Wesley Clark on CNN now 12:55 EDT

[chimpymustgo]

nt

[RichV]

1. Good Lord

This man is a stud. Tom Delay just got Punk*d! ;)

[The_Bearded_Liberal]

2. Go Wesley!

Just hammered "The Hammer"!

Way to go!

[chimpymustgo]

3. Wolf said "we'll be standing by for your announcement in the next

2-3 weeks. Sounds like Clark is running.

[MidwestTransplant]

4. He just RIPPED Tom Delay

Delay in an old interview with Judy Woodruff: "Blow dried hair Generals like Gen. Clark"

Gen. Clark: "I would be happy to compare my so called blowed dry hair to Tom Delay's blow dried hair any day." He went on to rip him further.

[Brazosboomer]

18. Actually ....

I think DeLay said "blow dried Napolions" That's odd - http://www.brazosriver.com/delayfed.htm - because DeLay is both!

[HerbieHeadhunter]

5. He took Tom Delay to the woodshed....

he's certainly passed that litmus test for me.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

7. Bloody fantastic..

If this man doesn't run for President, it would be a shame for not only America, but the world as well.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. He Was Masterful

If anybody watched they would have seen General Clark rip Tom DeLay a news asshole.

He's running....

And if he gets the nomination he will beat Bush and like Ike bring in a Democratic House and Senate....


God Bless General Clark


God Bless The Democratic Party


and

God Bless America.

[Snellius]

15. Much better than I expected

It's interesting to see him finally speaking as a candidate -- he's running for sure -- without having to wear his military or analyst's hat. He's calm, aggressive, get-to-the-point, clear, focused, friendly, optimistic without being phoney yet critical without being angry. He's good. No doubt about it. He's very good. I hope he's not too good for a process that's become so ruthless and nasty.

[TacticalPeek]

31. A-f***ing-men. n/t

[madaboutharry]

8. I love this guy.

It is such a pleasure to listen to someone who has a brain and a mouth that works at the same time. I loved the last bit: "I would compare my hair any day to Tom DeLay's." I think he sounded like the answer is going to be YES. I have to admit, I have already sent money to Dean, but if Clark runs I'm with him.

[chimpymustgo]

9. Clark is very very good. Scathing, but smooth.

nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. I Would Walk Through Hot Coal To See Wes Clark Got The Nomination

and I would walk through a gauntlet of the biggest, baddest Freepers you could find to see The General debate the draft evader.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

17. Me Too!

I've already pledged more to Clark than I have for any other Democratic candidate ever. God, I hope he gives me the reason to cut that check!

DTH

[gulliver]

21. Same here.

I'd dig deep for Clark. If he ran, I would consider it an honor to work for his campaign.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. I Defy Anybody Who Saw Wes Clark In That Interview

to deny that he's a liberal in the mode of JFK, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

And that's he a Democrat.

[GOPFighter]

12. After watching him on CNN...

...I get the distinct feeling he's going to run. I'm not sure he should because I think it's going to hurt Dean more than any other. On the other hand, I just love hearing a retired, respected, 4-star General RIP Bush and RIP DeLay in front of the American public. I think his criticism will have far more credibility among the American peopl coming from a respected military guy, than from career politicians.

Dean/Clark 2004?

[SeveneightyWhoa]

13. Man, if its Clark we're talking about...

..who gives a damn about Dean?
Clark has a better chance--a MUCH better chance--than anybody to beat the Republican machine.

Besides, Dean would make the perfect VP for Clark, I would think.

[laruemtt]

14. i love it, democratsincebirth!

you need too send this sentiment to the man himself. btw, i feel the exact same way. please, please, please run Wes!!!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. I Don't Want To Turn This Into A Dean -Clark Battle

so I'll use the Socratic method and hopefully inform both of us by posing a question.

Do you think the criticism of Chimpy's national security record has more validity when it is offered by a four star general and three time decorated Viet Nam war hero?


Do you think the criticism of Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting would have more validity if it was offered by Robet DeNiro than if it was offered by Adam Sandler?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. Carville And Begala Aren't Committed To Any Candidate

I think Wes Clark could use their help....

And don't forget Captain Cue Ball (James Carville) is ex military....

[VolcanoJen]

20. *Unofficial* Transcript and more discussion on GD thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=189198

[maggrwaggr]

22. that was EXTREMELY satisfying

Aaaaaahhhhhhhh ........!!!!

