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Just 326 Left: A Good Week for Junkies
By Mark Grueter
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This has been a huge week in American politics, for many reasons. Al Gore - whose lisp, I've noticed, is getting worse - jumped on the Howard Dean bandwagon Tuesday morning. It is difficult to predict the significance of this endorsement. On one hand it is meaningless because Al Gore did not attract independents and excited almost nobody during the 2000 election, which he lost to a very weak and inexperienced opponent. (Ever since then, he’s been fighting to retain some sort of relevance within the Democratic Party and on the national stage). On the other hand, this could really bolster the Dean campaign because Gore did earn the respect of most of the other Democratic presidential candidates, as well as many Democratic primary voters.
Gore’s support for Dean serves as a blow to Liebermann, Gephardt and Kerry, three establishment candidates who had worked with Gore for many years, and no doubt feel insulted by this move - especially since all three fare just as well, if not better than Dean, in national polls, against Bush. One might contend that Gore’s endorsement marks the beginning of campaign 2004, when voters actually start to pay attention. And people are slowly coming to realize that there can only be one alternative to Dean, and the person emerging as that alternative is General Wesley Clark. Clark entered the game much later than everyone else, but he ranks second in national polls and is gaining ground - up to second place past Kerry - in the all-important state of New Hampshire. And even though Dean is leading among Dems, many people feel as though Clark would have a better chance of actually defeating the incumbent President, and head-to-head polls substantiate this.
Clark, in the shadow of the looming Gore/Dean alliance, appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews on Monday night. He was at his best, fortunately, and looked very comfortable. After coming out to a roaring ovation and an extended hand-shaking session, Clark joked to Matthews before sitting down: “I think it’s over.”
Asked right away why Gore would endorse Dean, Clark responded, “I have no idea. But I’ll tell you this, Chris, I don’t pay any attention to endorsements, unless they’re for me.” It was the perfect answer to an impossible question, as analyzing Gore’s motives - preparing for a 2008 run perhaps? - could have taken quite awhile.
Clark then told an anecdote about one of his creepy experiences inside the Pentagon right after 9/11. Apparently, there was a “joke” going around the hallways: “9/11, Saddam Hussein, if he didn’t do it, too bad, he should have. Because we’re going to get him anyway.” The lesson being that the Bush people had signaled a desire to invade Iraq regardless; now, 9/11 could be used as an effective pretense for that invasion.
Clark was then asked to speculate as to what the administration’s true motives were for the invasion. After indicating that he isn’t entirely sure, he explains:
There were some people who believe that it was essential to just have a strong show of U.S. force. There were others who believed, I guess, that you couldn’t expect to be successful against Osama bin Laden, so you had to take down somebody that you could be successful against. There were some who believed in this greater geo-strategic vision that you could kind of sweep through the Middle East, clean up these old, worn out, former Soviet client states, knock them off, turn them to democracy, and have it all set so the next peer competitor that came down would have to face this. And there were even those who made the argument that the real way to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians was to go after Saddam Hussein. This was the sort of road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad argument…
And he goes on to show how they chose Weapons of Mass Destruction as a matter of convenience. In this passage, Clark gives us the type of insider’s analysis that none of the other candidates, especially Dean, could likely provide. Clark, through his campaign, is effectively delivering a military and pragmatic critique of the Iraq war and the current occupation - an underrepresented critique, but the only critique that can have any real effect. He recognizes, unlike much of the Left, that we cannot at this stage simply pull our troops out as guys like Kucinich argue, because that would only make matters worse for the Iraqi people. It would completely destabilize the region and it would irreversibly damage US credibility and honor.
Matthews asked Clark the same question he asked Dean the previous Monday; the one about where Osama bin Laden should be tried. Clark, unlike the apathetic Dean, stated that he should be tried at The Hague, and then he explained why. What is essential here is long-term legitimacy, not retribution. The Hague is opposed to capital punishment, and even though Clark favors the death penalty in some circumstances, he recognizes the importance of holding an international trial for gangsters like Bin Laden. There are larger issues at stake here; locking bin Laden up for the rest of his life will obviously make the world safer and it will restore to the US much needed credibility. Killing him would make him a martyr to all those who imagine themselves anti-colonial resisters.
