A British reporter went out on the streets of America asking citizens the answers to some pretty basic questions about current events. The results aren't pretty.
Q: "Kofi Annan? Is it a drink? True or false?"
A: "Kofi's a drink."
Q: "Who's Tony Blair?"
A: 1) "I don't even know." 2) "Tony Blair is an actor." 3) "Linda Blair's brother?"
Q: "Which countries are in the 'axis of evil'?"
A: "I know Germany's one of 'em. I'm not sure about the other ones."
Q: "How many world wars have there been?"
A: "Three."
Q: "What are Hiroshima and Nagasaki famous for?"
A: "Sumo wrestling? Whatever?"
Q: "How many Eifel towers are there in Paris?"
A: "I'd say about, ten."
Q: "What is Al Qaeda?"
A: "Al Qaeda is a suicide group in Israel. The president of it is Yasser Arafat. Everybody knows that."
Q: "What is the main religion of Israel?"
A: "Muslim."
Nice to know the president and the electorate are two minds who think as one-half. Twenty years ago I met 20-somethings in Paris discos who were hopeless drug addicts but knew more about the Federalist Papers than I did after 16 years of private education. "Mind the gap," as our British cousins often warn.
I was thrilled that Theodore Sorensen, special deputy to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, introduced Wesley Clark as keynote speaker at the New American Strategies for Security and Peace conference on October 28. Richard Leone of the Center for American Progress, a conference sponsor, described Mr. Sorensen as the "conscience" of American foreign policy," and many of JFK's most enduring speeches were crafted jointly by the president and his most trusted deputy. To this day, many believe Sorensen ghost-wrote Profiles in Courage, for which Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize. An icon of the Democratic liberal establishment for almost half a century, Ted Sorensen's ringing endorsement of Wesley Clark raises his candidacy high above the carping of the Liebermans and Sheltons whose own self-serving agendas taint their attacks.
In fact, Mr. Leone made it a point to say that WKC had been asked to address the conference before announcing his candidacy and emphasized that the conference was non-partisan. As you can tell from Mr. Sorensen's remarks, he must not have heard that part of the introduction. He draws comparisons between JFK and WKC that no other figure in public life could make with such indisputable authority.
Thanks very much Dick Leone. You and your co-organizers of this conference on a different American foreign policy certainly know how to pick a date. Because it was forty-one years ago today that the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, peacefully and successfully brought to a close what historians now call the thirteen most dangerous days in the history of mankind. He did it without firing a shot, without violating international law, without bypassing the United Nations, without antagonizing our closest allies, and without losing more than one man. . . .Streaming video of Mr. Sorensen and General Clark's remarks may be found here.Today, more than ever, at a time when the world is filled with terrorist threats and with bitter resentment at America's preponderance of wealth and military might, we need more than ever a president who has experienced the evils of war, the art of diplomacy, the importance of negotiations, the indispensability of allies, and international organizations and institutions. Unfortunately we have just the opposite. . . . Those who are out there looking for weapons of mass destruction should look in their own tent.
. . . But fortunately one of those who is seeking to become president in 2004 has exactly the opposite kind of record. He does not need to dress up as a fly boy to be called "commander in chief." Because he has already served as commander in chief of allied forces in Europe. He has already led diverse nations and interests in a grand and successful coalition. He has already proven the importance of diplomacy in world affairs and has worked closely with the UN in successful close conflict situations. Yes, his detractors have taken quotations out of context to make it appear that he has a whole menu of positions on the war in Iraq, but he has never excluded from that menu, patience, peace, and pre-emptive negotiations. And that makes all the difference. I give you now a man who can make all the difference, General Wesley Clark.
Elizabeth Drew, whose appearance on Inside Politics in defense of Clark's military reputation attracted wide attention, expands on her research into the general's credibility in a new article in the New York Review of Books.
