http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/ en Copyright 2008 Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:17:40 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss It's a funny thought for me to settle on now, with a huge election test looming on Super Tuesday. But it's the one that has slowly been working it's way up from my sub conscious mind, and now that it's arrived I'm looking at it, and it's looking back at me. Over the last six months I have seen an extraordinary amount of very negative adjectives and names attached to Hillary Clinton on political discussion boards. Down right evil words used to describe her, with "unlikable" firmly lodged at the benign end of the available spectrum. But I am not finding her unlikable at all. I am seeing much to admire about Hillary instead. It occurred to me, how would it effect me if that type of bitter derision and accusatory hatred was aimed toward me every day? And not just by those who I can understand may have good reason to be my enemy, but also by those whose goals and vision for America I too share. A whole lot worse than it has effected her was my very quick and certain answer for myself. And Hillary has been dealing with this, to greater and lesser extents daily for over 15 years. All because she long ago dedicated her life to making a positive difference in other people's lives. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2008/02/i_think_i_would_really_like_hi.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2008/02/i_think_i_would_really_like_hi.html Hillary Clinton Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:17:40 -0500 Hillary Clinton is now officially my presidential candidate. Though she is not my ideal candidate for President, frankly it is rare that “my ideal candidate” even runs for any office, let alone wins it. I thought long and hard about the Democratic choices still available for me to support for 2008, and after doing so I choose Hillary over any of them. I was greatly disappointed when Wes Clark did not run, I was greatly disappointed when Al Gore did not run, and I was disappointed that Russ Feingold didn’t run either. None of those men still have a chance to become President in 2008 but Hillary Clinton does. My first team didn’t take the field this season but Hillary Clinton did. I believe she will run an excellent campaign against the Republicans if she becomes the Democrats nominee, and I think Hillary Clinton will make a good President for America when she takes office in January 2009. I do not hesitate to support her for President. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/12/a_clear_vote_for_hillary_mine.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/12/a_clear_vote_for_hillary_mine.html Hillary Clinton Wesley Clark Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:54:43 -0500 Well me either and I’ll tell you my main reason. The U.S. Senate could vote to gather up every loose saber littering that chamber’s floor to lock safely in the attic and what this White House would hear are sabers being rattled while they were carted off. But I’ll tell you something I don’t like almost if not equally as much as Clinton’s Kyle – Lieberman vote. By and large I am upset by how anti-war grassroots have seized on Clinton’s vote to use as a primary season football at the expense of trying to lesson the risk of war with Iran. Essentially the primary reaction of most anti-war grassroots activists to the passage of Kyle –Lieberman by the U. S. Senate has been to blast Clinton for her vote and use that vote to argue against her Presidential candidacy. I know I am over simplifying, but the most common line of attack seems to be that by voting for Kyle- Lieberman, Clinton gave political cover to Bush/Cheney that will make it easier for them to attack Iran while they still are in office. Let’s step back and look at that for a second. Maybe several LONG seconds. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/11/so_you_dont_like_hillarys_iran.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/11/so_you_dont_like_hillarys_iran.html Media Wesley Clark Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:07:15 -0500 After seeing Wes Clark speak twice in NYC yesterday, once on his own at a book signing, and later with Hillary Clinton at a fund raiser for her, it is becoming clearer to me how Clark's concern over stopping a war with Iran factors into his decision to endorse Hillary Clinton for President. At the book signing Clark was asked, as a last question with time running out, if he thought the U.S. would bomb Iran, and he said "Yes". Clark focused his answer on what appeared to be most likely and why, he wasn't giving his personal views, though Clark repeated that he thought that bombing Iran was a "bad option." Clark pointed out that not only is it the stated policy of the Bush Administration that Iran must not be allowed to acquire weapons grade uranium, but he indicated that he personally talked to all of the current Democratic candidates about their views on this contengency, and they all essentially agreed with that bottom line (though it was not something that they embraced a chance to proclaim). Clark then backed up and said actually that was the position of all the Democratic candidates with one or two possible exceptions - which he did not clarify further. I took that to indicate that all of the major candidates, minimally including Obama, Edwdards, and Clinton, were prepared to bomb Iran if need be to stop them from getting nukes. Kucinich most likely is one exception, and my guess is Gravel is the other that Clark is not sure about. Perhaps it is another Democrat, not Gravel, who is not clearly in that bomb Iran at the point of "A bomb making" camp, but I am confident Clark would not have started his comment with the word "all" if one of the likely nominees disagreed with that position. