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Clark Raves Incoherently in NH
Hat tip to Drudge
Gen. Wesley Clark, told a New Hampshire audience Friday night he had only fired one person in his life. On Saturday he said he wanted to fire a second person: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Note to Wes: an elected president gets to appoint a whole new cabinet. BTW, who was this other person you fired? That sounds like an intersting story.
When asked at a house party on the Seacoast about what he would do in Iraq if elected president today, he was met with applause when he said, "First of all I would change the Secretary of Defense. Then I would go to the commanders of the ground and go to Iraq myself personally and I would develop an exit strategy that gives us a success and lets us downsize our commitment there."
How does that differ from the current policy?
Besides Rumsfeld, Clark also criticized Bush’s National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice for her views of the world and then U.S. House Majority Leader Tom Delay, also a Republican, for his vote on a measure involving Kosovo.
Pretty safe targets in NH. Rumsfeld, Rice and DeLay completes the trifecta.
"So when I got out of the military and into business I looked at both parties," Clark explained to the crowd on why he was a Democrat. "I talked to Condoleeza Rice right away.
I wonder if Condi remebers this conversation.
I found out I didn’t like her view on foreign policy. She said American troops shouldn’t do peacekeeping they should do real fighting.
Wes, I have only heard of one other active or retired military member that was a proponent of the American military being used for peacekeeping: Jimmy Carter.
But she is an academic, what does she know?
Wes, you can’t insult academics anymore. You're a Democrat now. They’re the base.
I’ve been on the front lines. I tried to explain it to her. She let me know she was going to be in charge.
Over an elected president? Was he interviewing to work for her?
And I spoke out on the election campaign on what we are trying to do on behalf of Bosnia and the Balkans and so forth. And when I went home to Arkansas I was in business and I wanted to meet both sides. The Republicans came to me and said ’Hey we would like for you to speak at our Lincoln Day fund-raiser. I said I am not going to be there for Lincoln Day. They said ’General we’ll hold Lincoln Day whenever you can get here.’ So I did. I spoke to about 450 Republicans there at Embassy Suites. I was non-partisan.
speaker at a fundraiser of 450 Republicans
I basically praised Republicans for being Republicans. . . . But I knew what the Republican Party was like and I couldn’t identify with that party
other than for fundraising purposes.
They are the party that when I was commanding in Kosovo, they were the party led by Tom Delay against our airman who were in the skies over Yugoslavia taking fire from Serb anti-aircraft and this party voted against them.
Don’t remember Delay being in the Daschele role.
They claimed they weren’t. They claimed they were voting against just a policy, but I read what they said. They wanted the policy to fail.
The Ted Kennedy role. Didn’t know of any military guys that thought Kosovo was a good idea. Maybe Carter thought we should be there.
They didn’t have a vision.
Wes, What the vision of Kosovo? Did we need beer goggles?
They didn’t understand what America was about.
Wes, explain your vision - especially the domestic portion. Leave out the rhetoric - just the meat.
They put their interest of the party above the interest of the party.
Is is possible that Wes partied too heavily before making this statement?
I’ll never put the interest of the party above the interest of the country." It should be noted that Clark only took questions after several in the crowd of about 70 verbally complained. Traditionally in New Hampshire candidates attend house parties
- keg parties in the case of Ted Kennedy -
and briefly explain their platform and why they are running followed by about 30-40 minutes of taking questions from the audience. Here Clark spoke for 20 minutes and quickly began shaking hands.
Nice try, Wes.
A Clark aide noted it was his first house party ever as a presidential candidate and didn’t understand protocol and was not hiding from questions.
Good answer.. good answer.
The house party in New Castle ended a two day trip to New Hampshire, his first trip since announcing he was in the presidential race.
Run away quick before there are more follow-up questions about being fired from jobs.
Clark has been criticized by some of the other candidates for flip-flopping on issues during his 11-day-old candidacy, but seemed to become more comfortable in his role with each stop. “I never say the same thing every day,” he told a supporter in New Castle. “I grow every day.”
Wouldn’t it have been smarter to do that growing thing before entering the campaign. Wes, an American president that was not able to hold a coherent position for 11 days could make the world an unstable place to live.
Earlier on Saturday Clark visited with patrons at Chez Vachon, a French-Canadian diner once adored by a candidate named Bill Clinton.
Obviously home territoty for Kerry.
After that he met with Manchester fire fighters and briefly discussed Homeland Security. On Monday the union representing New Hampshire fire fighters will formally endorse John Kerry’s presidential campaign. Arguably the biggest test for Clark came to his trip in Dover at lunchtime. Dover is the site of the only Draft Clark office in New Hampshire, where about 250 supporters from all over New England came to hear the General rally his troops and ask for support and explicitly for money.
Wes, wasn’t your Republican fundraiser better attended?
At none of the events Sunday did Clark take questions from the media.
Posted by: Super Hose 2003-09-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=19192