Before exploring the contrast between opinions of Clark held by his fellow officers and those of the civilians with whom he worked, Drew draws not altogether flattering sketches of Howard Dean and John Kerry:
Howard Dean can be said to be leading a genuine movement; he has attracted a strong following through his opposition to the war in Iraq and his ability to express the anger that many Democrats feel toward Bush; he has strong organizations in Iowa and New Hampshire. But his irritability often spills over at inopportune times. On ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos he responded testily to a question about his having strongly supported NAFTA and denied that he had ever done so, even though he had signed a letter saying that he had. On the other hand, a speech I saw Dean deliver recently at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee was strong and assured. He was able to arouse the Democrats' anger, though to a degree that seemed to me almost disturbing.Drew's snapshot captures one of the general's qualities that I think plays better in international settings than in state primary campaigns: he is polite to a fault, probably because of his southern upbringing, but also because the correct stance for an official who commands arsenals of deadly weapons is to walk softly and carry a big stick. When he praises "that great team we have in office" or exchanges gifts with Ratko Mladi, a partisan politician or human rights activist will justifiably cringe, but in those contexts Clark is playing a different part, at least on the surface: that of the gracious guest. Contemporary Americans' brusque informality combined with a no-nonsense, let's get down to business attitude is accurately reflected in the Dean persona, but it will come as no surprise that in the rest of the world, where ancient social mores are still a lingua franca that allow fierce political and economic rivals to start from a point of civility, American ignorance of local social forms can be a formidable obstacle to spreading the gospel of democracy as defined by the United States.John Kerry's is a perplexing campaign. He can be very effective or can seem wooden and perfunctory. I saw him addressing a women's lunch where he seemed steady and well-informed on a wide range of issues, including health care and the disastrous reconstruction of Iraq. He was also loose and funny. In his speech to the DNC he attacked Howard Dean and the other candidates-most of the others refrained from criticizing their competition-and spent considerable time calling attention to his own accomplishments, often using the first person singular. During his campaign, he has, I think, talked too much of his service in Vietnam and has displayed a certain degree of indecisiveness. He hurt himself badly (not for the only time) by his labored explanation of why he had voted in the Senate for the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. (He often takes his motorcycle to campaign stops, as if trying to demonstrate that he is one of the guys.) His campaign has a superabundance of high-powered advisers.
Drew notes that Clark is a talented mime: could it be that this is a quaity of personality that has served him well on the world stage? Admittedly this is a State Department skill, not much in demand in the context of military operations or partisan politics, but consider that when Clark acknowledges a Republican audience's high regard for the Bush administration or treats Mladi in public as a fellow soldier, and not simply an adversary, he is laying the diplomatic groundwork for his larger, more significant, agenda, which has consistently worked for diversity of opinion and exploration of common interests: in the case of the Republican fundraiser, national security, or in that of Mladi, the despot's desire to avoid being bombed into oblivion.
This isn't mere ass-kissing, brown-nosing or whatever epithet Clark's detractors might choose to diminish his diplomatic skills, but a sophisticated appraisal of the terrain of discourse that is above all pragmatic. When Wesley Clark became a four-star in today's army he was no longer simply a soldier, but his abilities in diplomacy and strategy were not necessarily appreciated or required by his military seniors. Clearly, in the context of NATO, Clark felt his mission extended beyond the deployment of weapons and troops, and his attempt to represent the United States in a more 3-dimensional fashion was rebuffed by both military and civilian officials who felt he was kibbutzing rather than leading.
As Drew puts it: [Clark] is a complex man, intense and often tightly wound. He can also be relaxed and humorous. He is a talented mimic who can mock his own performance in the debates. He is capable of apologizing for the slightest discourtesy without being prompted, a rarity among politicians and part of his considerable charm. . . . Clark can be brash, he can be flip. He is also a highly ambitious man- otherwise he wouldn't have become a four-star general. Out of a military force of about 1.5 million, and an officer corps of about 230,000, there are, by statutory limit, only thirty-five four-star generals. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, like Clark a veteran of Vietnam, told me, "To become a four-star general you have to get through a very tight screen."Drew notes that Gert Clark is perhaps the general's most important swing voter: how whole-heartedly she is able to embrace his candidacy while helping him to survive the sniping and smears that come with a run for the presidency will determine his overall emotional health far more than feedback from polls over the long and difficult months ahead. If winning a presidential election were no more difficult or personally demanding that waging modern war, Mrs. Colin Powell might be First Lady.Clark can also be remarkably, almost unnervingly, candid, saying (off the record, of course) all sorts of things that a politician doesn't usually talk about outside his close circle of advisers. . . . .
Clark didn't enter the race until mid-September largely because his wife, Gert, to whom he is extremely close, didn't want him to run. He held back until she said that the decision was his to make. It had been clear for months that Clark was greatly drawn to running but was also waiting to see if any of the already declared candidates had achieved a strong consensus within the party. Many well-informed people had told him that, because of his personal appeal and his military credentials, he was the Democrat most likely to defeat George W. Bush. Gert Clark, an outspoken woman to whom Clark has been married for thirty-six years, was being protective of her husband; she feared that the Democratic base would not accept a military man. She also had strong memories of the time in 2000 when Clark was fired as Supreme Allied Commander for Europe (SACEUR) six weeks after he had led the NATO allies to victory in the war over Kosovo.It's well known that Bill Clinton has disavowed personal involvement in the decision to remove Clark from his NATO command: "Clinton later said at a press conference in Europe, 'I had nothing to do with it.'" But this piece of dirty work has not been so widely reported:
To make sure that Clark's dismissal was a fait accompli, the Pentagon immediately leaked the news that he had been fired, thus denying him the dignity of being allowed to announce his own retirement. Several members of the Clinton administration believe that Clark was treated in an extremely unfair, even cruel, manner. This treatment continues. Cohen, who had originally declined to comment, said on CNN on October 15 that "there was friction between General Clark and myself. And, frankly, I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment on his political aspirations. I made a judgment during the time that he was serving as head of NATO, SACEUR. And I felt that the ax, as such, when it fell, spoke for itself."General Shelton, in particular, may come to regret actions he took to "contain" Clark and unsubstantiated criticisms he has made since both retired.Others who served in the Pentagon have said negative things about Clark so the word has spread nationally that "the generals hate him." This is taken to mean that he is disliked by "the people who know him best"-a claim that is often repeated without scrutiny by the press.
