Abstract

Clark's True Colors

The author discusses Gen. Wesley K. Clark's campaign of the U.S. presidency. It is not easy to explain how a man who voted for Reagan and Nixon, was a speechwriter for Al Haig, worked in the Ford White House alongside Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and was a passionate supporter of the Vietnam War could become a darling of the liberal antiwar crowd. He appeals to roughly the same class of people as Howard Dean, with a subtle difference. The Dean crowd self-consciously sees itself as a political force. But the chief crowd ritual in the Clark campaign is that of a group of hushed, groveling supplicants staring dewy-eyed at their savior Caesar. The vibe is all about ceding power, not empowerment. The imagery of the stalwart warrior reluctantly accepting the laurels offered by the Draft Clark movement is very consciously encouraged by the Clark campaign, and especially by Clark himself, who makes no secret of being a student of this kind of history. Paying close attention is not really what the Clark campaign is about. In fact, it's very much about the opposite: squinting your eyes, blurring out the margins and focusing on the one main goal on the horizon--beating George Bush. A wide spectrum of people has endorsed this idea, with everyone from Southern moderates like former South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges to Michael Moore talking Clark up as a rational human being and responsible world citizen who may have a few warts, but who would be a vast improvement over Bush.