An examination of Clark's critics

[quinnox]

Now that the Clark bash fest is in full swing, I noticed that he seems to be taking a lot of heat from certain quarters. Well, two quarters that I can discern. There is the Dean wing, which is understandable because they are passionate about their candidate and have taken aim at all the other candidates they think threaten Dean, and the socialist/ultra-leftist wing that hates anything military. Just my observations.

[JVS]

1. I can understand the bashing

Clark's credentials as a Democrat and a politican are questionable at best.

[Brian Sweat]

2. Who do the socialist/ultra-leftist support?

[IranianDemocrat]

4. Fidel Castro.

.

[Fixated]

5. ....

Well, to give you a hint, his first name is Dennis, and his last name is Kucinich.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I Like DK.... I Like Most of His Supporters

but DK is not our best hope to beat *...

[Fixated]

9. ....

I agree, most of his issues are good, he's a little too left for me at times, but his chances are what bothers me.

[Sean Reynolds]

54. I'm a Socialist and I support Dean.

[KG]

58. you go, Sean!!!

:)

[tjdee]

3. I think it's also the "Clinton is a Republican" crew too.

I never met so many people, Dems or not, who didn't like Clinton until I came to DU, LOL. Maybe that's the socialist wing of which you speak?

I'm fairly certain this thread will turn into a flame fest.
Sigh.

[JVS]

6. No shit this will be a flame fest! Got any more predictions?

The premise of the thread is that criticism of Clark is illegitimate because it is either rooted in support for another candidate, or based on a hatred (presumably irrational) of the military.

[Emboldened Chimp]

7. Clark

:kick:

[madrchsod]

10. two quarters

equal 50cent,but under clark it would be 40cent

[RichM]

11. Loathing the military is perfectly reasonable. It's a hideous vicious

institution that has way too much influence in American life. Its nexus with the government & big business involves unimaginable corruption. Almost everything they say is a ridiculous lie, built on a foundation of dishonest nationalist propaganda. They pretend to be "defending" America, but are actually a private police force for the Fortune 500, and they routinely murder civilians in large numbers -- and lie about it.

Don't you think that calls for a bit of "examination?" Do you really think you can make all that go away, simply by calling those who are aware of it "ultra-leftists?"

The points I made above are not just things said by "ultra leftists." There are ex-CIA people, ex-military people as well, & some of those currently serving in Iraq, who come forward not infrequently to acknowledge very much the same points. And it's not new, either. It's been going on for 100 years (Google on Gen. Smedley Butler).

[tabasco]

27. I suppose you're in favor of the draft?

You loathe the volunteer military. I'd like to see you drafted so you could learn an iota of information about it and the people in the military. Assuming you could make it through basic.

[kalash477]

31. so?

Give me one institition of the US that is perfectly clean. The government, the press, the military, and the citizenry have all done bad things. But to categorically call the military Hideous and vicious ignores its neccessity and the fact that it has done some good things (WWII, Afghanistan, Kosovo.)

[KaraokeKarlton]

12. You mean counterpunch?

If so, you've been quick to criticize Dean using their talking points. You are right about one thing, though...counterpoint uses socialist/ultra left wing radical sources. They do the same exact thing with Dean. So, feel free to condemn what they write about Clark, because they are most likely spun so much they aren't true, but likewise, you need to make that same concession about the crap they say about Dean.

On another note, There are only a few Dean supporters going after Clark. I wish those who are wouldn't do it because I think Clark might end up as Dean's VP. I think he probably shouldn't have entered the race, though, because he doesn't seem to have his ducks all in a row enough to handle the media blitz he's getting. He's cracking under the pressure. But then, he's not a politician and he just wasn't prepared for what he's facing right now.

[loudsue]

13. Clark supporters are all on my "list" of questionable dems

and people who always support the most conservative viewpoints. The ones who refer to progressives as "leftists".


It's amazing how the clark supporters all sound like coultergeists.

Maybe just a coincidence.

:kick:

[JVS]

14. Yeah. They rub me the wrong way too.

[Pepperbelly]

18. and YOU

rub me the wrong way. What is your point?

