Asymmetrical Information

Hate to tell you, but this is kind of dumb. There were reports that both parties were trying to get Eisenhower to run for them in 1952.

Both parties wanted Ike implies, umm, what?

That MacLellan would have made a damn fine President!!!

What suprises me most about Prince Wesley, the anointed one, is his lack of positions on so many issues.

First, he has had 4 months that he's been publicly toying with the idea, and he didn't spend any of that time figuring out positions on the key issues of the day?

Second, does he have no core values or beliefs? I'm not running for president, but you could ask me my positions on most issues he's being asked about and based on my fiscally conservative, socially libertarian beliefs, I could give you an answer that accurately reflected my beliefs. Might not be a pre-packaged, sound-bite approved version, but I wouldn't wind up doing complete reversals on issues like he has.

I mean the guy spends months criticizing the administrations handling of the Iraq war and then can't coherently answer questions about how he would have handled things?

The fact that this wannabe is getting so much attention from the Dems just shows how much of their desire comes from a white hot hatred of GWB. They don't know what this guy stands for, and he's the front-runner.

I'm just waiting for his Admiral "what-his-name" (Perot's running mate) moment. "Who am I and what am I doing here?"

Bob

Clark's refusal to answer questions on policy is a mirror of Hillary's listening tour. The goal of which is to keep his face in the news without taking a position anyone else in the race can disagree with. The theory is to drive your favorable ratings up without increasing your negatives. Problem is, he's not nearly as good as Hillary was at not to say anything.

The fact that this wannabe is getting so much attention from the Dems just shows how much of their desire comes from a white hot hatred of GWB. They don't know what this guy stands for, and he's the front-runner.

I think what it is that before Clark announced his candidacy, Dean was the front-runner and a lot of Democrats are rightfully scared that Dean will be the next McGovern and pretty much ruin the Democrats’ chance of returning to power. Right now, they’re being driven both by their irrational hatred of George W Bush and their fear of Howard Dean exiling their party to the political wilderness.

His disorderly retreat from claims that members of the VRWC in the white house were pressuring him to make up stories connecting Al Qaeda to Iraq made him look, at the very least, extremely silly.

Well, yes, it was silly, but that isn't what he claimed. He claimed the WH tried to get him to tie 9/11 to Iraq.

No kidding. I think Clark and his supporters forgot that general rule in presidential elections: that they usually turn on domestic issues (especially the economy stupid). Clark has shown very little aptitude on these matters as of yet. Thursday's debate will be huge. Look for one of the other Democrats to go for the jugular (my guess is Lieberman).

Nor did Clark actually say that the phone call came from the White House. He said there was a "concerted effort" to tie Saddam to 9/11, that it came both from the White House and from "all over", and then mentioned getting a phone call without saying who it came from. It's hard to blame anyone too much for jumping to conclusions-- having made an accusation against the Administration, naturally people expected Clark to back it with evidence against the Administration, not against some other people nobody cares about-- but they were jumping to conclusions just the same.

It matters not a whit. Bush will beat whomever gets the Donk nomination.

Jumping to conclusions? I put this in someone else's comments on this topic. Take this fabricated dialog:

Clark: There was a coverup of the JFK assassination.

Russert: Who was doing the coverup?

Clark: The military. People around the military. Everywhere, really. I got a call saying "you have to hide the truth."

Now, if later Clark says that he meant that he got that phone call from Michael Romero at whatreallyhappened.com, how does that play out? Why did he mention it in the same breath as the rest?

Remember, Clark is a Rhodes Scholar and a general - he is supposed to be smart and clear in his speech.

Today's CNN / USA Today poll shows Clark beating Bush 49-46. Is it any wonder he's getting attacked?

It seems to me that criticizing Clark for not being exactly clear on his Iraq war position is fair game. But the rest of this stuff is pretty silly.

All new candidates stumble a bit in the beginning. Clark has done better than most. Certainly a lot better than Bush did in the early stages of the 2000 race....

Sorta back on the original topic, I am not sure how anyone can read Clark's statement as anything more than a joke. I think both sides need to chill on parsing every word that comes out of their opponents mouths.

...well, I haven't laughed so hard since granny got her walker stuck in the front door.

Gee, Megan, you sure sound like a Republican...

Only if she was the one who super-glued the walker. ;)

49-46 isn't exactly "beating" in any opinion poll I've seen. It's well within the margin of error of even the largest polls.

