OxBlog

Thursday, October 02, 2003

# Posted 8:00 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

MARSHALL PLAYS SOFTBALL: A couple of days ago, Josh Marshall got to interview Wesley Clark. Abandoning his usual attack-dog style, Marshall decided not to get tough with the General.

At first, I though Marshall was just tossing softballs so that Clark would let down his guard and be more candid. But that wasn't the case.

As I see it, going easy on an interview subject isn't necessarily a bad decision. Sometimes a confrontational approach shuts down the communication process and prevents candidates from really expressing themselves. But in this instance, going easy on Clark produced nothing but vague and evasive answers.

For example, Clark said that
Before you pick a party, make sure you know why you're picking a party. Make sure you understand what the partisan political process is in America. What does it commit you to? What does it mean? How does it affect the rest of your life? What is it all about? And so I thought I'd take a look at both parties...

And it was clear as I looked at the parties, looked at the culture, watched the dialogue, it wasn't just that I had voted for Al Gore, I really believed in what the Democratic party stood for. And so when it came time to choose a political party, I chose the Democratic party.
Marshall tried to pull a little bit more out of Clark by asking him which wing of the Democratic party he gravitates toward, but didn't get much of an answer. This resulted in Clark saying that
I have strong views. I have strong feelings about what's right and what's wrong in the way of policy.
What are those views? Beats me. In the interview, Clark comes close to being specific only when recycling standard Democratic criticisms of the current administration: Too ideological, too unilateral, too many tax cuts.

The one passage in the interview that has sparked some controversy is the one in which Clark gave Josh exactly what he wanted to hear: a denunciation of the neo-conservatives' pernicious but little noticed role in the making of American foreign policy. Strangely, Clark holds the Project for a New American Century responsible for Clinton's decision to take a hardline on Iraq in 1998.

In response, the NY Sun ran a somewhat hysterical column denouncing Clark as a conspiracy theorist. Unsurprisingly, Josh responded with a long post praising Clark's extraordinary insight into the foreign policymaking process. Isn't it amazing how smart people are when they agree with you?

Anyhow, I thought the most disturbing part of Clark's interview was where he talked about what counts as a victory in Iraq:
The elements of it might be the following: What kind of government? A unitary Iraq? Maybe a federalized Iraq? A common language, common currency, common -- no customs problems inside Iraq. Common schools, common flag, all the symbols of nationhood.

So, you want to hold Iraq together. And, a country that doesn't threaten its neighbors, and a government that has enough security wherewithal to be able to protect itself and not become a recruiting base for al Qaida. And an Iraq that's able to be integrated into the modern world. So if you lay out those five criteria in some way, you probably could come up with a definition of success.
God forbid that the words "democracy" or "human rights" should pass the General's lips. Or think of this way: here's a man who brags about standing up to Slobodan Milosevic and forcing the Pentagon to fight in Kosovo, but can't say anything about the importance of freedom in Iraq?

While the chances are quite good that I would favor Wes Clark if the race came down to one between him and Howard Dean, I think it's becoming increasingly clear that Clark doesn't really know why he wants to be President.
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