McCain is a wily coyote politician from arid Arizona, who has spent his long, post-hero career bedding women and making hay in Washington DC politics. Reminds me of George Mitchell and not a few others. Such big egos and such small results. Is George Mitchell married even yet? At least Bill Cohen found someone to settle down with.
Not only would I agree with the General Wesley Clark statement, I would second it, even if the Obama camp backpeddles furiously. It's the truth. McCain's assertion is the equivalent, nearly, of the high school champion footballer or other star, suggesting that he is thereby qualified to be our President. Oops, I guess I should have included Cheerleader, because that was George W. Bush's prequalification.
The suggestion that Wesley Clark does not show good political instincts is entirely wrong. First, he has more military credentials than the more than 100,000 McCain types he served as the Eisenhower equivalent, Supreme Allied Commander type general in Europe. One would expect he met a few European leaders while defending their Countries while running the NATO defense umbrella.
Second, when Wesley Clark ran for President, he was entirely right about much of what has been going wrong with our American Republican Democracy of late. So much so, was he right, that I was reassured that other U.S. Generals had a good notion of just how corrosive this Bush Junior gang with Dick Cheney and their Cronyism has proven to be for our Country. The sad thing is, with our newly revamped "professional" military, those poor dumb military SOBs have to follow this President's orders. Thank God the rest of us do not, because he is one total, utter and complete disaster as a leader of this Country, and anybody who does not know that by now, must not know either the United States or this current disaster zone known as the Bush White House.
Why should an illustrious general such as Wesley Clark remain silent, when a candidate such as McCain comes along, to continue and enhance the utter, wasteful, squandering stupidity of the current occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? McCain has been gassing up his political motor with that retread, tired old story about his stay in Hanoi Hilton for years and years. Not to detract from his sacrifice for his family tradition of military glory, and his sacrifice for his Country, you have to show some form of geopolitical astuteness and background to run for President successfully, in my view, after we have experienced the current nearly eight years of total incompetence.
For myself, I do not see any American candidate for President, outside of Wesley Clark and Joseph Biden, Senator from Delaware and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, who show any record of expertise in foreign affairs. It is this foreign affairs mess, that is causing our domestic economic stress and collapse. They overspent on another foolish war, as usual. Eisenhower never let the "military industrial complex" as it came to be called, get away with this overspending. Wesley Clark, similarly, would know well how to secure our Country's interests at home and abroad, without squandering our American resources, traditions, freedoms and institutional values. Bush has not been up to this task, McCain gives no assurance to me that he has the smarts to actually stand up for the American people - he certainly did not stand up for the new G.I. Bill for our returning American military personnel recently, when he and Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire had the chance - and even Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton made me wonder about their competence in directing American foreign policy. I have no such worries about Wesley Clark. He is smart, he is experienced, and he knows the lay of the political and geographic landscape, both here at home, and abroad. When he last ran for President, I was dubious, because he was fresh out of his Pentagon command post. Same with Colin Powell, he was fresh out of the military, and when he was made U.S. Secretary of State, he was no match for the scheming, infighting sharp elbowed Donald Rumsfelds and Dick Cheneys of this utterly incompetent Bush Junior Administration. I like Huckabee and John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and plenty of other candidates, too. Unfortunately, no matter how good that one person elected will be, they should not expect to run America's foreign policies alone. Neither should the American elitists, who go to school for it, at places like Tufts School of Diplomacy and elsewhere. No, this is too important to be left to the politicians, the apparatchiks, the academicians, or the lobbyists, or God forbid, the Parties.
Voting, Middle Class Americans need to get involved and I do mean forcefully, to learn about and express their views on American Foreign policies, endeavors, goals and alignments. Never has the need for American democracy and democratic values been more necessary to the future of America, at home and abroad. I am not delegating anything to these fools we have had running things in Washington DC, or to their advisors or their successors. I am amazed that the current power mongers have gotten away with so much, for so long. They really are like slippery eels, aren't they? The same types are found shot through and through our dishonest, dissembling, and disingenous American businesses I have worked for lately. They really are rotten.
Rather than ramp up my rant, I will now refer you to the prescription for what ails us, as Americans, proffered by that Author of the Book: Wealth of Nations, Oops, Sorry, Rather, it is titled: THE WORK OF NATIONS, and the Author is the world famous former American Labor Secretary Robert B. Reiche. I believe he is an Economist by trade, and I believe he has of late affiliated with U C Berkeley. Just the other day, on National Public Radio, he offered his most recent elixir: 1) A Tax Holiday for the first $15,000 of Income; and 2) Something else that I have forgotten now. Sounds good to me, let's do it. The only necessary ingredient missing, is the Political Will to do what Robert Reich suggests we do. Well, I have it, and so should the rest of America, the sooner the better. We cannot depend on the Fed to expand our economy with monetary or with fiscal stimulus, because the risk posed by Inflation is too great now, as Professor Reich has explained. We do need the economic stimulus package that Reiche came up with, and we need it As Soon As Possible - ASAP. By the way, whatever happened to Laura Tyson, remember her? Another Great Economic Mind whose advice was always right on, along with former Treasury Secretary under Clinton, who went on to run that big New York Investment bank.