Man, he ripped Tom Delay a new one. Absolutely glorious.

I'm a die-hard Dean supporter, but this guy ROCKS.

How do we get both of these guys in office?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. Food For Thought

Many DUers are justifiably concerned about electing a military leader to high office but I think history shows that most military men, at least American military leaders are reluctant to use force.

It's usually the civillian leaders who have never experienced the bitter test of battle where men and women die and soldiers are separated from their limbs who are most gung ho.

America's military leaders had to be "pushed" into joining the war on Iraq (and)

Abraham Lincon went through a sucession of gernerals before settling on Grant because they were so reluctant to use force.

I think someone who has tasted battle like Wes Clark would be best equipped to use American power judiciously.

[grasswire]

27. I read on another board...

...that after Vietnam, Clark spent time with Jesuits studying the philosophies of war, particularly the notion of a "just" war.

He's supremely thoughtful and informed. Remember, one of his paths at Oxford was philosophy.

He's no narrowminded gung-ho bonehead. And he's not in the pocket of the defense industries. His choice of work after retiring certainly proves that!! He didn't take any of those fat cat jobs like Schwarzkopf. Didn't join the Carlyle Group!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

39. I Don't Know About Schwartkorpf's Connections.

I know he's a Republican but I wont't call him a Puke out of respect.

I also know he served heroically in Nam.

And Norman's not all bad. He was part of an amicus brief supporting University of Michigan's affirmative action plan.

I think from now one I am going to start separating out the decent Republicans from the indecent ones for ridicule.


Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are on my bad list....

[slappypan]

34. I am surprised how negative some people here are about a general

I personally am not all that fond of doctors and I don't have a high opinion of the way medicine is currently practiced in this country, but I would never say because of that that Howard Dean is not a good man or somehow unfit for office. Quite the contrary, if someone has had an exemplary career in a profession where it is difficult to do so, I admire that person more.

[Pepperbelly]

24. As part of Wesley's family ...

I have kinda restricted myself to calling bullshit against the slanders launched by various websites and posters against him but have withheld support for his candidacy other than to tell people what I knew about him. After his performance today, he won my over totally.

I think he will be the real deal. Trumanesque in his truthtelling, he certainly lets the chips fall where they might even though he does manage to level scathing, rational criticism without sounding either pissed off or hysterical. His record is impeccable, his presentation reassuring, his personal values unreproachable and his service to the nation astounding.

Remember this: if Bush pulls out the carrier footage, Wesley still has his major's uniform from Vietnam with no less than four bullet holes in it. Personally, do any of you know the story about him and Richard Holbrook traveling in Serbia?

That story alone should tell everyone what kind of man he is. Note, it was Holbrook who told the story, not Wesley.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. I Have Heard The Story About His Heroism In That Incident After the

the vehicle crash...


You should retell it...

[Pepperbelly]

28. amazing and there ... the story ...

weren't even any tv cameras around, eh?

Wesley is the genuine, real deal I think.

If you really think that I should tell that ...

Wesley and Holbrook were driving through Serbia to go meet with Slobbie and, since it was a war zone and Holbrook was a heavy, they had an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) in front of them with three soldiers crewing it. The APC wrecked by going off the road and over a cliff and struck a minefield on the way down, ruining the APC and no doubt killing all those inside.

Wesley and Holbrook stopped and while Holbrook protested, Wesley rappelled down the cliff under fire to stay with the bodies until they could be recovered because he didn't want to leave fallen comrades at the mercy of the Serbs or the crows.

Holbrook tells the story, Wesley does not.

[wellstone_democrat]

33. and yet...

Freeps and other bushite loons try to promote slurs on his military record and even his personal courage. For all of their vaunted "patriotism" things like this show that it is "all armchair and no uniform"

[VolcanoJen]

30. The Ambassador Holbrooke Story, by request!

You'll have to click "next" to read the whole story. Esquire has it truncated into several pages.

