Gen. Wesley Clark....is more appalling than most people know, I think: utterly scoundrelly on the stump. We think of Kucinich, Sharpton, and Moseley Braun as the fringe candidates. But have you gotten a strong whiff of Wes Clark? Pretty fringy, actually.

The general has told us, "I’m one of those people who doesn’t believe in occupying countries to extract their natural resources. I think you buy them on the world market." Because, as you all know, the United States is in Iraq to extract their oil, and not buy it on the world market. You did know that, didn’t you? Haven’t you read your Noam Chomsky, or the speeches of Wesley Clark?

Clark is almost never "credited" with being as flaky and offensive as he is. He repeatedly charges President Bush with personal culpability in the death of 3,000 people on September 11. He completely exonerates the Clinton administration, saying that it had no time to do anything about al Qaeda (seriously). He claims that the Iraq war was a great diversion from our alleged failures against al Qaeda, and that this diversion was the trick of "neocons."

Check out Clark: "I suspect [Bush’s] advisers said, ’Now, Mr. President, you know, there’s no guarantee we could ever get [bin Laden]. You know, it’s, you know, you ought to go somewhere, you know, go somewhere easy, do something easy like taking care of Saddam Hussein, and he’s probably connected . . .’"

Wait a second: Saddam was supposed to be easy? What happened to quagmire? But that’s another point altogether.

I give you some more Clark, from just the other day, with Chris Matthews: "Ultimately, all of this was passed through a political filter. Karl Rove — he passed judgment on it. He even sent out, apparently, a memo back in early 2002, saying ’George W. Bush is going to run on his war record.’" Asked whether the president was spilling American blood for electoral advantage, Clark answered, "I can’t say that. I can’t prove it."

"I can’t prove it"? Whatever kind of campaign Clark is running, it is not honorable, in my view. And, by the way, why should a senseless war be popular — give a president electoral advantage, instead of disadvantage?

In his few months as a candidate, Clark has become famous, or infamous, for his stunning about-faces. Examples abound. For instance, he once praised Bush and his national-security team in lavish terms. When Bush tabbed Donald Rumsfeld to be SecDef, Clark said, "I think it’s an inspired choice. He’s got great experience. He’s got great international stature. He knows the issues." Etc. But as a candidate, Clark pronounced Rumsfeld a horrible choice. Why? Because the secretary is not "up to speed on the way the world has changed since the end of the Cold War."

That’s a funny criticism to make, given that Rumsfeld has been in the forefront of military reform (whether he is correct in his views or not — and I think he is). Usually he’s scored for going too fast or too incautiously — for upsetting existing Pentagon structures. What’s more, Rumsfeld favors a radically different approach to terror and its state sponsors — different from the policies and attitudes of decades. In this, he is at one with Bush. Those two are faulted for being all too "up to speed on the way the world has changed" since the Cold War!

For good measure, Clark maintained that Rumsfeld "had to leak his own memo." This refers to the celebrated memorandum in which the secretary challenged his lieutenants on war strategy. When asked how he knew that the author himself had leaked the memo — which would have been monumentally uncharacteristic — Clark replied, "Well, that’s what the rumor is, and it’s been talked about on the Sunday talk shows."

Great.

Once upon a time, General Clark was a great fan and advocate of preemptive defense (as I explain in the magazine piece). But, boy, has he changed his tune, as a candidate. He admonished the Dem leadership in Congress: "Let’s see you take apart that doctrine of preemption now! I don’t think we can wait until November of 2004 to change the administration on this threat. We’re marching into another military campaign in the Middle East. We need to stop it."

Hang on — what does that last part mean? "Another military campaign" that "we need to stop"? Ah, that’s a further piece of Clarkian darkness. The general has spoken of a secret list — drawn up by "neocons," of course — spelling out countries to be invaded. As our careful and honorable general says, "You only have to listen to the gossip around Washington and to hear what the neoconservatives are saying, and you will get a flavor of this."

In September ’02 — when Clark was in what seemed like support-the-war mode — he said the following about Saddam Hussein: "He is not only malevolent and violent, but also unpredictable. He retains his chemical- and biological-warfare capabilities and is actively pursuing nuclear capabilities." As a candidate, a year later, he said, "What I was calling for at the time, to justify the urgency the president felt, was a smoking gun."

But preemptive action is in conflict with a smoking gun. The whole idea — as Clark once grasped and articulated — is that you strike before your enemy’s gun goes off.

It should shock no one that a general (or a presidential contender) is a bit vain. But General Clark seems to sort of abuse the privilege. There’s stuff like, "If I’d been president, I would have had Osama bin Laden by this time." And his arrogance is clumsy. For example, in a television interview, when he was acknowledging a previous "bobble," he said, "I don’t want to give any excuses for this. A Rhodes scholar is not ever supposed to make a mistake." Uh, did you know he was a Rhodes scholar? Now you do!

In my opinion, the worst thing Clark has done is accuse President Bush of dishonoring — yes, you heard that right — dishonoring fallen American soldiers. Said Clark, "[The administration] is trying to dishonor the very Americans who are over there serving and fighting and dying by not letting us welcome the remains back home."

Now, this refers to the fact that the administration is continuing a 14-year-old policy of not permitting media coverage at Dover Air Base, when soldiers’ coffins arrive from abroad. You may disagree with this policy, but there are reasons for it, and no one — least of all the President of the United States — is "trying to dishonor" our dead. And no American is prohibited from "welcoming the remains back home." People in cities, towns, and hamlets all across the country have. Families can decide for themselves whether they want TV cameras graveside. I imagine some do, some don’t.

Clark has also said, "We’ve got a president who will go halfway around the world for a photo opportunity [this presumably refers to Bush’s visit with the troops at Thanksgiving] but won’t go halfway across town for a funeral for an American serviceman." Also: "We have an American president who visits the families of bereaved Britons [while in England] and won’t visit our own families in this country." Bush has met with families privately — but he refuses to make a show of it, respecting the gravity of our situation, and his duties as commander-in-chief.

Look: Even if you think George W. Bush is dead wrong about the War on Terror, and about Iraq in particular, you should know that his motives are sincere — and that he has the deepest respect for the men and women who serve. Anyone awake must see that. It takes a real ignoramus or creep to miss it. And Wesley Clark gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I mind it less from Dennis Kucinich, or from some campus paranoid and blowhard. But from a decorated general like Clark — very hard to take. He might have brought sobriety, clear-headedness, and honor to the Democratic race. He did not. We already had a Kucinich — or several. Who needed Clark?/BLOCKQUOTE>