Wesley Clark on Jim Lerher News Hour in a few minutes...

[FrenchieCat]

A conversation with Wesley Clark today....in a little while...maybe the last segment.

[wyldwolf]

1. Network?

[OKNancy]

2. PBS

[MidwestTransplant]

3. When did Jim Leher leave Fox?

just kidding

[FrenchieCat]

4. hahaha......

Ok, now let's get serious......His is the last segment of the hour...normally reserved for Poetry.....And I'm sure this will be.

[FrenchieCat]

5. Come on now, it's the only real news show left....

without commercials and tough interviews....

[PROGRESSIVE1]

11. Jim Leher is one of our nation's only TRUE JOURNALISTS!!!

.

[Cush]

6. Kick on now

on the GDP:

IT would have been better if those Tax Cuts went to the people who really needed them.

The Economic Models do show a super strong economy, even with this news. This won't balance the budget

[FrenchieCat]

10. the economy.

he's in good spirit. Margaret is asking him about Bush's great economy!

he said that it would have been better if the tax cut would have been targeted to middle and lower income people.

She asked if he should not propose tax increase on higher earners.....

He said, yes, because we need a balanced budget with baby boomer about to retire.

[Cush]

7. on Iraq

We need to get the picture right. Syria & Iran are working against the US because they see themselves as the next target, so they need Iraq to remain unstable

The different Sects are now trying to position themselves. The governing council should be handed over the UN, but the military forces should remain in US hands

this does 3 things

1) Takes the US off the blame line

2) Improves the chances that other nations will send $$$

3) Could help get more troops from other nations

[FrenchieCat]

12. Iraq

Onto Iraq: First thing to do is get big picture right. Syria and Iran are working against US in region due to belief that administration intends to get them. Regional dynamic needs to be worked. Back to UN, remove occupying force, give it to UN or other international coalition. Work with Northern Iraq. Shite in South. Jostling for position there. Real violence if this goes the wrong way. Coalition would be transferred to UN. U.S. authority over military. You can put UN or international organization in charge of development. Take Halliburton out. Do this because it takes the US off the blame line in world. It is a lot of nations trying to help. It improves your chance of getting economic assistance. It gives better chance to get military assistance. Do not want to leave Iraq prematurely. Window for optimal stabilization.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

22. He certainly has a handle on the details and subtleties in the region.

But his 10/28 speech on New American Strategies for Security and Peace has some interesting things on this topic.

What Clark says and the way he says it is fabulous. Mostly. The first half of the speech indicting BushCo is really great. Then he gets to his vision of continued US hegemony, pre-emptive tactics etc. expressed as "a more enlightened American interest."

>snip<

"Going forward, we'll need new labels and new ideas."
Hmm. To succeed where BushCo failed? I hear what follows below as a tactical adjustment to achieve similar goals mixed with noble ideals.

He mentions the NATO Kosovo campaign of 1999:
"During the Kosovo campaign, Tony Blair paid me an unannounced visit at NATO headquarters. He said: "I just want to ask one single question: Are we going to win?" I assured him we would win. He answered: "Good. Because every government in Western Europe depends on the successful outcome of this operation."

Hmmm. Just who was being rescued with that campaign? NATO or Kosovo?
Interesting question. (Comments, The Magistrate? DoveTurnedHawk? BillyBunter? I do value and enjoy your postings on Clark.)

"If we had used NATO to launch the war on terrorism, we would have had the military, moral, political, and financial commitment of 19 nations - including Turkey - determined to make a success of the mission, and determined to defend our actions to their people and the world."

Hmmm. We could've gotten more support for these illegal wars and a better PR image?!!? Sounds like a more efficient imperialism to me.

"It's obvious to me the limits of achieving our world-wide aims by relying exclusively on the military."

>snip<

"This is why I'm running for President - to bring back the core ideals of our democracy - to use them to guide our foreign policy... These ideals have made us great. They can make us greater. They can make us safer and more prosperous. In the end, they will ensure that America is admired for her moral authority -- not just feared for her military might. In this era, we cannot be safe without both."

Hmm. Sounds like 'if we play nice with others, we'll get what we want. But we'll damn sure get what we want, just with more diplomacy before the bombs are dropped.'

Clark continues to express the best of my hopes and the worst of my fears at the same time. We'd probably fare better domestically under his presidency but I would still not want to be in US bombsites.

[DrBB]

32. Huh?

Don't want to go too far into this cuz haven't read the rest of the thread yet. But it sounds like he's saying that in order to secure genuine security we need to be internationalist rather than unilateralist/imperialist in our approach.

