Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Clark Minutiae Jocks Always Pick on the Brains* ***UPDATE: This article by the New York Times blows any criticism of Clark by Bush-loving generals out of the water. From Colin Powell: "Wes Clark has been a superb battalion commander and will be a superb brigade commander. He is an officer of the rarest potential and will clearly rise to senior general officer rank. He will be one of the Army's leaders in the 1990's." || From Alexander Haig: "Major Clark's earnestness, sincerity of purpose and absolute dedication convey a moral force in his work which gives him a significant voice in this headquarters." and "Major Clark is an officer of impeccable character with a rare blend of personal qualities and professional attributes which uniquely qualify him as a soldier-scholar."|| From Col. Charles G. Prather IV: "The most brilliant and gifted officer I've known. I have never been more impressed with an officer's talent and dedication...should rank with men like Douglas MacArthur." || From General Shalikashvili: "...outstanding commander...quick of mind and an extraordinary strategic thinker." Quote from Times: He [Shalikashvili] said General Clark would not have been promoted repeatedly if most of his commanders did not agree. || I guess we can see the real reason why Clark got the job Cisneros wanted.*** The press has been covering remarks made by Clark's former peers regarding his service days. Most notable are Hugh Shelton's comments. Shelton called Clark a "nut" and suggested his forced early retirement "had to do with integrity and character issues" but refused to substantiate the accusations. He also tellingly refused to say whether he was a republican or democrat. Yet at the same meeting, he stated that in order to deal with the ongoing danger, the United States must "continue to go after terrorists," and that "Bush has maintained the pressure and earned kudos in spite of the criticism." It's pretty clear where Shelton's allegiance lies. According to William Saletan at Slate, the Republican party disseminated Shelton's remarks in an email alert. Saletan says: What we do know from widespread reporting is that Shelton resented Clark for going over his head to the Clinton White House, the State Department, and the media. That's the closest thing to a Clark-Shelton 'integrity' issue I can find in the public record. Clark asserts that Shelton never confronted him about character issues, and assumes Shelton's unhappiness relates to professional disagreements that Shelton has taken personally. Gen. Dennis Reimer, a former Army chief of staff, described Clark as an intelligent, "hardworking, ambitious individual who really applies himself hard," but added "Some of us were concerned about the fact that he was focused too much upward and not down on the soldiers. I've always believed you ought to be looking down toward your soldiers and not up at how to please your boss...I just didn't see enough of that in Wes.'' Reimer fails to specify how Clark ignored his soldiers' needs. Was it in Vietnam, when he led them to safety after taking four bullets? David Hackworth, a distinguished veteran and author of several books, once blasted Clark and called him a "perfumed prince." Conservatives had a field day with those remarks, repeating them everywhere, as though Hackworth were divine. Once Hackworth recanted and heaped praise on Clark, these same individuals took to calling him 'traitor.' Some conservatives have no respect for veterans. At Veterans for Clark 2004,  individuals who claim to have served under Clark have high praise: T. Ryan, Rank – SSgt, USMC, City – Boston, Ma, 80-84 87-2003, says: Prior to joining the Marines I was a 17-year-old soldier in the 1st Bn 77th Armor 4th ID. Then LtCol Clark was my Bn Commander. I can honestly say he was top notch, very well respected by Enlisted and Officers alike and earned a lifetime of respect from myself. A true Soldiers Soldier. Thanks for everything Sir and Semper Fidelis. Tammi Triplett, Rank - SGT/E5 , Army, 1988-1996: I was at the NTC while Gen. Clark was the post commander. I admired him them for holding townhall meetings so that he could hear the concerns of the entire community. He was concerned for us then and I believe that he is concerned for us now. Forrest (Bill) Hilbish, CW04 (Retired), US Navy 1975-1999, Mogadore, Ohio: I worked for General Clark while stationed at SCJ6 Current Operations Branch for USSOUTHCOM in Panama. He was an excellent leader and commander. My wife was impressed by the fact that even though there were hundreds of officers working for him, he knew both of our names...I am a Republican but I would vote for the "ONE" Democrat. Sam Closkey, Rank - LTC - Army 1966-1986, City - Palm City, FL: I worked with General Clark at the National Training Center. I always thought he would be an excellent president. He was the easiest guy to work for, smart, appreciative, confident and he really cared about people. I am a registered republican, but he's got my vote. These soldiers do not bolster Reimer's description of Clark as a man who always looked up instead of down to the soldiers beneath him. After 9/11, Bush tapped Reimer to serve on the Homeland Defense commission. Some of the harshest remarks were from former Lt. General Marc Cisneros, who has very close ties to the Bush family and is a Texas native. In 1997, then Gov. George Bush appointed him to the state Jail Standards Commission.  