William Saletan, in his Slate column, makes some interesting observations both about Wesley Clark, and about the $87 billion. It is noteworthy that Saletan is "angry" at President Bush over using the war on the terror as a rationale for the Iraq war. I will leave that argument alone for a moment, but thought it a noteworthy caveat.
Notes Saletan about Bush's responses to the press yesterday in the face of suicide bombings in Iraq:
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."
Saletan points out what I think is obvious, but clearly isn't obvious to many critics of the President (including, now, Clark):
We can't crumple under this pressure any more than we could have crumpled four years ago in the showdown with Milosevic. Bush is right, just as Clark was right: War is a contest of wills.
He concludes about Clark:
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.
And further, correctly states:
I don't know whether we'll win the postwar if Congress approves the money Bush asked for. But I know we'll lose it if Congress doesn't. That's what happens when a nation at war starts to think like the Wes Clark of 2024. Just ask the Wes Clark of 1999.
In regards to Clark in specific, this example strikes me as yet another case of what is increasingly looking like an extremely cynical run by Clark for the White House. From his very recent conversion to the Democratic Party, to his switch from Bush admin praiser to Bush admin detractor, from his flip flops on issues such as the war resolution itself (and now on the $87 billion--he now says he would vote against, when a week or so ago, he had no position), it seems that Clark is less interested in "straight talk" and principle than he is in trying to figure out the right things to say.
Posted by Steven at October 29, 2024 08:41 AM | TrackBack