Was General Clark a test tube baby?

[jafap]

Or was he raised by wolves? Did he have a father and a mother who raised him along with his home village?

Maybe I am just interested in trivial details, but I just did a search on MSN trying to find out who his parents were. They do not rate a mention in his biography. I cannot imagine writing a biography of myself which did not start with my parents. Certainly they are more worthy of mention than my high school and the tennis team.

Of course, my entire stillborn campaign for the Senate was based on my mom. Besides being the "candidate with calluses", my rallying cry was going to be "my mom was born in NY". This would contrast me with a carpetbagger whose mom was born in Illinois.

Clark is my candidate, and he was my dad's candidate before he even started running. I appreciate Clark's policies - opposition to the war and that he doesn't take the position Krugman and I consider to be politically unviable of reversing all of the Bush tax cuts. Still, his bio seems to show a careerist perspective and my values would make family more important. Not, mind you, that I want a candidate who hires his children to work in his campaign at 3 times the median income, but at least one who thinks they are worth mentioning.

[carpetbagger]

1. Clark's parents.

His father was Benjamin Kanne, a lawyer in Chicago, who died when he was a young child. Clark's mother, Veneta, moved back to her hometown of Little Rock, and married a banker named Victor Clark. He adopted Wesley and thus his name became Wesley Kanne Clark.

[mikehiggins]

3. Clark's dad was a jew.

Wesley Clark's father, Benjamin Kanne, was a well connected Jewish man in Chicago. Clark's stepfather was a well regarded Baptist in Little Rock. Clark's wife is a Roman Catholic, and Clark converted to Roman Catholicism following their marriage.

Clark didn't learn of his Jewish roots until relatively late in life, and is said to maintain a very warm and heartfelt relationship with his newly found landsmen.

Explaining this to a Gephardt supporter in Brooklyn convinced him that Clark is the anti-Christ and will usher in Armageddon.

This should gain him a lot of votes on the Christian right, by the way.

[Military Brat]

2. It's a privacy issue

You can understand that someone in Clark's position would want to protect his family, right?

[jafap]

10. as the other posters show

it is only private for researchers too lazy to look past his official website. As his potential supporters, we kinda want to think of him as our friend. Friends do not hide basic information from their friends any more than they let their friends drive drunk. The privacy argument would be a way of saying "I do not want to be your friend"

Of course it is a scary world, which my European cousins do not seem to understand as they post family information I shared with them on the web. Lots of people are quite willing to be your enemy, and it is nice if they have as little information as possible.

[wyldwolf]

4. Clark's father was the democratic party head in Chicago

[OKNancy]

5. I found these two easily by

using google. Use: Wesley Clark born parents

Here are two profiles:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1046491,00.html

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,480208,00.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. Guess this funtion doesn't work on your computer. No?

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Wesley+Clark+family+history&num=10&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=advanced_search&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images

[jafap]

8. that's me, try one search engine and give up

I guess I need to abandon MSN for google. I am a little intimidated by 10!100 hits.

Still, the candidate could put it in his own bio instead of just talking about swim teams, towns, schools, and careers. He has the chance to gain the support of other adopted people.

After looking at three or four of the sites MSN gave me it seemed easier just to goto DU and ask NSMA et. al. That way I can get the answer with an innuendo of disparagement.

[RandomUser]

7. Off the top of my head

Clark's birth father was a Democratic Party activist, and a Jew, who died right before Clark reached the age of four.

His mother then moved them from Chicago back to her hometown of Little Rock, where she eventually married a banker who was a recovering alcoholic. Clark said he loved his stepfather, but he wasn't a very good provider. His mother worked as a bank secretary to provide for four-year-old Wes and make sure he had a good education.

He grew up as the poorest kid in the richest neighborhood in town, so he had to work doubly hard to compensate -- everything from West Point to Rhodes Scholar.

[AnnabelLee]

9. Locking

2. The subject line of a discussion thread and the entire text of the message which starts the thread may not include profanity, excessive capitalization, or excessive punctuation. Inflammatory rhetoric should also be avoided.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=463744

Thank you
AnnabelLee
DU Moderator