In 1998, he was elected president of Texas A&M University, where he also serves on the advisory council for the Bush School of Government and Public Policy. He has given speeches at the Bush Library. In the runup to the 2000 election, Cisneros facilitated a speech from former President Bush to Texas A&M students, in which Bush said "It hurts far more to hear my boy criticized than it does when I'm criticized." Current President Bush also appointed Cisneros to his Defense Policy Board. The DFB includes neoconservatives like Richard Perle and conservatives Newt Gingrich, Henry Kissinger, Dan Quayle, Tillie Fowler, and Pete Wilson. While there are one or two democrats, such as Thomas Foley, the DFB is a hawkish advocate of Bush's pre-emptive doctrine. Another identified Clark critic is Ret. Army Brig. Gen. David Grange, U.S. commander in Bosnia during Clark's service there. He said that Clark was ambitious and "he would maybe not be cognizant of some of the feelings or concerns of some of the people around him. There's no question that General Clark is for General Clark.'' Grange added, however, that Clark had always treated him well personally. In an earlier statement to the New York Times, he said only that "It was tenuous at times. He [Clark] did get into the weeds." Other military men defended Clark, such as the respected Gen. Barry McCaffery. McCaffery acknowledged that Clark encountered friction in the military in part because he wasn't part of the "good ol' boys" network, which men like Shelton ascribed to. McCaffery pointed out that "...for 34 years when there was a tough problem the local leadership asked Wes Clark to take on the problem. This guy has been incredibly successful at doing the country's business.'' Dan Christman and Don Kerrick, two retired lieutenant generals, said of Clark "We knew that he was a man of his word and that he would deliver what we expected" and described the friction as an inevitable result of a campaign that involved coordinating nineteen NATO allies without compromising the interests of the United States. Clinton Defense Secretary William J. Perry said Clark's "intellectual horsepower is very impressive." The highest praise comes from Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, another intellectual military man, whom Clark appointed as Director of Planning at NATO: There is this aspect of his character -- he is loyal to people he knows are capable and competent. As for his peers, it's a function of jealousy and envy, and it's a case of misunderstanding. General Clark is an intense person, he's passionate, and certainly the military is suspicious of people who are intense and passionate. He is a complex man who does not lend himself to simplistic formulations. But he is very competent, and devoted to the country. The Washington Post wrote that Clark's "[s]upporters and detractors agree on this much: The retired general is immensely talented, possessed of a keen strategic sensibility and the kind of gold-plated military credentials that could make him a formidable candidate in the Democratic race for president." Yes, he's ruffled a few feathers with a reportedly "abrasive" personality, something that has not been evident in any of his public appearances. But he's running for president, not Miss Congeniality. Conversely, Bush has a reputation for being a nice guy yet not possessing a burning intellect. Assuming you believe Bush is a nice guy, whom would you hire to run your company? The nice dimbulb or the brilliant hardass? *Clark was actually a jock and a brain. Some say he could have become an Olympic swimmer if he had so desired. Division in the Ranks? Not Really. ***UPDATE: Visit The Tooney Bin for an enjoyable satirical take on the letter that first triggered overhyped media claims of "dissent" among Draft Clark supporters. For an in-depth account from an insider personally familiar with Newberry, visit Women4Clark and read Needle of Dissent. Sadly, you won't hear a word from the mainstream media about how voices like Newberry's are an extreme minority among Clark's grass roots supporters.