Saletan at it again.

[Julien Sorel]

Bush did his best to puncture the pessimism. "The foreign terrorists are trying to create conditions of fear and retreat," he argued. " believe that we're soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken. … They want countries to say, 'Oh, gosh, well, we better not send anybody there, because somebody might get hurt.' That's precisely what they're trying to do. And that's why it's important for this nation and our other coalition partners to stand our ground." To questions on every aspect of the postwar conflict—U.S. troops, Bush's $87 billion appropriation request, donations and reinforcements from other countries—Bush responded with the language of intimidation, defiance, and will.

...

I've seen this struggle for the psychology of a nation at war before. Four years ago, NATO's military commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, faced a similar barrage of pessimism from the press and from members of Congress hostile to President Clinton's war in Kosovo. The skeptics argued that our adversary, Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, had proven to be too mentally strong for us and that we should back off. Clark turned that argument on its head: By refusing to let Milosevic break our will, we would break his. Milosevic "may have thought that some countries would be afraid of his bluster and intimidation," said Clark. "He was wrong. … He thought that taking prisoners and mistreating them and humiliating them publicly would weaken our resolve. Wrong again. … We're winning, Milosevic is losing, and he knows it."

...

And the classic Saletan attack:

That's why it's so troubling today to see Clark join in the same self-fulfilling wave of determined pessimism and obstruction he battled four years ago. "This president didn't know how he wanted to end. He doesn't know what he's doing today," Clark charged in Sunday's Democratic presidential debate. "I would not have voted $87 billion. … The best form of welfare for the troops is a winning strategy. And I think we ought to call on our commander in chief to produce it. And I think he ought to produce it before he gets one additional penny for that war."

The title of this little piece is 'The Decline of the Wes'

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090437/


Now there's an analogy for you: comparing the guerilla war in Iraq to the conventional war that was Bosnia. Yep, that corporate media: behind Clark all the way, knives drawn.

Who is the anti-corporate candidate again?

[RichM]

1. I give up. Who is the anti-corporate candidate?

Are you saying that because Saletan criticizes Clark, that makes Clark the anti-corporate candidate?

That doesn't make sense to me. I certainly agree, however, that the article is a stupid POS.

[SahaleArm]

2. Slate?

What happened to Kinsley, are the inmates running the asylum?