The DNC blog, sanguinely named "Kicking Ass," shares my disappointment that Colin Powell appears to have been reduced to a mere tool of the military-industrial complex.
Commenting on Scott Pelley's interview with 60 Minutes II, in which Pelley called Powell's Feb 5 '03 speech to the UN, "one of the low points in his long, distinguished service to the nation," Jesse Berney goes on to say: "All Americans should mourn that loss, and view it as one of the greatest failures of the Bush administration. Powell had the potential to be a great Secretary of State, had he served under an administration that wasn't set on squandering the world's good will toward America."
Personally, Colin Powell, along with John McCain, is one of the very few Republicans I would even consider voting into high office, partly because I believe that like WKC, they are relatively non-partisan in their vision of America's highest values and goals. Mrs. Powell must have a very difficult time at administration social functions.
I hope this doesn't mean we can't believe Colin Powell was sincere when he wrote in 1992 "[Clark] will be one of the Army's leaders in the 1990s. . . . Wes Clark has been a superb battalion commander and will be a superb brigade commander. He is an officer of the rarest potential and will clearly rise to senior general officer rank."
A Political Wire reader dug into the Meetup numbers and found Howard Dean is drawing heavily from blue states (those which voted for Al Gore in 2000), while Wesley Clark seems to be doing better than Dean in the red states (those that voted for George W. Bush in the last election).
As to be expected, both Democrats have the majority of their support in the blue states: 65 percent of Dean's Meetup supporters compared to 57 percent of Clark's backers. But Clark draws more heavily than Dean from the red states: 43 percent of his Meetup supporters live in states that voted for Bush, compared to 35 percent of Dean's.
Way back on Sept. 20, I complained in a blog post: "Why is the general trapping himself in a plane for 90 minutes with four journalists on the first full day of the campaign? . . . . He should heed the observation of Paul Begala regarding Pres. Bush: "One of the things that makes Bush such a disciplined politician is that he never answers hypotheticals. . . ."
The Washington Post editorial staff doesn't evidently share my regard for Begala's strategy: they are among the most indignant of several commentators critical of Clark for not taking a position on the $87B appropriation in Congress.
In an editorial today entitled "The Responsibility Gap," the Post takes Kerry and Edwards severely to task for their decision to vote against the appropriation as Bush has presented it. "This righteous position may make them, or their voters, feel better," the Post piously intones, "but the security of U.S. troops and the long-term interests of both Iraq and the United States still depend on improving Iraqi daily life."
Dean is accused of being disingenuous for tying the appropriation to a roll back of the tax cuts, while Clark is basically condemned for cowardice, of all things: "Most astonishing is the response from retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, whose position is that he's taking no position on the grounds that he's running for president, not Congress. . . . Mr. Clark's press secretary, Kym Spell, says, 'Just as he would not ask John Kerry how he would have commanded troops in Kosovo, we don't think it's in John Kerry's interest or anyone else's to be demanding of us how he would vote in the Senate.' This is leadership?"
I think Ms. Spell's answer, for this particular point in time, is spot-on and worthy of Begala himself. Opinions are like assholes; everyone has one. One of Clark's problems is that he has taken positions before his platform has been articulated. As a result, the press is pouncing on sound bites that have no context in policy and, given WKC's predilection for nuance, sometimes appear to be self-contradictory. Quite understandably elected officials usually take a position relative to the perceived attitudes of their constituencies. Clark has no constituency, per se, in this fight to serve as a compass and needs to avoid purely academic pronouncements.
Because thus far his policies are sketchy, getting them out must be Priority Number One. The next three weeks of policy announcments are crucial to taking the dialogue to the next level, where hopefully discussion of the issues will replace speculation on his Democratic Party bona fides and opinions expressed by his former commanders.
Those opposed to Clark, most especially his rivals for the nomination, would like nothing better than to keep him on the defensive on side issues. The Post is entitled to hold members of Congress to high accountability regarding the re-construction of Iraq, particularly if they voted for the war as Kerry did. However, to insist that Clark's staying on message is somehow a failure of leadership is a cheap shot in a situation that shows he is rapidly gaining essential political skills.