"This is why I'm running for President - to bring back the core ideals of our democracy - to use them to guide our foreign policy... These ideals have made us great. They can make us greater. They can make us safer and more prosperous. In the end, they will ensure that America is admired for her moral authority -- not just feared for her military might. In this era, we cannot be safe without both."

Sounds right to me.

Hmm. Sounds like 'if we play nice with others, we'll get what we want. But we'll damn sure get what we want, just with more diplomacy before the bombs are dropped.'

Huh? How does this follow from that?

[JohnOneillsMemory]

33. Check out the other excerpts. Pre-emption, the same war but with help.

Don't be distracted by the puffy platitudes and noble rhetoric. He still paints a picture of US hegemony. Only with applause from allies, a kindler gentler Pax Americana. He describes attaining dominance of the planet with validation instead of resistance, more effectively and cheaper. Same goals, different methods.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

38. Yikes. Just saw your previous thread with Code_Name_D. I'm not a purist.

I see you've already chewed on the speech he gave about US security.

I'm all for pragmatic survival. But survival it must be. I appreciate the Michael Moore rant about allowing folks to cross over to 'our side.' That people think Clark is changing his mind is laughable to me. One poster suggested that he was 'naive in a 50s sort of way' but now he was 'connecting the dots' and coming out fighting. Um...yeay, right.

Others (you) say he is the 600lb sumo wrestler you want on your side of the rope during tug-of-war so you ignore the footsteps in the flower garden he made before he joined the team. I'm not worried about the footsteps in the flower garden; I'm worried about what happens if he wins.

...uh...falling asleep. No more atttempts at being rational tonight.

[alfredo]

42. Clark is singing from the Clinton

diplomacy songbook. That's all. Clinton wanted to keep the US dominant, but wanted to use diplomacy instead of war as the means to dominance.

[Julien Sorel]

34. You're creating a false construct.

Hmmm. Just who was being rescued with that campaign? NATO or Kosovo? Interesting question.

You inserted the word 'rescued' in there, which did apply to the Kosovars, but not to NATO. The issue with NATO was simple: if NATO, the most powerful military force in the world representing the most prosperous cultural dynamic in the world, could not present a unified political will and defeat Milosevic, then the institution had become irrelevant with the end of the Cold War.

The NATO countries chose to become involved in the Balkans; there was nothing to 'rescue' them from. One word can make a world, or at least a hemisphere, of difference sometimes.

I also have issues with the selective quoting and assumptions you make about what Clark means by 'world-wide aims.' It has been the, often unwritten and unspoken, and all-too frequently, unacted-upon, goal of this country since at least the time of Wilson to spread American values to the rest of the world -- not at gunpoint, but through cooperation and example. I suspect that, and not some nefarious imperialistic plot, is what Clark is referring to with the phrase 'achieving our world-wide aims,' although I'm also certain he means 'winning,' to the extent that it is possible, the 'war on terror.' I believe that American values are good ones by and large even though we ourselves do a piss-poor job of living them sometimes; your own mmv.

[The Magistrate]

35. Well Said, Mr. Bunter

You have addressed Mr. Memory's question superbly.

Your comment on spreading values through cooperation and example is similarly first-rate. This is the surest way, and the most durable. It is how the old Chinese spread, not by conquest, and that remains millenia later the most coherent cultural bloc on this earth.

What is called "the war on terror", but is more accurately demoninated a war against radical fundamentalists of Islam, is indeed a war of values and world views, and cannot be won by purely, or even largely, military means. It can, in the long run, be won only by seeing to it that modernity pays for people throughout the Islamic world. The greatest beneficiaries of victory in it will be the Islamic peoples themselves.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

37. Spreading values through example is precisely the problem.

But to back up, I didn't include the link to Clark's full speech:
http://clark04.com/speeches/008

Gentleman, we are all realists here and recognize the almost universal dominance of Machiavellian logic underlying the noble platitudes of the propaganda espoused. Misters Bunter and Magistrate, you are extremely intelligent and I know you know this despite the idealisms you use to admonish me for my cynicism.

I think the quote from Tony Blair as cited by Clark is very telling. The issue of NATO and UN action (and, conversely, inaction) was and remains controversial because of the values demonstrated. NATO has been accused of representing the sum of the corporate interests that dominate each of the member countries.

The values displayed have been described as racist for the lack of intervention in, for instance, Rwanda. The UN was excoriated for intentionally avoiding the use of the word 'genocide' which would mandate a response.

