Great article here by Andrew Sabl, a political philosophy professor at UCLA.
How I became a Clark supporter
By Andrew Sabl
My support for Clark has not come naturally. I'm a partisan and liberal Democrat, no great lover of old Clinton staffers and smug New Democrats. I'm prone to value experience in democratic politics over the hierarchical values of military service. And when I heard that Clark had voted for Reagan, praised Bush, spoken at a Lincoln Day dinner, and said that he'd have been a Republican had Karl Rove returned his calls (no, I don't believe that he was joking -- though he may have been trying for sarcasm), I judged him an amoral opportunist and borderline con artist. In angry e-mails to a pro-Clark friend, I called the general an "ambipartisan" and summarized the Lincoln Day revelation as "Game Over."
But I figured I owed the largely unknown candidate a chance. Being a professor, I decided to read his book, Winning Modern Wars. After finishing it, I figured out what Clark is about, and why his candidacy is both baffling and compelling.
Clark clearly wrote the book himself. It's not the slick and scripted work of a ghostwriter. Put less politely, it contains errors ("populous" for "populace," "principle" for "principal"), and repeats itself in spots. It forgives Rumsfeld on a couple of points when a typical candidate would never make such concessions. It goes into more military detail than a non-expert like me finds consistently engaging or even comprehensible. The writing style is personal: mostly clear, usually forceful, often quirky, rooted in facts and details, sometimes bracing, occasionally bombastic. The book won't win any prizes, and doesn't have to. It's the work of a candidate, not a professional writer.
As such, here's what it says.
1. Clark is an intensely patriotic internationalist.
Scan that again: It's rare these days, and I welcome it fervently. Clark isn't indifferent or hostile to American power: He wants the U.S. to be the most powerful country in the world in a hundred years, thinks it will be good for the world if that happens, and is here to tell us how to do that. His answer is that of FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. The U.S. triumphs when it supports institutions that embody our values -- universally attractive, if pursued seriously and humbly -- and further our interests -- to the extent that they're compatible with those of most of the world's citizens. (If you think that's a null category, you won't like Clark. Nader's your man -- or, contrariwise, Bush.) This means not always getting what we want, as the price of reshaping the world in ways we'll by and large welcome. Clark's take on recent talk of American "empire" is unusual in its focus on the soldiers. He points out, briefly and devastatingly, that we'll never have an empire, and shouldn't aspire to one, when our army is made up not of adventure-seekers and fortune-hunters but of "family men and women" (note that), "fierce, determined, religious, patriotic," who want to do their jobs and go home -- quickly.
It's a vision that Clark has clearly thought about constantly for decades and cares about deeply. And it's a perfect riposte to both Dean (whose foreign policy mixes ignorance, isolationism, and a smug moralism approaching Bush's) and the unilateralist thugs of our current administration. Remember what Solzhenitsyn called Russian fascist Zhirinovsky: "an obscene caricature of a Russian patriot." But that had bite because he was Solzhenitsyn: the patriot without the caricature. That's Clark.
2. Clark is essentially a pre-Sixties Democrat
Clark's main position on the culture wars is to find them (a) baffling and pointless and (b) a right-wing conspiracy to distract middle-class white guys from their declining living standards and an economic policy that gives everything to the wealthy. His take on Reagan Democrats/Angry White Males/NASCAR Dads (pick one) is essentially: "I understand why you feel neglected, scorned, and generally ticked off. The last thirty years have screwed you economically and demeaned you culturally. But dunderheaded jingoism will just guarantee exactly the bad jobs and eroded national pride you fear most. Be smart: Make a few sacrifices now to build peace and national pride in the future." The message is pitch-perfect: like something Clinton would say, except sincere.
3. Clark believes in fighting the war on terrorism -- hard, continually, smart, and to win. And he makes an excellent case that Bush's policies are guaranteed to fail at this.
Clark points out that we need homeland security -- but Bush policies have meant laying off cops and firefighters. We need to pursue terrorist networks through international institutions and alliances -- but administration arrogance has guaranteed that we lack influence in any country that we're not actually invading. We need peacekeepers and spies and development experts -- but the Rumsfeld policy in Iraq and elsewhere is to load all burdens on the Army, which can't take them.