[JVS]

20. Good

[Pepperbelly]

28. so did you have a point or is ...

this the time you have set aside to publicly humiliate yourself?

[JVS]

33. My point was that I don't care that I rub you the wrong way

[Pepperbelly]

38. good for you ...

and just as clearly, do you understand that I don't particularly care one way or the other that I, too, rub you the wrong way? Did you manage to glean that I shall not stay up tonight worrying that I might have offended the one with the Jesus avatar? Did some of the pool balls sink home on break?

[JVS]

40. You are the one who started talking to me first on the issue

I hadn't said anything to you, so why are you pestering me?

[Pepperbelly]

43. IIRC ... you said that "they" rub you the wrong way too and ...

since I clearly support Clark, I just thought I'd let you know the rest of the story as one old thief claims from time to time.

[JVS]

49. Glad to hear your side

your part of the story seems to correspond well to my part. So I guess we were both correct. If you had been the exception to my generalization about Clark supporters, rest assured that you have made yourself conform to it quite nicely.

[Pepperbelly]

52. Good for me!

But I suppose that asking you to look at things from my POV would be a tad much to ask. I mean, when the people you've thought your friends for years turn on your viciously at the drop of a hat, I have no doubt that you would rise above it and simply admit that your choice of candidate is indeed, the most wicked, fascist, PNAC, Clinton sock-puppet plant and that you have been just too stupid to see it even though what is produced to show it are nothing more than smear jobs produced for no other reason than to castigate and ruin the reputation of a decent man who has spent a lifetime serving his country.

Of course, that would be too much to ask.

[JVS]

55. Ok, I can see what you mean and why you are upset.

Yes, there are some outrageous claims made about Clark, but I've also seen people shouted down for expressing dislike for Clark.

[Pepperbelly]

61. since I have been here ...

70% of what I post is reasoned, evidenced discourse from a very long time political observer and Democratic volunteer since the '68 campaign against Nixon. 20% is 'what he said' posts agreeing with how shit-sorry the gop is and what a sorry bastard the individual gops are. 5% is mainly humor and the remaining 5% are flames when someone steps on my last nerve.

Very few here now have any idea of how vigorously I can flame although some ... friend salin and a few others, remember and most would tell you that the huge majority of my posts are constructive. I have even received attaboys from the most reasonable poster of all ... the Magistrate (God bless him. I wish he was here now.)

But I have never seen the level of vindictiveness demonstrated agaist Clark. I purposefully avoided the anti-Dean threads, the anti-Kerry threads, the anti- anyone threads including Lieberman, prefering instead to offer positive remarks about all of the candidates.

Which is one of the reasons this pisses me off so bad. Until this stuff quiets down, the bashers are going to get from me a return of 10-fold on their flames. I have not yet become angered enough to piss on their candidates but if they persist, I fear that control may fall by the wayside as well. Probably before it does, I would simply quit coming here. It would be like leaving home but sometimes that isn't bad, particularly when you find out some of y0our closest reletives are psychos.

[tjdee]

68. Is the Magistrate real?

I hear tell of this "Magistrate", and I swear I've not seen nary a post from him/her in my time here--maybe he/she was around at the beginning of DU and I missed him/her.

He/she has taken on an almost mythical nature, LOL...

[Pepperbelly]

70. Hell, yes he's real ...

a calmer, more level-headed, knowlegable and rational voice is seldom found. And he was unremittingly anti-Bush in every instance and at every juncture. He had some health problems and posts far less frequently although he does still occasionally post. They are very rare though.

But always well worth reading ... cogent, succinct, spot-on and unwavering in support of progressivism and against the fascists.

[Forkboy]

73. The Magistrate is indeed real

and a better voice is not to be found on DU.

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jonnyblitz]

19. very shrill and thin skinned. anybody that raises a question is

deemed an extremist with an agenda.

[maggrwaggr]

23. no kidding! I was accused of being an agent of Karl Rove

for my post. They jumped all over me like I couldn't possibly be concerned about anything other than splitting the party.