I remember accusations of racism levied against NATO in '99 when it was said that the only reason NATO took any action in the Balkans was because white Europeans were involved and, most importantly, the CREDIBILITY OF NATO required doing something. Rather like a cop who has to act on a traffic violation to maintain law and order because many people are watching. And the US has routinely gone after easy targets such as Libya or Panama or Granada or Iraq as a show of force to underscore the implied threat of willingness to deploy US might, otherwise known as STATE-SPONSORED TERRORISM. Ah, spreading values by example. Too true. Holocaust, genocide, apartheid, war crimes-this is the US's history against people of color, foreign and domestic. Spreading values by example indeed.

Gentleman, since we are frequently gathered to discuss this arena of morality, I'd like to share my personal involvement with war in the Balkans and the atrocities there. I recall recent posts amongst you wondering how people could be so uninvolved or in denial of terrible events that they aren't moved to response. Well...

I'm 42 years old. When I was 6, a friend showed me his father's photos of liberating the Nazi's concentration camps. I saw skeletal bodies stacked like cord wood. I've known my species was dangerous ever since. I marched against Vietnam in '68 when I was 7 years old. I saw pictures of VC heads displayed as trophies by US GIs when I was 10 and read first hand accounts of hand-to-hand combat by 'cherry' GIs.

During the NATO bombing of Kosovo in April '99, I was taking a jazz trio around Italy. I was in Pescara on the east coast of the Adriatic, a mere 300 miles from the atrocities. I could hardly concentrate on my job knowing I was but a few hours from ethnic cleansing and camps that smacked of Nazi-ism. Refugees from the war-torn areas were flooding into Italy and jamming the trains we were traveling on. Then...

On May 8 '99, I spent all day doing sound for a show with Vedran Smailovic, The Cellist of Sarajevo. "The man who shook his cello in the face of bombs, death, and ruin and defied them all."

>article excerpt<

"This is the true story of an ordinary man who lived in Sarajevo - a city under siege.On 27th May 1992, Vedran Smailovic, principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera Orchestra, stood athis window looking at a long line of hungry men, women, and children standing outside a bakery. As he looked at his starving friends and neighbors, a mortar landed among them, killing 22. Mr Smailovic ran to help the survivors. When the makeshift ambulances arrived, having to dodge constant sniper fire on the roads, Mr Smailovic helped load in his friends,and then watched as they began the perilous journey back to the hospital. Left alone at the site of destruction, Mr Smailovic realized he had to do something more. But he wasn’t a soldier or a surgeon: what could a cellist possibly do to help in this situation? The next day at the precise hour of the shelling, Mr Smailovic walked to the site of the massacre and made his stand. His weapon? A cello. His ammunition? Music. Dressed in his formal tuxedo and seated on a stool in the crater left by the shell, Vedran Smailovic played Albinoni’s lugubrious Adagio in G minor, which ironically had been found in pieces in the rubble of Dresden, Germany, after WW II. Everyday at exactly 4 pm for a total of 22 days– one to honor each of his dead friends – the Cellist of Sarajevo played, while bullets flew around him. Soon his story was circling the globe and drawing the world’s attention to the atrocities in Sarajevo."

The concert I worked on also had readings of people's accounts of rape and betrayal by their long-time neighbors. I weep just remembering this day I spent with Vedran Smailovic. So understand that I have very deep personal feelings about the situation and a revulsion for injustice and atrocities. Thought you might be interested.

[Cush]

8. talking about 9/11

The President in the CnC, if something goes wrong, he has to lead, not stonewall. He's supposed to be involved, he should be asking questions....

We know that as of 9/10/01, there was no plan on how to deal with Osama. The Buck stops on his desk, not some FBI Agent in Minnesota, or Arizona who might have missed a memo

The PRes high obligation is to protect the US

[FrenchieCat]

13. The buck should stop on the President's desk......no excuses....

Asked about 9/11

He said that Bush as commander in chief should take responsibility for heading the investigation as to what happened.

Americans need to know that the buck stops on the President's desk.

Commander in chief.....responsibility is to know...you do your homework, and work the issue.

The oath of the presidency is to protect the national security of Americans.

[Cush]

9. on running

I never thought I'd be running for PRes, but I never thought I'd see the US in this kind of situation

[FrenchieCat]

14. Said he has 6 paid employees in NH...

Next lowest is 40 employees.....But we are getting our footing..
Don't yet have a commercial...other have.

All of that is coming.

Actually he is not doing badly considering.....is 3rd at 14% right now...

