Steve Bainbridge waves Obama away

from Wesley Clark:

Soon after Clark entered the [2000 Presidential race] another Clinton-era general, Tommy Franks, who retired this summer after directing the capture of Baghdad, was asked in a private setting whether he believed that Clark would make a good President. “Absolutely not,” Franks replied. Retired General Hugh Shelton was asked the same question after giving a talk at a college in California. Shelton, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was Clark’s boss in 1999 when Clark was unceremoniously told that he was being removed from his position as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. “I’ve known Wes for a long time,” Shelton said. “I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. . . . Wes won’t get my vote.” Shelton has refused to explain how he came to his conclusion.

Clark said that Saddam “absolutely” had weapons of mass destruction, and added, “I think they will be found. There’s so much intelligence on this.” In an opinion column in the London Times on April 10th, Clark predicted that the American victory would alter the dynamics of the region. “Many Gulf states will hustle to praise their liberation from a sense of insecurity they were previously loath even to express. Egypt and Saudi Arabia will move slightly but perceptibly towards Western standards of human rights.” Clark praised the Anglo-American alliance, saying that Bush and Blair “should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt.”

He called for victory parades down the Mall and Constitution Avenue, and, in another column, cheered the spectacular display of coalition force. “American military power, especially when buttressed by Britain’s, is virtually unchallengeable today. Take us on? Don’t try!” Such public statements, of course, have made Clark vulnerable to charges by his Democratic opponents of irresoluteness on the war. “He took six different positions on whether going to war was the right idea,” Joseph Lieberman complained in the October 26th Democratic debate. ...

As Secretary Cohen and the Joint Chiefs saw it, Clark, in lobbying for negotiations and then for going to war in Kosovo, had misread Milosevic twice. Now Clark was advocating the war’s escalation, and there was an impression that he would be no more constrained in his advocacy than he had been before. The Pentagon dared not jeopardize a delicate alliance by firing Clark in the midst of a war, but its lack of confidence was clearly conveyed to him.