Capitol Gang made suggestion for Dean's Veep - I can't remember the name -

[patricia92243]

It was Shinn or something like that. He is a general - I want to look up his bio - anybody know full name?

[joeybee12]

1. Was it General Zunni?????????

[mikehiggins]

3. I think its General Zinni, and I think he's a former Marine

I also think he may have gotten more medals that Kerry and Clark but is more vehemently opposed to the "Invisible Airman" than either.

[maddezmom]

5. maybe General Anthony Zinni?

don't know cuz I don't get Capital Gang.

[Demobrat]

7. That's been the rumor

around the campaign for weeks now.

[dfong63]

12. i'm all for it!!!

that team would be pure dynamite.

[HFishbine]

9. Yes, it was Zinni. (n/t)

[w4rma]

29. Former Centcom Commander (Zinni) - Americans have been "conned"

Iraq has old-school Marine regretting support for Bush :

By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post
…
He sees both conflicts as beginning with deception by the U.S. government. "I think the American people were conned into this," he says. Referring to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the Johnson administration claimed that U.S. Navy ships had been subjected to an unprovoked attack by North Vietnam, he says, "The Gulf of Tonkin and the case for WMD and terrorism is synonymous in my mind."

And the goal of transforming the Middle East by imposing democracy by force reminds him of the "domino theory" in the 1960s that the United States had to win in Vietnam to prevent Southeast Asia from falling into communist hands.

That brings him back to Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies as the root of the problem. "I don't know where the neocons came from — that wasn't the platform they ran on," he says. "Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president."

He is especially irked that, as he sees it, no senior officials have taken responsibility for their incorrect assessment of the threat posed by Iraq. "What I don't understand is that the bill of goods the neocons sold him has been proven false, yet heads haven't rolled," he says. "I think some fairly senior people at the Pentagon ought to go." Who? "That's up to the president."

Zinni says he hasn't received a single negative response from military people. "I was surprised by the number of uniformed guys, all ranks, who said, 'You're speaking for us. Keep on keeping on.' "
…
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5438.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=969740

[mikehiggins]

2. A marine general, I think. His name was posted around here before.

He would certainly be an asset to Dean, if he would do it.

He is another "no politician" general but he is even angrier at the Bush administration than Clark is and arguably just as persuasive even if he doesn't carry Clark's academic credentials.

Dean could do a whole world of a lot worse. Of course the ticket would look something like "pit bull for Pres, rottweiller for VP" but that could work as well as anything else in a Dean candidacy and would sure be a lot of fun to work for.

We could call it the "scorched earth tour"

[AntiCoup2K4]

26. Better a "pit bull" and a "rottie" than the tutu clad shitzus in Congress.

But what kind of dog would that make Clark?

[polpilot]

4. Too late. Graham already has the job.

Dean/Graham '04...

[On the Road]

6. General Shinsheki?

Maybe, but I'm really not sold on the need for a military person on the ticket. If Graham can deliver Florida, then he should be a shoo-in. Without Florida, it will be very difficult for Bush to win reelection.

[chaumont58]

8. The Capitol Gang is dumber than a rock, and...

the very epitomy of the beltway whores. Incredibly, they had their outrages of the year, but managed to forget all about the invasion of Iraq. No one, but absolutely no one, should ever watch one god damn minute of these whores.

[Patriot_Spear]

10. Gen. Eric Shenseki- good man and a great VP Choice!

He has all the 'military weight' of Clark without Clark's stigma of having been fired or being difficult to work with. He nailed the post war Iraq scenario cold. Excellent choice.

[SheilaT]

11. Who ARE these generals

you all are naming?

[janx]

13. Who knows?

I recognize Zinni's name though. Dean has a whole lot of impressive military brass backing him.

Did you see his foreign policy speech?

[TorchTheWitch]

16. Zinni and Shiseki

Retired General Anthony Zinni is a good guy. He's from my area, and I've heard him speak a couple of times. However, he currently works as a special advisor to the Secretary of State. Kudos to him for calling BushCo's Iraq war idea a "brainfart", but currently working for the neo-cons in office could be some big baggage. He's got excellent experience in Middle Eastern foreign policy, but not all that much in other parts of the world.

He recently gave a paid speech to a Bechtel global business meeting. Personally, I could give a squat about him giving a paid speech to Bechtel... it's just a job. But seeing as Clark has gotten a lot of ribbing for a speech he gave before 9/11 to a small group of GOPer's, it would be some heavy-duty spin for the Dean supporters that were in on that ribbing to give the recent Bechtel speech by Zinni a stamp of approval.

Retired General Eric Shinseki has a good deal of experience. He retired last summer. The fact of him being Asian American may or may not be a plus (I guess it depends on how the average voter takes that). Shinseki earned the wrath of Rumsfeld & Co. for insisting early on in the Iraq war planning stages that we would need significantly more troops and would need to stay for a significantly longer period then Rummy and his neocon idiot chums believed. However, I don't see anywhere that he opposed going into Iraq in the first place as Zinni has, just the after-war part.

Shinseki also comes with some baggage. He's spent billions restructuring the army as far as vehicles go (lightening up the heavier units and heavying up the lighter units), however, a lot of that turned out not to make a whole lot of sense in the end. This is the only website I could find that explains this in detail and in a way that makes sense to the average person...
http://www.g2mil.com/Sept2001.htm

Additionally, upon retiring he was immediately hired by Honeywell who was given contracts for the beefing up and stripping down of the military vehicles... kind of makes you go hmmmmm.
http://www.honeywell.com/

Shinseki also galvanized the armed forces by making uniform changes that belittled the accomplishments of Ranger forces as well as caused confusion between different forces (sailor vs. airman, for example). In making the change to black berets that were traditionally only worn by Rangers, and the speed of instituting the change caused the purchase of these berets to be made from China rather then US manufacturers... nifty - the army outsources for uniforms.
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0301beret.htm

[TrueAmerican]

14. Doesn't matter, Dean already offered the VP slot to me

and 1,000 others. ;)

[Patriot_Spear]

15. We can safely say you're off the short list now...

Do you CNN is still hiring, though? :evilgrin:

[shivaji]

17. Clark not endorsed formally by any generals? Why not??

Clark supporters can only refer us to some military officer praising Clark. Heck I can show them tons of material of Clark praising Bush and his gang.