[FrenchieCat]

15. At the end of the NewsHour......they did a Clark pest control

Commercial...

Bush is the pest......Clark's pest control will kill the bugs dead.

Now that's a good commercial.

[andym]

17. They really did that commercial?

They really did that "commercial" with Bush as a bug?

[librechik]

27. They didn't show it on my station

hmm

[jumptheshadow]

18. Is this for real?

And is it a swipe at Bush and Delay?

[robbedvoter]

16. Thanks so much! I missed it! :-(

Sounds like a good one!

[librechik]

21. catch the realaudio file here

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html

scrolldown to newsmakers

[indigo11153]

19. Clark Kicked butt

I was very impressed. No fear of 9/11! Yes!
I loved it. Where does that buck stop? Bush!

[alcuno]

20. He was terrific.

I really like him.

[neuvocat]

23. Clark cannot be intimidated.

He faced down Matthews and Matthews blinked.

[Renew Deal]

29. He has faced down Hannity twice and scarborough.

He bitchslapped Hannity a couple times during the summer. It was great. Scarborough went as far as to tell Clark he would be a great candidate once. Mathews said the same thing the day before he announced. He keeps these clowns in line.

[dobak]

24. nice...

He already has a "talking point" on the Bush tax cut - even though the GDP just jumped.


"How much better could we have been if the tax cuts had gone to the people who needed them."

Good, he can come up with something nice right off the top of his head.

[Kahuna]

25. Great interview.! Very very relaxed, calm and

handled the questions very well.

[paulk]

26. I caught most of it - I was impressed

He's not my first choice, but I thought he did really well. Articulate, informed... It's so nice to see a candidate that can express himself coherently. Actually, all of the Dem. candidates make Bush look foolish in that regard.

[Renew Deal]

30. Paulk, you are my unsticker

:toast:

[KittyWampus]

28. Thanks

January 2001- Osama known threat
Sept. 10th- what had been done about that....

Excellent interview.

Wesley talks well on Economics.... Perhaps that should be his focus.... the Security issue is in the bag for him.

[The Magistrate]

36. It Is My Understanding, Ma'am

Gen. Clark taught economics at West Point.

He will be able to deal very well with the subject.

[gulliver]

31. Just listened to the audio on the net.

He did a great job. He's getting more and more traction now.

[Bread and Circus]

39. Online Audio Now Available

at PBS --

I am listening to it now, he is doing very,
very well.

He is saying everything I feel. Man, he is so
smart and well spoken.

[Cronus Protagonist]

40. I saw this and I think Clark is a winner

I still love Dennis Kucinich, but Clark won me over in the Lehrer news hour interview. He was poised, made our points without taking the bait or appearing inflammatory. He said all the right things - tax the rich, hand control of Iraqi internals over to the UN - two of the most obvious things that most politicians seem myopic about, but Clark got the point across in a very polished way. I was very impressed. And he didn't back down, prevaricate or equivocate. And he has the experience to run the country as well.

Dean looks good too, but from my perspective, he's more like a little kid, which is cute and endearing and I support him too, but Clark looks like a man with gravitas, experience and skill.

I hope he wins the nomination now, because he is a more sure winner than Dennis, my most favorite candidate. And a sure winner is what we need right now. Dennis is young and I'm convinced he'll be president in 4 or 8 years, Dean is also young, and I see him becoming even more important in the Democratic party, but Clark is the man who can kick Bush's ass with conservatives and liberals alike so he's got the best shot for this presidency coming up.

Good Job Wesley.

Click Here To See Fair & Balanced Buttons, Stickers & Magnets

[FrenchieCat]

41. Makes a believer to those who listen closely

You will notice that the mediawhores are not challenging Clark's putting 9/11 accountability on Bush's desk.

They are staying mute....which means that they don't have a comeback and would rather not say anything. Because of his "new Patriotism" theme, they really can't attack him about those comments, the way they wish they could......better to omitted the whores decided. Hell they are doing their dammest to ignore him....but he ain't going away.....not even in the polls.

Clark has the moxie, gravitas and charisma to dog Bush out and say to the country with an intense smile what the media should have said all along....."Hey President, what didn't you know....and why didn't you know it?"

Media took a tiptoe around his behind......They are still scared of the Bushco Mafia.......cable tripletts won't even address the issue itself , let alone report what Clark said in any great lenght.

He took the chance......and it's working.

Go Wes, GO........Next he'll slam them on the Black voting box issue. Now that's going to be something to watch.

Bush is dealing with the Big Boy now.....