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030801_mfe_clark_7.html

Excerpt:

"In August 1995, the general—three stars, working as J-5 for the Joint Chiefs—went to Bosnia as part of the negotiating team Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had put together to end the civil war that had resulted in the massacre of as many as eight thousand Muslim men and boys at the town of Srebrenica the month before. In Belgrade, Clark had met for the first time Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who was sponsoring the Bosnian Serbs. Now the team had to travel to Sarajevo. Told that the airport in Sarajevo was too dangerous to fly into, the team decided to drive and asked Milosevic to guarantee its safety on a road held by Bosnian Serbs. Milosevic did not, and so the team wound up taking a fortified Humvee and an armored personnel carrier on a pitched, narrow, winding mountain road notoriously vulnerable to Serb machine-gun fire. Clark and Holbrooke went in the Humvee, the rest in the APC. In his book, the general describes what happened this way: "At the end of the first week we had a tragic accident on Mount Igman, near Sarajevo. (Three members of the team) were killed when the French armored personnel carrier in which they were riding broke through the shoulder of the road and tumbled several hundred meters down a steep hillside.

It is not until one reads Holbrooke's book, To End a War, that one finds out that after the APC went off the road, Clark grabbed a rope, anchored it to a tree stump, and rappelled down the mountainside after it, despite the gunfire that the explosion of the APC set off, despite the warnings that the mountainside was heavily mined, despite the rain and the mud, and despite Holbrooke yelling that he couldn't go. It is not until one brings the incident up to the general that one finds out that the burning APC had turned into a kiln, and that Clark stayed with it and aided in the extraction of the bodies; it is not until one meets Wesley Clark that one understands the degree to which he held Milosevic accountable."

[bicentennial_baby]

26. The definitive Clark story

That story really says everything about what kind of a man he is, imho.

[graham67]

29. WKC's character....

"Personally, do any of you know the story about him and Richard Holbrook traveling in Serbia?"

The APC crash? Yes, I read about it 3 different ways in 3 different books (Holbrooke's, Clark's, Halberstam). I've been supporting a potential Clark candidacy for months. What took you so long to come on board, being that he's family and all? ;-)

[Pepperbelly]

32. My political choices are always rational, reasoned choices and it ...

is far too easy to let emotion into it with family. So I defended his honor, so to speak against the slanderers, but withheld support until I sifted it through my values and Welsey's actions.

BTW, even in the family, we didn't know about the APC thing until we read about it and that says much about his character, doesn't it?

[graham67]

37. Yep...

it sure does. :-)

Your restraint here has been remarkable and I applaud you for it. I would not have been so kind had such nasty things been written about a family member of mine ;-)

[TacticalPeek]

36. "won over totally"...

Despite a previous incarnation as an activist in the sixties, I have not involved myself in direct, electoral action since my wife and I comprised 1/2 of a Gary Hart delegate at an '88 state caucus.

Today I will start looking for meetups, and for extra work to get money to contribute (no small task in aWol's wrecked economy).

Clark is the man to positively change the entire American political landscape.

(Glad I taped that hammering of the Hammer so I can play it over and over with glee!)

[qanda]

35. I LOVE Wesley Clark!

I have been hoping and praying that he would throw his hat in the ring-- I will change my party affiliation from Independent just to vote for him in the primary elections. My only concern at this point is his safety. He seems too good to be true and usually those are the people who end up meeting an untimely fate.:tinfoilhat:

[tameszu]

38. TRANSCRIPT!!!

Got it http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/17/le.00.html">right here for everyone who was lame like me and slept through it.

:hangover:

[VolcanoJen]

40. Transcript here also:

http://www.draftclark2004.com/news_detail.asp?nid=101

[qanda]

41. That was inspiring nt

nt

[TheBigGuy]

43. Did a pretty good job of nailing Tom Delay

.....about that Kosovo vote.

[chaska]

42. Woo hoo!!!

The letters are pouring into the draft sites!

http://www.draftclark2004.com/default.asp

[tameszu]

44. How do you know? Do you have a link so I can see them?

Maybe I'm being a tool, but I couldn't find the letters. I want to see!

:bounce:

[chaska]

45. I made it up.

No, that was just what somebody that runs one of the sites said at the Clark Yahoo group.

[bicentennial_baby]

46. Here you go

http://www.draftwesleyclark.com/supporters.htm

[chaska]

47. My God!!!

Who knew? There must be hundreds of letters just today.

I love it when a plan comes together!

[tameszu]

48. Thanks!

Wow, there's a lot of new ones!

And the second one I saw was great:

"General Clark, America NEEDS you. Please run for president. If you don't, this country is screwed. Help us."

[newyawker99]

49. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=189198


I am locking this one.


NYer99
DU Moderator