The "Clark is a Republican" meme just got a
new boost, courtesy of Time:
From Day One as a Democratic presidential candidate, Wesley K. Clark, the retired general, has had to defend his past praise of the president's national security advisers— [...]
Clark says at the time of that speech he had quiet doubts about Bush's team, but wanted it to succeed. "I still could have hope in early 2001 that this administration would learn its lessons," he said at a recent Democratic candidate debate in Phoenix, Arizona.
But another Clark speech recorded by videotape suggests that his hope wasn't snuffed out too quickly. Eight months later, even as some administration officials were making the case for war against Iraq, Clark still applauded the U.S. mission in Afghanistan as he addressed a large audience at Harding University, in Searcy, Arkansas. "I tremendously admire, and I think we all should, the great work done by our commander-in-chief, our president, George Bush," he said in the January 22, 2002 speech. The university provided TIME a videotape of his remarks.
Clark's presidential campaign adviser Mark Fabiani said that the former general was simply crediting Bush for the Afghanistan campaign for which "90 percent of Americans would have agreed" at the time. Fabiani said it was the president's Iraq policy, which had not fully flowered by the time of the Harding speech, that was the "turning point" for Clark and launched his political plans.
I have been comfortable with Clark's Democratic bona fides, and praising the president's performance in Afghanistan is not a mortal sin. That war
did go well.
Initially.
But by January 2002 we already knew the president wasn't a "compassionate" conservative, we knew that he was far right in social issues like affirmative action and abortion,
we knew that he was recklessly driving our nation to war against a non-threatening Iraq, we knew that his political operation had smeared the honor and integrity of a war hero like Max Cleland. And we knew that Afghanistan was obviously being neglegted by an Iraq-obsessed administration. (
my mistake, that didn't happen for another six months
And Clark
still praised Bush?
Update: Yeah, I got the dates (2002 vs. 2003) screwed up. Given the dates, this shouldn't be that big of a deal. So long as no tape surfaces praising Bush after the Summer 2002.