John McCain, who thinks well of Clark, says that Shelton, having made such a derogatory statement, should explain what he means. Charles Rangel, a strong supporter of Clark, has called Shelton's comment "character assassination." One of the Pentagon's chief complaints at the time was that Clark was on television too often during the Kosovo war. Shelton told Clark, "Get your f--g face off the TV. No more briefings, period." So, most unusually, for six weeks the commander of a war wasn't allowed to brief the press in public. His Pentagon bosses also wouldn't allow Clark to brief the President directly (as Generals Norman Schwarzkopf and Tommy Franks had briefed the presidents they were serving). Shelton tried to keep Clark from attending the NATO summit while Clark was conducting a NATO war. Pentagon officials also spread the word that Clark went around them to lobby Clinton for support for his positions, but there is no evidence that he did so.Ms. Drew adds an interesting and telling fact about the dispute over the Russian occupation of Pristina Airport.
Several people who are well informed about military politics or who worked with Clark during the Kosovo war believe that his enemies were largely motivated by professional jealousy of a US general who rose so quickly and also got international attention for a war unpopular with many of his colleagues. Some also say that Clark was too cerebral, too much of an intellectual for some of his fellow military officers. Besides, there is an inherent tension in wartime between the commanders on the ground and their superiors in Washington. In 1943 during the fighting in North Africa, Dwight Eisenhower thought he'd be fired. Colin Powell and Schwarzkopf yelled at each other during the Gulf War; and there have been serious strains between Donald Rumsfeld and the field officers in Iraq. Technically, Shelton wasn't directly superior to Clark in the chain of command, but Cohen used him as a go-between, having Clark report to Shelton, and so most of Cohen's information about Clark came from Shelton. Politics at the top of the military can be vicious; there are numerous stories of three-star officers not receiving a fourth star or of high-ranking officers taking early retirement because of personal feuds.
Much has been made of a single sentence in a long argument that Clark had with General Sir Michael Jackson, the British officer in command on the scene at Pristina airport, who said, "I'm not going to start World War III for you." Clark devoted an entire chapter to the airport incident in his first book, and his account has been confirmed by others. He explains that at first he had the support of the Clinton White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretary-general of NATO, Javier Solana. But when the British refused to support him, largely in response to Jackson's objections, Washington backed down. Clark himself reported Jackson's now-famous hyperbolic line to Shelton as an example of what he saw as an emotional overreaction. [Former National Security Adviser} Berger says, "To say that Wes was reckless is to misunderstand the context; it's an absurd notion."Who knew Clark's argument with Gen. Jackson was "long" and possibly face to face? I've always imagined them speaking by walky-talky with Jackson at the airport watching the incoming Russian troop carriers coming in and a nearly-hysterical Wesley Clark demanding shrilly that his junior obey orders like some demented Queeg on the Caine. So not only do the facts indicate a more reasonable and discursive context for the showdown, but point to Jackson leaking that part of the conversation calculated to embarrass Wes Clark. To counter Shelton and Cohen Drew quotes one of Clark's seniors from the time he was Chief Strategist for the Joint Chiefs (a position one would assume requires formidable intellectual fire power.)
I spoke recently with retired General Walter Kross, a former four-star Air Force general under whom Clark served on the staff of the Joint Chiefs in the mid-1990s. For two years Kross worked with Clark from 6:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night six days a week, and sometimes on Sundays. He disagrees strongly with Shelton and Cohen about Clark's abilities and character. When I asked him why Clark was disliked by some military officers, Kross replied,Commenting on the Clark approach to domestic affairs, "Ron Klain, Clark's senior policy adviser, says that as a result of Clark's military experience, 'he's more like a governor than a senator. He has run bases: they have school systems, health care issues, race issues.' Klain said that in briefing Clark, 'it's much more a conversation you'd have with Clinton than with Gore.' This can't be a bad thing."He's not the army general officer from central casting. He's the extra-ordinary senior officer who can do extra-ordinary work on the entire range of challenges senior officers have to face-including Kosovo and the Dayton Accords, on which he worked himself into exhaustion. No army officer from central casting can do that work, but Wes did."
He added, "Some senior officers misinterpret drive, energy, and enthusiasm for overambition...he is outside the mold and that makes some other officers uncomfortable."