Clark told the audience at Harvard part of a fascinating story about how he was released from the army. It gave us a glimpse of the inner workings of government at high levels. Evidently, the Secretary of Defense William Cohen, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Hugh Shelton, conspired to remove Clark as Supreme Commander of NATO forces. It was a classic example of “power politics,” as Clark described it. They were pissed off that he went over their heads in courting support (from Madeline Albright and Bill Clinton) to take down Slobodan Milosevic, and this was their way of settling the score. Shelton and Cohen reported to The Washington Post that Clark was “stepping down” as commander before Clark had agreed to do anything of the sort.
President Clinton, according to Clark, knew nothing about the ordeal, and after the leak in the Post, was handicapped in the way of doing anything about it. Overturning the decision to “ask Clark to retire three months early” would be seen, quite rightly, as a complete disrespect toward the secretary of defense and could have potentially undermined the whole administration, argues Clark. Clinton sacrificed Clark in order to save his own ass. But would it really have undermined the administration for Clinton to have done the right thing and rescued Clark?
This is one of my problems with Clark: he gives way too much credit to the Clintons. If Bill were truly a great man and a great leader, he would have stood up for Clark, the man that won Kosovo for him, and who helped negotiate peace in Bosnia and Haiti. Clark is loyal to the Clintons even when they are not loyal to him. He claims that the Clintons are just selfless public servants engaged in the political process merely to answer a higher calling. “You’ve got to be kidding” Matthews teased Clark.
It
is perhaps indecent of me to mention this, but I caught a glimpse of Clark’s
wife (Gert) for the first time this week. And oh man, she is painfully
unattractive, by anyone’s standards. I’m just saying this
because things could get awkward with the media if she becomes the First
Lady, like when Chelsea went through her ugly phase, but far worse. I’m
assured that Clark is a handsome guy and that he could do so much better.
So I suppose this is a testament to the man’s character. He probably
got married early on, fell in love, and has stayed true and faithful to
her ever since. He has resisted temptation out of respect for his wife’s
feelings and for his family. That quality is to be commended in a man
seeking the highest office of the land, especially at a time when we need
someone we can trust, now more than ever. Clark scored yet more points
with me when he answered, along with Plato, that his favorite philosopher
was David Hume, who once wrote, “Curiosity allures the wise; vanity
the foolish; and pleasure both.”
The other worthy news note has to do with John Kerry. Evidently, he gave
an interview with Rolling Stone in which he said he hadn’t realized
Bush would “fuck up” Iraq so badly. Kerry was immediately
castigated by the right-wing media and the Bush people for reverting to
such a vulgarity. How dare a presidential candidate utter “X-rated
language” such as the word “fuck”? Bush’s chief
of staff, Andy Card, asked Kerry to apologize, arguing that the f-word
has no place in a presidential campaign. Of course, they must have all
forgotten about how George W. Bush, during an interview with conservative
Tucker Carlson for Talk Magazine in 1999, used the infamous
f-word “multiple times” throughout the talk, according to
a pleasantly surprised Carlson. Bush also sadistically mocked Karla Faye
Tucker during the same interview, a Texas woman who his state intended
to execute within the month. If any vulgarity occurred, Bush, not Kerry,
committed it.
There is nothing wrong with the word “fuck” anyway. Almost everyone uses it when they feel comfortable; it does no harm by itself, and it has taken on an independent, mainly comedic meaning. The word has become a fixture in our everyday speech, to the disgrace of no serious person. Humphrey Bogart said that he doesn’t trust a man who doesn’t drink, which is sound logic. Can we add, even more enthusiastically, that we shouldn’t trust anyone that never swears? The austere criticism of Kerry from the Bush people and anyone else is to be laughed at, and not only because of the hypocrisy.
Click here for Grueter's previous column.
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Mark Grueter is pursuing a Masters in Liberal Studies at the Graduate Faculty for Political and Social Sciences. He is the Publications Manager and Web Editor for The Canon, the school's student publication and is a contributor to Stop Smiling, a magazine based in Chicago. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Grueter may be contacted at [email protected].
©
2003 Me Three