Really? The theme of the day when the Vice Presidential candidate speaks will be Securing America's Future?
Every Clark supporter knows that Clark's website, begun in 2004, was never WesClark.com the way it was with others running for president at that time. It was, and has always been, SecuringAmerica.com.
Every Clark supporter knows that Clark never begins a political speech without first asking every veteran in the audience to stand up and be applauded.
Every Clark supporter knows that Clark was an extraordinarily popular surrogate among people running for Congress because of his military background and that over the past four years he has dedicated himself to aiding the fundraising efforts of Democratic candidates, particularly supporting those who are veterans.
Could he be the vp pick?
Or...despite his extraordinary loyalty and dedication, despite his being nationally the most well-known military figure in the Democratic party, despite his undeniable expertise in the politics of the region where war has just broken out between Georgia and Russia --- despite all this he has been snubbed by not being offered an opportunity to speak at the convention on this day?
Yes or no? I'm trying to evaluate this thing, and...well, yes, that does seem entirely possible, even as it also looks increasingly possible that he might be the vp pick.This diary isn't about evaluating how good Clark could be for the ticket. It's not about how well he matches up with Obama's message, because of his staunch opposition to making war in Iraq (or Iran), his own thoughtfullness and amazing intelligence, his expertise in all the regions where America is engaged in diplomatic or military actions, the respect with which he is held by many moderate Republicans (and by heads of state around the world), his southern, Washington-outsider background, his lack of ego, his vetting in 2004 and solid relationship with his wife, his business associations with alternative energy, his teaching of economics at West Point. All of these arguments for why he should be VP were hopefully considered, but the choice is a very personal one, and a man and his advisors can still easily toss such considerations aside and decide, for instance, that they want a governor. Or that they're distrustful of the military. Or buy into the media's portrayal of Clark as a poor campaigner. (Clark supporters know differently, but it takes a close Clark observer to know, when Republican talking points have an agenda to demolish one they consider a threat. But I digress.)
The point is to consider ....what are the chances?
What are the chances that Clark has been slighted in this way, when it would have been so easy to schedule him as a speaker, among the many others for that day, as a reward for his work but most particularly, because of how well he fits the theme? And because of how anyone should see that to leave him out, when there is no scandal attached to his name, and he can be counted on to be a loyal soldier, is a slight? Not to say, kind of mean?
But on the other hand....
Obama's dismissal of Clark when the media made the stink about Clark saying McCain's POW status wasn't sufficient to make him experienced at foreign policy --- that certainly seemed an unnecessary snub. It seemed quick and irritable, cutting him loose.
Perhaps they bought into what the media said.
Perhaps they thought Clark had acted as too much of a loose cannon, not approving of the line he had taken, concerned that his careful treading the line between Obama's judgment and McCain's experience might have left Obama vulnerable.
Perhaps they thought that Clark was trying to advance his own position as a possible VP candidate.
Perhaps they were suspicious of a former Clinton surrogate, and believe that Clark's ties to the Clintons are so strong that they can't trust him. (That Clark would support Hillary seems to me to have only met the requirements of loyalty to one's sponsor, as he received important support from the Clintons in his own bid, and they all hail from Arkansas --- supporting Obama would have been a slap in the face to the Clintons. And Clark doesn't do that. But many of Clark's supporters at his web site became virulent Hillary supporters, driving the rest of us away, even as Clark, himself, focused most of his energies during those months on the elections of congressional candidates.)
Clark supporters do know that he has often been slapped in the face, with perhaps the first slap delivered by Bill Clinton --- though accidentally --- when he was "fired" after winning the war in Kosovo without any American lives lost. (Clinton was told that the orders he signed to transfer Clark were standard procedure, instead of understood to mean that one's career had ended.)
Of course, Clark hasn't held it against Bill, has he? And he won't hold it against Obama if he gets slapped in the face now. Because he cares more about what his country needs than about his own feelings.
Clark supporters have also seen Clark slapped in the face when political commentators in 2004, on even the most supposedly liberal of tv stations, refused to even mention his name during the primaries at a time when the polls showed that he was neck and neck with Edwards and winning in Oklahoma. We've seen those commentators slap him down for not talking about his domestic policies in debates in which he wasn't asked any questions about domestic policies. (Heck, I've even heard from a fairly reliable source that a member of his own campaign staff was actually a plant from another campaign. But that didn't stop him from campaigning later for that individual.)
So what are the chances that he's being slapped in the face again? How easy would it have been to give him a little speaking time on this day devoted to Securing America's Future? Or if they really didn't want to do that, how easy would it have been to have used a name for that day that wasn't copied from his web site?
What we hear is that Clark has not been asked to speak. That, therefore, he will be in Milan that day, where he has business --- probably another conference on alternative energy, or perhaps one like the economic conference he attended in the middle east a year or so ago.
I don't know. As more speakers on the short list are assigned spots, it is generally considered they are taken out of the running. The possibility of a Clark vice presidency seems to have risen in the last few weeks based on the theme of the day when the vp is to speak, based on the way that day has been named, and based on his having been assigned no time to speak when he should have been. And we were all told that the team vetting vp candidates was including members of the military.
I find I would dearly like to know what Obama thought of Clark back in the primaries of the 2004 election, before he became focused on his own campaign. Did he learn about him then? Did he think well of him? Because it is only if he has had Clark in the back of his mind as a possibility since then, that I can imagine Clark is not about to withstand another slap in the face. It is only if he has been deliberately obfuscating his interest in Clark from the beginning, in order to bring the element of surprise to the convention. Because I can't honestly say that the way Clark was brushed off after the McCain POW thing left me with any hope. It seemed too disrespectful to a potential candidate for vp, unless it was a deliberate plan to mislead. But because we've seen Clark "disrespected" before, it did not seem out of the ordinary.
I think I will base my conclusions in this analysis on Clark's past record of slaps, instead of on the narrowing signs that a military or foreign policy expert of some stature, from a list rapidly decreasing, will be the vp pick. I think that Clark will be slapped once again. And he will yet again turn the other cheek and continue to do what is needful to secure America's future.