WES CLARK, AIRHEAD
I know Gen. Clark is a smart guy, as he's quick to tell anyone who asks. But what to make of his flips on the Iraq war? Looks like evidence of airheadism to me.
If you were running for president, in today's climate, what questions would you automatically expect the press to ask of you?
--Your stand on the progress or lack in war? Of course.
--How should we combat terrorism in general? Of course.
--Your stand on the tax cuts? Of course.
--Your stand on blah blah blah? Naturally.
Surely, you'd expect some reporter, somewhere, at some time to ask what you thought about Iraq. You know--should we have gone in when we did, was it a good thing that we knocked off Saddam, what should do with the place now? I'd expect that question to come up. Any reasonable person would expect that question to come up. In fact, any reasonable person would expect that a reporter would automatically ask a frickin' General who's running for president about his thoughts on a frickin' war, no?
But not Wesley Clark. On 60 Minutes II, he says it took him by surprise:
Clark says he wants to be president, but he discovered that he wasn’t ready for the political combat of a campaign. He stumbled right out of the gate.First, he told reporters he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war against Saddam. Then, he said he wasn’t sure, and then he said would have voted against it.
“At the time I did this, I made this statement, I was having what I thought was an informal, I wasn’t clear whether it was on-the-record or off-the-record discussion about the philosophy of sort of entering the presidency. And somehow the Iraq question got thrown in,” says Clark, who told Rather he didn’t expect to be asked that question. “But when it came, it’s the kind of, it’s the, there’s no question that it wasn’t what I wanted to say.”
Now, Clark says he wouldn’t have voted for the resolution that passed, but a different one that Congress never voted on: “I always said I would vote for a resolution that gave the president the leverage to go to the United Nations and then come back to the Congress for the authority to go to force.”
Somehow the Iraq question got thrown in...? Uh, General, the Iraq question is, like, the biggest question in the world right now. It has 70,000 or so Brits worked up enough to make giant puppets and parade them around London. And you're running for president, a position that, should you get it, would sort of force you to deal with the whole Iraq thing. Think of these press talks as job interviews, which in fact they are. Learn to anticipate these kinds of questions. It'll save you more than a few headaches.