A CNN poll? The same CNN that didn't report it's employes being tortured for fear of losing access to Huusein's propagandists?

You've got to be kidding.

That CNN poll showing Clark ahead had very interesting demographics. First, 48% of those polled identified themselves as Democrats. Only 34% of the electorate are Democrats. Also, only 70% of those polled were registered voters. They did not even give the percentage of likely voters, but given recent trends it is likely that no more than 45% of those polled voted in the last Presidential election.

The only thing this poll is missing is an appropriate opening. It should start out "once upon a time. . ."

Back to the Clark comment:

I remember a while ago when Andy Cuomo was still working for the Clinton administration as Housing Secretary (wasn't that what he did, I can never remember), someone asked him whether he would be running for Govenor of New York and his response was, something like, "Gee, I don't know, It's kind of a step down, given that I'm 14th in line for the presidency."

At the time most papers didn't print it, but the Cristian Science Monitor did, as did a few other more right-wing journals and they started spinning it this way and that until Cuomo finally came out with a comment like, "Oh please, it was a joke people!"

Text has no context and so it can be misleading to import a montivation to a sentance someone said outloud. Humor is very difficult to translate on paper as well. I'm interested to *hear* what Clark has to say. Party because I'm very impressed with his foreign policy record, partly because I'd like to see a democrat who is more moderate run for president and partly because, while I don't hate Bush (I don't *hate* anyone), I think he's been a lousy president. I disagree with him on almost every political matter.

Political party affiliation should not matter (and does not matter) to me. Whether Clark ran as a Democrat or Repub. wouldn't matter. It's where he stands on the issues that's important to me. And I know of three issues already where I agree with him. That's three more issues then Bush.

The polls are lies. They're all lying now.

Clark was/is a Clinton hack appointed by another Clinton hack, Shalikashvili. That Clark couldn't get his subordinates to follow his orders makes him look both stupid and incompetent.

I love it when people are comparing '04 to '72.

Remember what happened in '74 and '76?

Just checking...........

"I love it when people are comparing '04 to '72.

Remember what happened in '74 and '76?

Just checking..........."

We got the most micromanaging, incompetent president in ages, that let our military and economy go to shit, and the Communists and islamic fundamentalists run amok? Yeah, which is why we need a good VP in '04 to take over Bush's spot in '08 : )

Nick - most incompetent president .... until 2001. We need somebody (even a reasonable Republican) to clean up Bush's mess :)!

"Last January, at a conference in Switzerland, he happened to chat with two prominent Republicans, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Marc Holtzman, now president of the University of Denver. “I would have been a Republican,” Clark told them, “if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls.”

Would anybody care to explain how this is a Clark quote that Newsweek might've misunderstood? What this is is a Republican Governor and one of his former assistants telling a story about a Democrat. How does Clark get dumped on for this? If Gray Davis tells Time magazine that Bush told him that he never would've run for President if Clinton had invited him to stay in the Lncoln bedroom, I'm sure you'd all believe that, no questions asked.

I agree with Kate that where he stands on the issues is a lot more important than an out-of-context quote. However, I haven't seen Clark take a stand on *any* issues yet, except that he's for winning and against Bush winning.

Exactly, shell.

Dinging Clark about non-substantive -- or "silly" -- issues right now is perfectly appropriate, because he's a non-substantive -- or "silly" -- candidate right now. He has no articulated position on anything except Iraq, where he articulated two contradictory positions in less than 48 hours.

Not to mention, why is the White House releasing it's phone logs to the Weekly Standard? Is this the new policy? Can I check up on who's calling Cheney now, or does this only work if I'm trying to embarrass a democrat? Hmm...A claim of an overheard quote, made by an opponent of Clark, then "debunked" by another opponent of Clark. HA!
Let's see... "Hey Mr. Krugman! Prez Bush told me that paying taxes makes your teeth fall out!" "Well, that's not actually true." "See! President Bush is a liar!" What more proof do you need???

Spork:
I made basically the same point four hours ago. Wingnut SOP....there's no rational/honest/reasonable answer, so don't even try.

Since I don't put Jane in the wingnut category, I'm sorry she hasn't responded.

The story I'm getting is that Republican buddies of Karl Rove make up a quote to make Clark look stupid, then another Republican checks the White House phone logs (in the Washington Times) and debugs the quote, and right-wing cranks make a big deal about a non-issue.

And here we see this continue, did I get that right?

