools designed to help retain students.

General Clark’s handlers are trying to sell him as the national security expert who was first in his class at West Point. Maybe Clark and the rest of the Democratic hopefuls need to focus on how to get kids to finish class. We won’t be getting Clark’s take in next week’s “debate.” He says he’s got a “hard conflict” and won’t be part of the really big shew.

posted by Groom 11:17 AM

Welcome General Clark

One of the most gratifying side effects of having General Wesley Clark in the Presidential race is that it probably means we won’t have to see Shrub’s sorry ass in a flight suit again pretending to be macho man. While that “Mission Accomplished” sign has already become an embarrassment as the war in Iraq drags on, Karl Rove’s preferred re-election strategy has clearly been to position the Shrubster as an effective war-time leader, a man who is tough on terrorists, and the best choice to defend our nation against evil little brown men armed with box cutters. To accentuate the “continuing danger,” the hawks will continue to stir up wars and rumors of wars to keep the populace at a suitable state of alarm.

Against Howard Dean, the strategy probably works, which is why oozing, bottom-feeding creatures like Dick Morris say things like “Howard Dean is the only Democratic candidate who doesn’t have a chance against Bush.” Rove will have $200 million to spend and he will spend most of it portraying Dean as weak on national defense and homeland security. Picture that “Meet the Press” clip of Dean not knowing how many troops are in currently in the Army being shown a thousand times a day around the country and you get some sense of the uphill battle that Dean, and most of the Democratic candidates, face in confronting the administration on the one issue that most misguided Americans think Bush is doing a good job on.

Clark’s greatest potential asset (I say “potential,” because we just don’t know yet if he’s a viable contender or not) is that he negates the we’re-tough-on-security-and-they’re-not argument. It’s pretty hard to paint a West Point grad, Vietnam veteran, four-star general, and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander as “soft” on security. Beyond negating Shrub’s abuse of cheap Commander-in-Chief symbolism, Clark takes away the argument that Democrats are not good at military and foreign affairs. Whether he wins the nomination or not, his presence on the roster strengthens all the Democratic candidates.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:43 AM

The Krugman Verdict

Mark Egan profiles our favorite columnist:

President Bush is an incessant liar bent on destroying America's social safety net, central bank guru Alan Greenspan should shut his mouth on issues unrelated to monetary policy and the U.S. media have done a terrible job of keeping the public informed. Reuters, September 17, 2003

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:15 AM

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Set Your Alarm Clark

If you happen to be up tomorrow morning at 6:30 EDT (3:30 PDT), run over to Draft Clark 2004 for the link to a "special" webcast in which General Clark will tell his Web supporters what he plans to tell the rest of the world at 1 pm EDT--that he's running for President. The fact that he has chosen to take the message to the Web first is a tribute to both the emerging power and importance of the Internet as a political tool and to the Draft Clark team who persisted and netted the prize.

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:20 PM

Punch drunk

If the full panel of the 9th US Appeals Court votes to postpone the California recall the case will get shipped to the US Supreme Court. Those hanging chads from punch card voting machines will take us back to the issue that fueled anti-Bush sentiment long before the bait-and-switch in Iraq: whether or not Shrubby and his thugs jacked the election in brother Jeb’s home state. If you forgot the correct spelling for kangaroo kourt, see Judge Sanders Sauls for details.

The conservative-owned “liberal” media has tried to sweep the issue of how states in the US count and process votes under the carpet. They dropped the ball on Votegate. Should Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Ne) be allowed to be part owner (along with the Hunt brothers of Texas) and director of the nation’s largest voting tabulation company, one that operates with secret proprietary codes and doesn’t give voters receipts as a record of their voting.

And what about the Saudi ownership of vote.com, awarded a contract to count the votes of our men and women in uniform overseas by the Bush administration? Do we really want a nation governed by selfish, inept royals who--wittingly or unwittingly-- sponsor terrorism (14 of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis) owning the companies that count our votes.

When our "liberal" media covers an election in emerging democracies, most recently Estonia’s vote to join the European Union, we are fed the image of the cardboard ballot box with see through sides, the voter depositing the ballot into the box and the poll worker covering the slot and handing the voter a receipt.

This begs the question of whether the need for speed by the media--who must do their (outsourced) exit polls and project winners--makes the old fashioned process a little too time consuming. The cash machine at least gives you an option… wanna receipt? Ditto the card reader at the gas station. And if the checker doesn’t ask if you want a receipt at the super market, you get free food or cash.

The California recall ought to throw some sunshine on just how much individual states- all of which are hard pressed for funds- have “upgraded” their vote processing systems since the 2000 debacle. The vote of “regular Americans” should not become a fait accompli.

posted by Groom 4:38 PM

Evict Ben

Looks like an alert domain-squatter has already gotten to www.clarkforpresident.com and www.wesleyclarkforpresident.com. Anybody know Ben Vaught 1509 Blue Springs Road NASHVILLE, TN 37069 vault5151@hotmail.com

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:21 PM

Mission Accomplished

The nice folks over at Draft Clark 2004 are declaring "mission accomplished" with General Wesley Clark set to declare himself officially a candidate at 1 pm tomorrow in Little Rock. This is good news for those of us who believe the Democratic Party must field the strongest possible presidential candidate in 2004 because the country cannot survive four more wars of Shrub Bush. It is probably bad news for the eight Democrats who have been running for months now to little effect--all of whom should drop out in the interest of unity and let the real contenders--Clark and Dean--duke it out through the primaries.

If Dean shuts him down then we will know for sure that the good doctor is for real and he's not just the anti-Bush. That will make him a stronger candidate should he prevail. If Clark wins, we'll know that he has the right stuff to take on the Shrubster.

It remains to seen if the General looks as good as a campaigner as his resume, which, frankly, has Republicans scared shitless. The General immediately shuts down Shrub's little Top Gun fantasy.

Either way--Dean or Clark--the American people are the real winners. What do you folks think?

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:15 PM

Write a Poem, Win Nothing

Since we are both Dean and Clark friendly around here, I think it's only fair that one or more of our many literate readers compose an Ode for Wesley to follow the tribute to Howard below. What have you got?

UPDATE: The Associated Press is reporting that the General is entering the race. The official announcement will come tomorrow.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:38 AM