General Clark’s Battles - (article in The New Yorker 11-17-03) [View All]

[NewYorkerfromMass]

Required reading for anyone considering Clark.

"... many Democrats were eager to be convinced that Wesley Clark was what Bill Clinton had reportedly declared him to be—the only Democrat besides Hillary Clinton who qualified as a true political “star.” He was the anointed choice of many in the Clinton wing of the Party, the stop-Dean candidate charged with keeping Democrats tethered to the center. When Clark finally announced his candidacy, in Little Rock on September 17th, he was surrounded by old Clinton hands and the national press; a loudspeaker played the theme music from the movie “The Natural.”

It quickly became apparent, however, that Clark, in terms of his oratorical prowess or personal magnetism, was not a natural at all. He required heavy handling on the campaign trail, where, as a political novice, he was prone to gaffes, such as his opening-week assertion that he “probably” would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing the war in Iraq. One of his press representatives described the misstep as “devastating, a huge mistake”; the mood among Democratic activists is unambiguously antiwar, and Clark’s subsequent attempts to amend his position have made him seem confused on the subject. (He eventually declared that he didn’t know the full content of the resolution.) ..."

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?031117fa_fact

I came away a bit apprehensive of the General.