*** The mainstream media continues to make an issue of a few malcontents among the Clark grass roots movement. It's a bit like suggesting a high school has a violence issue because two of its 2,000 students had a fistfight. Clark's MSNBC embed, Marisa Buchanan, filed her most recent report "from the front lines" on October 13. Instead of covering Clark's campaign, she affords Clark campaign manager Donnie Fowler the opportunity to vent his spleen uncontested. October 13 was the day thousands of people participated in Meetups for Clark all over the United States. Buchanan has yet to report on the Meetups or Clark's October 14 New York speech, where he unveiled a bold policy initiative called "Civilian Corps." Clark supporters can write MSNBC and copy the email to viewerservices@msnbc.com to complain about Marisa Buchanan's ineffective coverage of the Clark campaign. As for Fowler's disgruntled sentiments, along with those of minor league Draft Clark player Stirling Newberry, who wrote an open letter to Clark full of innuendo and rumor and little fact, they are mosquito bites: irritating but insignificant. Newberry runs DraftClark.com, a site owned by the DailyKos blogger, a strident Dean supporter. Responses to Newberry's whining missive were overwhelmingly unsupportive. It's difficult to claim the Clark campaign is ignoring its grass roots supporters when it employs two individuals from the top tier of the Draft Clark movement: John Hlinko and Maya Israel. Clark maintains almost daily email contact with his Internet supporters, provides an active blog,  recorded a webcast announcement, and meets with draft participants at campaign stops around the country. The evidence does not support the idea that he has abandoned his grass roots followers. Further, some respondents disagreed with Newberry's implication that the movement was more important than the man. Many said they supported Clark not out of a desire to be a part of some groundbreaking movement but because after examining his credentials they concluded that he was the best man for the job. Most recognize the need for Clark to attract non-draft movement voters, since no candidate can win with Internet support alone. Based on Fowler's inexperience (Clark's was his first campaign) and both Fowler and Newberry's apparent propensity to go off half-cocked when things don't align with their wishes, it's better for the Clark campaign that they are not staff members. Since Fowler resigned, the campaign has run much smoother, with fewer gaffes. 12:43:34 PM

Liberal Media, My Ass Despite a Gallup poll claiming that 45 percent of Americans think the media is "too liberal," it's hard to ignore the obvious conservative bias in the mainstream media. Summaries of the poll invariably fail to mention that while 45 percent claimed to regard the media as too liberal, a grand total of 55 percent (that would be the majority) regarded it as just right or too conservative. Further, the percentage of people believing the media is too liberal has decreased among all groups (conservatives, moderates, liberals) for the past two years, whereas the percentage of those believing the media is too conservative has increased. Does this mean that the media does have a liberal bias? Not when you consider that one of the reasons for this misperception is FOX News, the highest rated news channel in America, which consistently tells its viewers that the media has a liberal bias (see O'Reilly's rantings about NPR elsewhere on this blog). Consider a study done by Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), which discovered that 80 percent of FOX viewers held at least one significant misperception about the Iraq war (such as a strong link found between Al Qaeda and Iraq or weapons of mass destruction located in Iraq; and this was before the Kay report came out, which Bush & Co. have disingenuously used to argue that WMD were found). 71 percent of CBS viewers and 55 percent of CNN and NBC viewers had at least one misperception about the war. Even more startling, 45 percent of FOX viewers believed all three false statements PIPA asked about the war. The other networks' viewers scored between 12 and 16 percent, and NPR had a meager 4 percent of its viewers who believed all three claims. This indicates that the majority of news-watching Americans are not well informed and are highly susceptible to repetition and suggestion. Those same people watching FOX news may also listen to Rush Limbaugh cursing the evil "liberal" media on a near-daily basis. Despite its moniker fair and balanced, few outside of FOX's loyal fans consider it so. At a recent gathering celebrating the renovation of the Al Neuharth Media Center at University of South Dakota, the Press & Dakotan quoted Robert MacNeil, former host of The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, as saying "The Fox claim is a con on the public...The network is blatantly unbalanced." He added that the media used patriotism to promote President Bush and a right wing agenda. Tom Curley, CEO of the Associated Press, told the audience that while journalists are more often considered liberal (a point Al Franken makes in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), "most