Weird

[bicentennial_baby]

15. Wow thanks

I'm a progressive Clark supporter and I don't appreciate your blanket generalization. How's that broad brush?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I Thought Name Calling Was Prohibited On Democratic Underground

"Coultergeists"

That's a great debate killer....


on edit- this post was a retort to post 13

[JVS]

22. "socialist/ultra-leftist wing that hates anything military"

that isn't name calling?

[quinnox]

16. Here is a surprise

I'm not a Clark supporter. I just get tired of the distortions on a new candidate who just entered the race. All the candidates make mistakes, I think they all need to get a break now and then.

[Pepperbelly]

17. and you are on my list of those with ...

questionable critical thinking skills because of your flame toward people who support Clark as well as your creative use of the broad brush.

If you have sensitivity, at some point, I suspect that when you talk about old times and someone brings this up, you'll laugh nervously and change the subject.

[JVS]

25. Was the person who started this thread not using a broad brush?

[Pepperbelly]

30. you tell me ...

15 to 20 Clark Bashing threads on the front page of GD, with all of the pile-ons dominated by exactly those people. I guess you could say it's a dog but still, it's a damned odd one considering how it quacks.

[JVS]

39. Quite a few "Clark bashing" threads were started by Clark supporters

Like the "Is Clark the Anti-christ?" thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=370261

[Pepperbelly]

41. I am not surprised that humor is beyond you ...

but I swear, wearing a lack of a sense of humor as a badge of honor is so ... unique.

[Forkboy]

74. I dunno Pepperbelly

When someone started a thread about Mt Rushmore and I suggested that it was sagging to make room for Clark more than few Clark supporters failed to see the humor in it,even after a Clark supporter had started a thread knocking the other candidates.That thread got a lot of chuckles from Clark supporters yet they didn't seem so humorfull when I made my joke.

Go figure... :shrug:

[juajen]

76. Hi, Pepper

That was a good one, LOL. Regards. BTW, I really like his wife. Can we call her Trudi? First Lady Gert sounds a little akward. Did you see that poll from Gep country? Clark leading by sizable margin. Surprised me.

[Brian Sweat]

37. No, you were using a narrow mind.

The poster did not say that all Dean supporters and all extreme leftists are Clark bashers. That would be using a broad brush.

The poster said that most of the Clark bashers were Dean supporters or extreme leftists.

[JVS]

44. Most is also a broad brush

[Brian Sweat]

45. How so?

[Brian Sweat]

32. We're on you list of questionable Dems?

Do you get to decide who is a real Dem and who is not? Are you the chief of the purity police?


Progressives are "leftists." I am a progressive and a leftist and I am proud of it.

[tsipple]

21. Speaking for the "Dean Wing"...

...If I may be so bold... I'm kind of ambivalent about Clark. Nice that he's finally decided whether to be in or out of the Democratic nominating contest. Now I just want to learn more beyond his resume, that's all.

I will say that I'm pleased the Democratic Party has such a variety of choices, from decorated military commanders to Republicans (Lieberman). Regardless of how Clark does, that's already a plus. I think he's got to be on the short VP list should Dean succeed in winning the nomination, so that's another reason I want to see how he does.

I think Dean supporters are going to question Clark on his policies (for example, support for the Iraq Resolution?) to try to figure out how he might govern. We're also going to remind people that a candidate who can wage an effective communications and fundraising operation stands a better chance of beating Bush. (Democrats have had some wonderful candidates with miserable campaigns, and that's not a mistake I want repeated.)

So I think we're from the Missouri Wing, actually: "Show me."

( OK, that crack about Lieberman is a joke. Maybe. :evilgrin: )

[ComerPerro]

24. Then there is the wing that is just annoyed

With all of the Clark threads. He has only been in the political arena for a couple days. Please let it go.

Frankly, I am concerned that some people could get so deeply devoted to a candidate that they worship him within hours.
Not everything that doesn't praise Clark is Clark bashing.

And maybe you wouldn't see any "Clark bashing" threads if there wasn't a new "I love Clark because he is the only one who can win" thread every five minutes.

