[Previous entry: "Mugabe defends land seizures"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Self-Promo Dean on Taxes"]

09/27/2003 Archived Entry: "General Has No Clothes"

THE GENERAL HAS NO CLOTHES: Wesley Clark's entry into the Democratic presidential race certainly had an impact on the field. He has already shot up to the top tier and established himself as a force to be reckoned with. As a decorarated career military officer and retired four-star general, he is in a position to neutralize the Republicans' advantage of being more credible on national-security issues. He is a strong candidate for the Democratic establishment to turn to to stop Howard Dean. He could garner the media appeal of Colin Powell and John McCain. He's everything John Kerry was supposed to be and more.

The only trouble is that this particular emperor has no clothes. His command of the issues is thin - the Democrats might make George W. Bush out to be an empty suit, but compared to Clark so far, he is practically a policy wonk. There is growing evidence that he only recently adopted his supposedly strongly held liberal beliefs. He once praised the Bush foreign policy team he rails against today and was talking up the president, helping Republicans raise money and supporting the Bush tax cuts - all positions he has since entirely reversed - within the last couple of years. He voted Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and while he now claims to have voted for Al Gore in 2000 (and given his close ties to some people in Bill Clinton's administration, he may have) he has not so very long ago sounded like someone who voted for Bush. His position on whether he would have voted for the Iraq war resolution makes Kerry's justification of his vote sound crystal-clear. He is a hawk turned dove.

Since the Clintons have their fingers all over Clark's candidacy, there is already speculation that he is only running as a placeholder for Hillary. Or perhaps he has just decided to recast himself as a liberal Democrat because he sees a window of opportunity to claim the presidency for himself. But the signs of a manufactured candidacy are there. The question remains whether this is something the Democratic base will accept, or whether news stories like these will give them pause.