media are owned by Republican conservatives, so there is a healthy balance and tension." Is there really a healthy balance? Was it the liberal journalist or the conservative owner at MSNBC who replaced anti-war Phil Donahue with conservative ideologue Michael "Weiner" Savage (subsequently fired for doing what he does best--insulting people)? One wonders who was surprised by Savage's on-air behavior or that of uber-conservative Rush Limbaugh, terminated from ESPN for making racially offensive remarks about black quarterback Donovan McNabb. In What Liberal Media?, Eric Alterman does an excellent job debunking the myth of the liberal media. He quotes high ranking conservatives who admit to merely "working the ref" in hopes of getting "calls" more to their liking. And while Ann Coulter, author of Slander, which advocates the 'liberal media' theory, has appeared on "liberal" MSNBC's Hardball eight or nine times, Alterman has only appeared once. In fairness, Alterman acknowledged that he was "only willing to go on when plugging a book, which isn't that often." Today, Carl Cameron of FOX News interviewed Wesley Clark prior to Clark's speech in New York. Cameron asked him about the never-ending story of Clark's supposed flip-flop on the Iraq War. Meanwhile, beneath a bar that says "You Decide 2004," FOX scrolls the pertinent facts Americans need to know about the candidates, such as "Clark gets his hair cut every two weeks." Clark starts answering Cameron's question with "I've stated that it was not an imminent threat, I believe the problem should have been internationalized--" when Cameron interrupts: "President Bush didn't say it was imminent, though." This is a classic example of how FOX cheerleads for Bush and simultaneously abuses the people's trust in journalists to present facts instead of partisan spin. While conservatives Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes of FOX may believe Bush's failure to use the precise word "imminent" makes FOX factually correct, Cameron's claim is contextually incorrect. Bush released a statement on September 26, 2002, alleging that Hussein "could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given"; on October 8, 2002, he said "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a definition for peril is imminent danger. Clark had a ready response for Cameron. "Oh there were all kinds of suggestions it was imminent, that's why the March deadline. We couldn't wait, remember?" Recently Steve Rendall of FAIR analyzed FOX News' balance. His conclusion revealed that if FOX were a teeter-totter, with republicans on one side and liberals on the other, the liberals would have flown off into the stratosphere. In a 19-week study of Special Report with Brit Hume, FOX's primary political news show, Rendall divided guests into conservative and non-conservative. He was very selective in whom he labeled conservative, only including "guests affiliated with openly conservative think tanks, magazines or advocacy groups, or who promote openly conservative views." All others, even republicans like Christine Todd Whitman and Christopher Shays, were classified as non-conservative. Rendall discovered that 65 of the 92 guests (71 percent) were conservative. He then analyzed partisan guests and found that 89 percent of the 56 partisan guests were republicans. Only 6 were democrats, a greater than "8 to 1 imbalance." Rendall then analyzed CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, a show comparable to Hume's, and concluded: Of Blitzer's 67 partisan guests, 38 were republicans and 29 were democrats -- a 57 percent to 43 percent split in favor of republicans. Thirty-five out of 109 guests (32 percent) were avowed conservatives, with the remaining 68 percent divided up among the rest of the political spectrum, from center-right to left. Michael Tomasky, a Shorenstein Fellow and contributing editor to New York magazine, produced Whispers and Screams, a research paper on "the partisan nature of editorial pages." He contrasted so-called liberal papers like The New York Times and the Washington Post against conservative ones such as The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times. Tomasky concluded: ...the conservative pages are more partisan-often far more partisan-with regard to the intensity with which they criticize the other side. Also, the paper finds conservative editorial are far less willing to criticize a republican administration than liberal pages are willing to take issue with a democratic administration. Of course, conservatives dismissed the report out of hand as biased because Tomasky was a "liberal" journalist. Liberal publications and liberal media do exist, but they are insignificant in size and influence compared to the conservative machine, which often gobbles up the truth and regurgitates propaganda. The mainstream media appears cowed by the success of the conservative