Clark accuses the administration of going after states because those are the nails it sees -- given that armies that invade states in pitched battles are the only hammers it knows how to use. Clark doesn't criticize this primarily because it's immoral (though he thinks it hurts immeasurably our image abroad) but because it will get a lot of us killed, while poisoning the good will that should be the country's strongest weapon in the war against terrorist violence and the transnational networks that practice it.
On all these points, Clark seems clearly right. Just as important, this is a message that will sell where pacifism, conspiracy-mongering, or pretending al-Qaeda doesn't exist will not.
4. Clark clearly casts himself as the person making policy, not one of the people debating it.
When it comes to foreign policy, Clark is confident -- to the point, as universally noted, of arrogance. I say better this than Dubya or Dean, neither of whom combines his own arrogance with a tendency to know what he's talking about.
After reading the depth and intensity with which Clark has thought about foreign strategy, I realize why his position on the Iraq resolution looks like a waffle but isn't. For the last decade or more, he's clearly been thinking, "Where and how would I fight if I were in charge?" not "Which position would I take if someone asked my opinion?" So he doesn't care what resolution Congress should have passed (and, if he could be more honest than he can be, would probably point out that Congressional resolutions have never prevented a modern president from starting a war). He probably thinks that Congress should give presidents lots of discretion and that presidents should know how the hell to use it. And given that discretion, he wouldn't have fought in Iraq because there was no immediate threat.
This would be a dangerous outlook in a senator -- but is not a bad one in a president. And it explains all the waffles. I'm still waiting for Kerry to explain his.
5. Clark doesn't think the personal is political.
This is a good thing, in fact, an excellent thing. The book contains almost nothing about the inner demons that I'm sure Clark has. I can't imagine him answering a question about his underwear (or needing to). His summary of "American virtues" is "tolerance, freedom, and fairness" -- about as good a slogan for the Democratic Party as I can think of. His book exudes a welcome politics of "live and let live" rather than "endorse my pain." This is the kind of liberalism that could actually be popular.
Dubya is planning to make gay marriage a wedge issue in the campaign. If Clark is the candidate, "bring it on." I can already imagine what Clark would say about gays in the military: "What soldiers do in their personal lives is not my concern. And we should stop the disgraceful practice of persecuting people to unearth their private relationships. If a soldier impedes combat readiness by trying to pick up a man in his unit in a war zone, I'll sign his dishonorable discharge myself -- and smile as I do it."
6. Remember that the Army is Biosphere II: a piece of Sweden stuck inside a country that's becoming Brazil.
If Clark seems to lack opinions on domestic policy, it's because he's spent his life in a place that's seceded from domestic policy. In his recent health care speech, he said he was shocked to find out that ordinary people weren't required to get preventive checkups every year. Riff on this: He also hasn't had to think very much about people who lacked health insurance, couldn't afford college, or struggled to pay rent. The Army has people with low incomes, but ensures basic living standards and adequate opportunities for all. Clark's book convincingly articulates a case for making the rest of the country like that. Clark's long-running blindness to what Reaganism wrought is a flaw -- a big one. But now that he's emerged into the Brave New World (new to him), I think he gets it.
It's been said that Clark wants America to be strong at home so it can be strong abroad, not the other way around. It's true, and a bit jarring. But given Clark's clear conviction that Republican policies are undermining our economic security and the culture of opportunity that makes us so attractive abroad, this actually works better than I initially thought it could. (Look for Clark to do very well among Latinos, and immigrants generally -- or kids of immigrants, like me. He understands the American Dream, and how Republicans are running it off the rails.)
There's a reason Rove didn't return his calls.
Bottom line: Clark is a throwback, a Rip Van Winkle, a pluralistic, optimistic, Greatest Generation-style politician lost, like Howard the Duck, in a world he never made. He's further outside the mainstream political culture than can possibly be imagined. This is what makes him so striking, so hard to parse, and so clearly the best candidate.
Sabl teaches political philosophy in the Department of Policy Studies at UCLA.
