From today’s Times:
General Clark said that he would have advised members of Congress to support the authorization of war but that he thought it should have had a provision requiring President Bush to return to Congress before actually invading. Democrats sought that provision without success.
“At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that’s too simple a question,” General Clark said.
A moment later, he said: “I don’t know if I would have or not. I’ve said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position - on balance, I probably would have voted for it.”
Either this man is a brilliant strategist or he’s shooting himself in the foot before his campaign even has a chance to take off. I’m opting for the latter interpretation. One Dem operative quoted in The Note sums up my reaction perfectly:
“I have read the accounts of the Clark interviews and my reaction is despair and anger. Why did my party’s best operatives think it would be a good idea to subject their neophyte candidate to the country’s savviest reporters for over an hour? Why have my party’s elders rallied around a candidate who is so shockingly uninformed about core issues and his own positions? I am not a Dean supporter - but I am angry that our party’s leaders have anointed an alternative to him who seems even more ignorant and unprepared - and that this supposed ‘anti-war’ candidate turns out to have been in favor of both the war resolution and Richard Nixon!! And let’s not even talk about the Clintons. Today I am embarrassed to be a Democrat.”
It seems that folks are so anxious to have an anti-Dean and so eager to have a “national security” candidate without spending much time thinking about national security that they’ll latch onto a wild card candidate.
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