I am a Dean supporter. I have followed Clark fairly closely, although not as close as I could. I have a few substantive and non-substantive problems with him as a candidate. The one biggest one is him running as the Anti-War candidate. The fact is, his opposition to the Iraq War is shaky at best.
The reason that I say this is not simply because he did not overtly come out against the war, even though he should have. Before the resolution was passed, he did say that the reconstruction was going to be a big problem and he thought that diplomacy would be the best option. After that, he did not overtly say anything negative about the War until he ran. He also could not clearly state whether he would have voted for the resolution. Wouldn't the foreign policy experience that he talks about so much allow him to be able to clearly state what his position on the war and/or the resolution was?
The big problem that I have in this area is that he has said many times that right after 9/11 he talked to people at the Pentagon who said that they were going to pin 9/11 on Iraq. He also said that he heard people talk about Iraq just being the start of it all, which is much less important. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, the source of the latter comments changes. Canadian think than? Pentagon? The Administration? The cocktail circuit?
Now there are two plausible situations regarding the 9/11 statement. Either he lied, or he didn't have the guts to come out and say that not only was the war the wrong war at the wrong time, but the president lied to the American people regarding the 9/11 connection.
He only came out against the War and stated that the president lied to us when it was politically expedient. It seems like he says whatever is politically expedient. That puts him in the same boat with all of the other so called hawks running now. Do I think that he was for the war? It probably isn't that simple. I think that he thought that we had to do it sometime, but that we should only do it with a strong international alliance.
I would love to hear what you guys think about this. If there is a fairly good debate, then I will post more of my thoughts.