I am talking about a formal endorsement like Al Gore's for Dean.

I can understand why no active military officer will come out with a formal endorsement. But, after spending a lifetime in nothing but the military, Clark has not been FORMALLY ENDORSED BY A SINGLE GENERAL!

Something which gives me the creeps about Clark's likeability and ability to work as a team player.

[Lefty48197]

18. Clark has the endorsement of the Kosavar and Albani people

and it's because of what he did in the military.

[Lobo_13]

31. Too bad they can't vote

I had this argument with someone a while ago. She insisted that Clark was the best candidate because he was well liked in Europe.

Well, you know, the metric system is well liked in Europe. What flies over there, doesn't necessarily fly over here.

[Fleshdancer]

20. Do Generals usually endorse?

I honestly don't know if they do or not. I was under the impression that most Generals try to stay somewhat politically nuetral...atleast in the public eye. Then again, I'm a civilian so what do I know.

[slinkerwink]

30. a former General who voted for Bush in 2000 has endorsed Dean and

been to Dean meetups because he's reportedly disgusted with the Bush administration.

[mikehiggins]

22. Is that all? Why I thought it was because you

supported another candidate. I guess I got that impression because of your repeated appearances on the DU threads but maybe I'm wrong.

I'm not aware of general rank officers endorsing people running for President. Please educate me if I'm incorrect on that.

This is a pretty elite group of folks, y'know. Far harder to get into than a college fraternity. They generally don't speak badly of one another in public, maybe because there are enough buried skeletons to go around for everyone.

That's one main reason why anybody paid attention to Shelton's crack, the fact that such a remark was not considered good form in the club.

Of course, that may be why Shelton has steadfastedly refused to comment any further. Or maybe because he has some baggage that won't bear the light of day.

[robbedvoter]

27. Uh, army is not partisan - has to serve under CinC of any party

It was the reason Clark didn't declare a political affiliation.
But would they, if not bound by the code?

http://www.clark04.com/records/quotes/

[dd123]

19. Zinni is my current #1 pick for VP.

We are going to need someone who knows the middle east & Iraq down cold. That man is Zinni:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22922-2003Dec22.html

For Vietnam Vet Anthony Zinni, Another War on Shaky Territory

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 23, 2003; Page C01

snip
Zinni's concern deepened at a Senate hearing in February, just six weeks before the war began. As he awaited his turn to testify, he listened to Pentagon and State Department officials talk vaguely about the "uncertainties" of a postwar Iraq. He began to think they were doing the wrong thing the wrong way. "I was listening to the panel, and I realized, 'These guys don't have a clue.' "

That wasn't a casual judgment. Zinni had started thinking about how the United States might handle Iraq if Hussein's government collapsed after Operation Desert Fox, the four days of airstrikes that he oversaw in December 1998, in which he targeted presidential palaces, Baath Party headquarters, intelligence facilities, military command posts and barracks, and factories that might build missiles that could deliver weapons of mass destruction.

So early in 1999 he ordered that plans be devised for the possibility of the U.S. military having to occupy Iraq. Under the code name "Desert Crossing," the resulting document called for a nationwide civilian occupation authority, with offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. That plan contrasts sharply, he notes, with the reality of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation power, which for months this year had almost no presence outside Baghdad -- an absence that some Army generals say has increased their burden in Iraq.

Listening to the administration officials testify that day, Zinni began to suspect that his careful plans had been disregarded. Concerned, he later called a general at Central Command's headquarters in Tampa and asked, "Are you guys looking at Desert Crossing?" The answer, he recalls, was, "What's that?"

The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist "neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn't understand. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground."

[mikehiggins]

23. Yup, Zinni would plug that foriegn policy "hole" real good.

Its almost too much to hope that if Dean gets the nod, Zinni would be willing to sign on as VP. I haven't seen or heard anything about his view of the Democratic party or Dean but we'll need someone to make the ticket more palatable to the majority of voters around the nation.

[cyclezealot]

21. overlooked someone

Another suggestion from one of the lesser of those Capitol Gang whores. New York Attorney General Spitzer. He gave the Enron Gang hell....More so than anyone else is the land.

[mikehiggins]

24. Spitzer already said no to a vp nod. n/t

[RamboLiberal]

25. Margaret Carslon predicted Zinni would be Dean's VP choice

since Dean and Clark are having a bit of a spat. Gee and I thought I went out on a limb last week when I read an article of Zinni just blasting the Bush Iraq war and the other neocon thinkers, even taking a swipe at Powell for being a good soldier and just going along, and I posted a couple of place here that I thought Dean/Zinni could be the ticket.

Someone else thought Clark and Dean would patch up their differences and be the ticket as Dean/Clark.

Mark Shields was pushing Elliot Spitzer as VP candidate with Clark or Dean or ? as Dem presidential candidate to bring out the corporate scandals in the race. I liked that idea though if I were the Dem candidate Spitzer would be my attorney general. Though he could be intriguing as a VP candidate if needed to provide the win.

BTW, Carlson also named Zephyr Teachout, one of the Dean's campaign internet gurus, rookie of the year.

[TexasSissy]

28. Hey, what gives? He told ME the slot was mine!