Quoting from the post, I question thusly:

So, someone who "jumped into the presidential race because he thought it would be neat to be the Commander-in-Chief, without any idea of what is actually entailed" can, in your words, "recover"? RECOVER WHAT?

And he can do so by getting "a good media person and some handlers who can educate him about domestic policy..." ??

Wow. I hope you can parlay these statements as pertaining to a strategy by Clark via which he might boondoggle the media. I'd be very disappointed if the quoted portions of your post represent your own opinion.

Clark did NOT retreat from any of the claims he
made regarding phone calls asking him to connect
Al Qaeda in Iraq. What he actually said (quoted
below from the unedited transcript of his
interview) :

GEN. CLARK: I think it was an effort to
convince the American people to do something,
and I think there was an immediate determination
right after 9/11 that Saddam
Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war
on terror. Whether it was the need just to
strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this,
there was a concerted effort during the fall of
2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11
and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein. MR.
RUSSERT: By who? Who did that? GEN. CLARK: Well,
it came from the White House, it came from
people around the White House. It came from all
over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I
got a call at my home saying, “You got to say
this is connected. This is state-sponsored
terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam
Hussein.” I said, “But—I’m willing to say it but
what’s your evidence?” And I never got any
evidence. And these were people who had—Middle
East think tanks and people like this and it was
a lot of pressure to connect this and there were
a lot of assumptions made.

From the text of the interview, its clear how
someone might think Clark said the call
came from the White House. However, as soon as
this statement became controversial Clark
clarified it -- by saying the call came from
the Middle Eastern think tank mentioned a
line below. This is in no way a retreat from
his original words.

Clark did NOT retreat from any of the claims he
made regarding phone calls asking him to connect
Al Qaeda in Iraq. What he actually said (quoted
below from the unedited transcript of his
interview) :

GEN. CLARK: I think it was an effort to
convince the American people to do something,
and I think there was an immediate determination
right after 9/11 that Saddam
Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war
on terror. Whether it was the need just to
strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this,
there was a concerted effort during the fall of
2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11
and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein. MR.
RUSSERT: By who? Who did that? GEN. CLARK: Well,
it came from the White House, it came from
people around the White House. It came from all
over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I
got a call at my home saying, “You got to say
this is connected. This is state-sponsored
terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam
Hussein.” I said, “But—I’m willing to say it but
what’s your evidence?” And I never got any
evidence. And these were people who had—Middle
East think tanks and people like this and it was
a lot of pressure to connect this and there were
a lot of assumptions made.

From the text of the interview, its clear how
someone might think Clark said the call
came from the White House. However, as soon as
this statement became controversial Clark
clarified it -- by saying the call came from
the Middle Eastern think tank mentioned a
line below. This is in no way a retreat from
his original words.

I apologize for the (accidental) redundant posting...

Gary,

First, Mr. Clark does not deny the quote, he merely insists he was making a "humorous tweak".

Second, Mr. Clark has said that he was a Republican until Clinton made "early campaign appeals" to him. (It is not clarified there whether the appeals were early in Clinton's first campaign or early in this campaign).

In either case, I consider it a hopeful sign that Clark is leading the Democratic race. I mean, what Republican wouldn't like to see a race between two men, Bush and Clark, who both voted for Reagan twice?

"In either case, I consider it a hopeful sign that Clark is leading the Democratic race. I mean, what Republican wouldn't like to see a race between two men, Bush and Clark, who both voted for Reagan twice?"

Apparently, every Republican columnist, since they're frantically churning out columns spinning silly isues or grossly distorting substantive ones to try and hurt Clark's image. And judging from this post and others I've seen, the amateurs have taken their cue and are joining the pile-on.

As for the flip-flop on Iraq, would anyone care to spell out exactly what it was? Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention, but Clark seems to have espoused a clear and consistent line on Iraq, although it is (very slightly) nuanced, which admittedly puts it about 10 steps above most of the debate on the war, but I wouldn't think it's so difficult to understand that it would be seen as inconsistent.

Incidentally, a note on the "Clark lied about
getting a call from the white house" charge:

James Taranto, from Best of the Web, posted
a rebuttal of this back in June:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003671#haters
(scroll)

I think this is significant since it comes from
someone who is generally conservative.

"The idea that the New York Times has its knives out for Clark in order to preserve Bush in office..."

You're right Jane--that idea is laughable. Which is why you won't be able to name one Democratic pundit who has actually forwarded it. (When you try to disprove this riposte, don't forget your motive clause--"in order to preserve Bush in office.")

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