Please, spare us the wasted bandwidth. Why don't all ten Clark supporters get together and write one long, thought out, coherent post?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. Wes Clark Has Only Ten Supporters On This Board

I swear under oath that I saw a Clark-Dean poll where both had around 150 votes... I do believe Dean edged Clark in that poll...


Anyway the power of an idea is not measured by the number of people who endorse it....

[ComerPerro]

34. Ok, I exxagerate

But most of the strong pro-Clark, anti-everybody else threads I see are started and/or fueled by ten or fifteen people.

Just trying to make light of the situation. Everybody needs to chill the fuck out.

[Pepperbelly]

35. I suppose that ...

as a Dean supporter, you apparently believe what you write but even a cursory review of GD's front page should tell you, if you take your blinders off, that the premise in your post is a false one.

[ComerPerro]

47. My premise is false?

I am saying that, I don't care, pro-Clark, anti-Clark, I am just sick of it. I am annoyed with both.

But I think the pro-Clark threads that started flooding this place before his announcements led to anti-Clark threads, which led to more agressive pro-Clark threads, which led to ... blah blah... and here we find ourselves at the present moment.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? I don't care. I have had my fill of both.

[Pepperbelly]

53. as have I and ...

I have been here since the beginning. It dismays me to see how vicious people I perceived to be friends have become and it saddens me more than a little bit. I have been through some of the hardest times here but now, it no longer seems like home.

Masks have come off and I do not like at all what is revealed beneath them.

[ComerPerro]

59. Don't think I don't appreciate

Your position. I know you have been here, I am familiar with your postings.
I just feel that these threads are trashing GD and DUs reputation.

[kodi]

66. pepperbelly,dogmatists come in many stripes, the Left's just look like us.

but, they've always been here, as has their sickly-sweet attitude of sancitmonious moral superiority which values doctrinaire ideological posturing more than the truth. and i know it is something you recognized long ago when i was here years before under another name. i left a while back because of what i saw under the masks.

one of the best trotskyite socialist therorists and trotsky friend and translator, max schactman became an anti-communist for just this reason.

i guess i should just laugh at them because they act so much like the clowns of the people's front of judea (or was that the judean people's front?) in monty python's life of brian.

unfortunately, they are potentially dangerous, not because of their positions, which for the most part i too hold, but because of the dogmatic intractablity they hold for their positions.

the political spectrum of ideology is not a straight line, it is a circle and there is as much these folks have in common with fascists and communists as in common with those of us who believe in pluralistic, liberal democracy.

[Pepperbelly]

71. far too quick to sacrifice ...

good on the alter of perfect.

I saw it in '68 after the Democratic Convention in Chicago, a truly drag scene altogether ... heap bad kharma for all involved but even though we had suffered through the killing of Bobby K., even though Hubert Humphry, a noted progressive who had the misfortune of being VP when Johnson's Viet Nam policy melted down, was actually a very good man.

But the left demurred and HHH lost a squeaker to Nixon and good was sacrificed on the alter of perfect and we got Nixon. In '72, the lefties got their way and nominated a wonderful decent man who was excellent on policy and a war hero but Nixon hammered him.

I have seen it before and as always, people never seem to learn a damned thing from history.

:shrug:

And then they feel good about their principles, always willing to sacrifice a better quality of life for the people they claim to represent for some very ill-defined long term 'good'.

[kodi]

72. ego overwhelming empathy

BTW: nicely put, PB. glad to see you still here upon my return.

[Zuni]

77. Sectarian left

who are so rigid and doctinaire--they usually come from the extreme or revolutionary factions.
I cannot stand them.

[JVS]

29. Did you examine anything or are you just pontificating?

No offense to fans of the pontiff.

[edward]

42. I have noticed that there are two kinds of people

Those who like dark beer, and those who do not.

[charlie]

48. Those who do not...

...know jack about beer. They should have their tastebuds removed and be banished to the Hell of Warm Coors forever.