media and continues to lean further right in a reach for some of the audience share. According to CNN commentator Christiane Amanpour, regarding coverage of the Iraq War:  I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did. Former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke responded that Amanpour's claim was "categorically untrue. In my experience, a little over two years at the Pentagon, I never saw them (the media) holding back. I saw them reporting the good, the bad and the in between." Yet the only station providing detailed information on the true horrors of war, such as civilian deaths in Iraq, was Al Jazeera. The war American television broadcast was sanitized, featuring less blood than your average B-grade horror flick. The Pentagon's attitude has changed significantly. Now that the media reports the bad news from Iraq, such as the frequent deaths of soldiers and suicide bombings, Bush has claimed news from Iraq moves through a filter. Considering Bush says he doesn't read the newspapers and gets his news through the filter of his staff, one wonders how he can accurately make this charge. It's an absurd charge, really, because every major news outlet has run stories about Iraq's successes. On April 25, 2003, CBS ran an article entitled Progress Seen in Postwar Recovery, relating Jay Garner's account of the progress being made. UPI covered July 18 testimony by Jay Garner to congress on Iraq's "rapid" progress. The Christian Science Monitor ran an article on July 24, called Iraq in Transition, which detailed how things in Iraq were "looking up."  On September 14, CNN conducted an interview on Iraq's progress with Colin Powell. Every media outlet covered the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein around the clock for the first few days. There have been stories about the progress in opening Iraq's oil pipelines, but admittedly also ones about the sabotage. Mainstream news reported on a Gallup poll that claimed most Baghdad residents were happy Hussein was gone, but the media also pointed out the majority felt life was better under Saddam, yet expected things to improve in the next five years. Perhaps conservatives' problem with the filter is that it is large enough to allow the bad to pass through along with the good. It's not the fault of the media that in the minds of Americans, the fact that more Iraqis now have electricity seems insignificant compared to dead soldiers. Congressional republican George Nethercutt doesn't share that sentiment. Yesterday he said "The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day." According to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, the White House told congressional democrats no airplane was available to take them to Iraq to see the progress firsthand. "If they're going to make these characterizations, it would be nice if we could analyze those circumstances in a bipartisan way," he said. How's this for media bias? The AP distributed a photograph to various news outlets of Bush giving a Columbus Day Speech and featured the same photo prominently on its home page. It depicts Bush with head bowed and a glowing halo around his cranium, a la pre-Renaissance Jesus. Yahoo married this picture to three separate stories about Bush. The AP photo editor at the Washington DC bureau said that the photographer, Charles Dharapak, is a Buddhist and the theological implications of the picture were unintentional. He said that Dharapak, not the photo editor, was responsible for releasing the photo to the media and thus the AP no longer had influence on whether the photo was used alongside AP articles. The photo garnered several "holy molys!" on the Yahoo message boards and various blogs. An increasing number of liberals have abandoned hope of finding an unbiased television news source and turned to the internet, the BBC, and various fringe publications for their news fix. This compounds the problem, because the mainstream news then feels less obligation to be fair and balanced and skews right to lure conservative viewers. Which is how conservative fruitcakes like Grover Norquist get prime time interviews on NPR. Fruitcake may seem harsh, but Norquist compared opposition to tax cuts to support for the Holocaust, of all things. When you next hear someone venting about the 'liberal media,' set them straight. Point out that the most watched television news is FOX; the radio personality with the most listeners and on the most stations is Rush Limbaugh; there are currently three books by conservative personalities on the New York Times hardcover non-fiction bestseller list (with the help of bulk sales, as usual); the Wall Street Journal has one of the widest circulations in the nation; and more people recognize the name Matt Drudge than Joshua Miller. Any fair and balanced individual will readily concede that the conservative media is very pervasive in the United States. 1:47:54 AM