Reply #: Here's the "I would've been a Republican" quote. He was in fact serious. [View All]

[JohnOneillsMemory]

This is from Newsweek's Howard Fineman.(grabbing salt shaker)

He reported that Clark was NOT joking about not getting return calls from Karl Rove. He cites Marc Holtzman and Colorado Gov. Bill Owens as confirming this NON-JOKING incident when Clark expressed to them AT LENGTH his bitterness over the GOP snub.
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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3760994

>snip<

After Al Qaeda attacked America, retired Gen. Wes Clark thought the Bush administration would invite him to join its team. After all, he'd been NATO commander, he knew how to build military coalitions and the investment firm he now worked for had strong Bush ties. But when GOP friends inquired, they were told: forget it.

Word was that Karl Rove, the president's political mastermind, had blocked the idea. Clark was furious. Last January, at a conference in Switzerland, he happened to chat with two prominent Republicans, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Marc Holtzman, now president of the University of Denver. "I would have been a Republican," Clark told them, "if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls." Soon thereafter, in fact, Clark quit his day job and began seriously planning to enter the presidential race--as a Democrat. Messaging NEWSWEEK by BlackBerry, Clark late last week insisted the remark was a "humorous tweak." The two others said it was anything but. "He went into detail about his grievances," Holtzman said. "Clark wasn't joking. We were really shocked."