[JVS]

51. You are correct

[wyldwolf]

36. I agree with your observations... I don't mind it from the Dean camp...

...healthy competition and all that warm fuzzy stuff.

The far lefties are just whiners about everything. It's all sinister to them.

[WillyBrandt]

46. Most of the criticism is simply insane

(Posted elsewhere a few minutes ago)

Clark supporters can (or should) deal with accusations that Clark is too vague or has taken political missteps or that his particular positions are wrong.

What we find totally intolerable is are the claims that:

(1) He is really a Republican
(2) He is a PNACer, because he said that while he thought that Perle, et al are totally wrong, he could deal with them as colleagues
(3) He is a war criminal
(4) He is liked only because he is a General
(5) Because he is a General, he is a warmonger along the lines of Feith et al (this really boils my blood. I know a lot of good, liberal patriots in the military.)
(6) Because RIGHT AFTER Saddam fell he wrote something positive, that invalidates the far greater criticism he made of the war. (A LOT of anti-war people thought that, after Saddam's fall, "This was a bad idea, but Saddam's fall is good--perhaps a sliver of good can come out of this." But that cannot satisfy the righteousness of the rabid.)
(7) Because that lunatic anti-Democratic Clinton-hater Alistair Cockburn of Counterpunch wrote an article about him, he must be Satan's spawn
(8) He doesn't count as a "real" Democrat
(9) He is a DLC plant, and Clark supporters a mindless lemmings following Al From.

These are all just the sheerest nonsense. Clark supporters get so angry because of the sheer mindlessness of the smears above. We are angry because so many on this board confuse repetition with veracity: Clark is a progressive Democrat who fought about as just and multi-lateral a war as you could fight. But instead we have the drumbeat of "War Criminal" against a good man who can whoop Bush.

I like Clark as an individual, I like his chances of crushing Bush Jr, I like his writings and his speeches, and--the loony bin that is DU aside--I like the possibility that he will help expand and grow the Democratic party.

I like the fact that both grassroots--don't kid yourself, he DOES have real grassroots support--AND the Democratic Establishment like the guy. I wanted a united party, not one damaged by schism--or smear and slander and stupidity coming from the inside out.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

50. Are You From Germany

Willy Brandt was a great man.... Although I am not a "socialist" his humanity was so appealing to me....

[WillyBrandt]

56. Not from Germany

But I lived there for a while.

Another thing: I am a rabid Clark supporter, but I also DEEPLY ADMIRE Howard Dean, John Kerry, and John Edwards.

I think there are only a few smearers who are causing much of this agitation. I like Dean partly for the same reason I like Clark: he is a fresh-faced outsider whose campaign derives from a very serious grassroots element. Dean has brought people into politics. Clark, in a (naturally) smaller way, has too. (I hope he'll bring more and more in as his campaign progresses.)

Anyway, that was a tangent--Willy Brant was a very good man. (And I like RFK too!)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

60. I Believe Willy Brandt Was A Resister During WW2

He did not serve in the Armed Forces...

[JVS]

62. He went to Norway

Adenauer once had the nerve to imply that his fleeing the Nazis was an act of cowardice whereas his own collaboration with the Nazis (he was mayor of Cologne) was somehow more patriotic.

[captain_crunch]

57. can't we all

just get along?

[newyawker99]

78. Hi captain_crunch!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[sandnsea]

63. But Deanie's don't bash

I've just got one thing to say to Deanie's. When Clark hits back, NO WHINING!!!

[WillyBrandt]

64. Rumor has it . . .

that Dean is running just so he can be VP on the Clark ticket :)

[oasis]

67. Welcome to DU Willy Brandt.

:hi:

[Renew Deal]

69. And the right wing...

Can't forget the pukes. :puke:

[MrPrax]

75. GOP loves Clark

It is good to see Democrats agreeing on what the Media suggests...and what they figure will sway GOPers...

Besides the usual slams about Repukes being poor, living in trailers, and stupid...they are probably no better or worst than democrats...

Ergo give them policies and not personlities/targets like Clark or Gep or Dean...

Take a Stand for once