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/09/iran_the_democrats_running_for.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/09/iran_the_democrats_running_for.html Wesley Clark Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:21:47 -0500 Over the last four years I have come to appreciate that Wes Clark seems to have a sure sense as to where attacks on the chances for a Democratic Party victory are most likely to come from, and how he carefully pre-positions himself to protect whatever flank of our Party is most exposed and vulnerable to an attack that might deny us an important victory. There is no more important victory to secure for the Democratic Party now than the White House in 2008, because that victory is not just needed for a domestic and partisan political party, it is needed both for the health of our Democracy and for sanity in this world. The visible danger that the Democratic Party faces in 2008 comes from all of the usual suspects, starting of course with the Republican Party but including a host of puppet masters and enablers, from powerful special interests to a rightist propaganda oriented mass media. Most Democrats know those enemies well enough, they are familiar foes; dangerous yes, but easily recognized and fairly straight forward to defend against. Sometimes we do well in that regard, sometimes not, but it is an unseen adversary that can ambush and thereby defeat our efforts to deny Republicans the White House in 2008. That adversary hides in our own passion, in our own desire to right all that is wrong in our nation now. I am guilty of that passion though I do not view it as a crime. I make no apologies for fighting for what I believe in my heart is best for our nation. But passion denied frequently leads to bitterness, and for many of us in the activist base of the Democratic Party, passions flow in support of Democratic candidates for President far more progressive than Hillary Clinton will ever be in our eyes. Passion isn't the hidden adversary that will have to be overcome for Democrats to defeat the Republican nominee for President in 2008. It is a lack of passion for our most likely presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, that I fear may doom us. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/09/i_believe_general_clark_is_wal.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/09/i_believe_general_clark_is_wal.html Wesley Clark Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:58:14 -0500 General Clark went well beyond the mainstream Democratic Party in preemptively positioning himself, and those who stand with him, to confront a growing threat to peace, and also to our Party. For those who picked up on Clark’s stance early the lag between him sounding an alarm and more people hearing it has been hard to accept, but as hard as it’s been for the netroots to take that danger in, compared to the institutional Democratic Party they have been relatively quick to respond. The most obvious example now concerns Iran and the urgent need to counter the neocon strategic agenda for war and the propaganda campaign that boosts it. Of course General Clark has been talking about the need to head off the potentially catastrophic pending conflict between the U.S. and Iran for almost four years now, and after repeated increasingly urgent interview warnings and statements, he and VoteVets.org launched their public StopIranWar.com petition and letter writing campaign back in February of this year. Most of it went right over the heads of many in the netroots at the time. Anti-war activists remained pre-occupied with getting the U.S. out of Iraq, and many were skeptical that the Bush Administration could even think of initiating new military aggression while physically and mentally bogged down in Iraq. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/09/wes_clark_got_2_steps_ahead_of.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/09/wes_clark_got_2_steps_ahead_of.html Iran Iraq Wesley Clark Tue, 04 Sep 2007 01:18:57 -0500 Summer is rolling on and Labor Day is approaching. George Bush and Dick Cheney are now almost certainly the least popular President and Vice President team in American History. John McCain, the G.O.P. pretender to the throne who once was feared as the only man with sufficient stature and integrity to convince the American public to renew the Republican lease on the White House, has departed center stage after a war vote malfunction stripped bare his passion for the Iraq surge, exposing him as unelectable in the Super Bowl of politics. Meanwhile the Democrats have a very strong field of presidential candidates. At least the media keeps telling us so, and given the quagmire the G.O.P. now seems stuck in, it’s hard to argue otherwise. That could be the reason why so few do argue otherwise, since conventional wisdom is much easier to repeat, but cracks that can fracture the veneer of Democratic complacency are hiding in plain sight, where many refuse to see. For one thing, the Democratic Party still has not shaken its inferiority complex compared to the Republicans when it comes to National Security. If you doubt that you need look no further for evidence than the August 4th vote by 16 Democratic Senators and 41 Democratic House members to support Republican written legislation giving George Bush’s near laughing stock of an Attorney General constitutionally unsupported authority to spy on the international telephone calls and e-mails of Americans, in the name of keeping America safe from terrorists. Anyone who found that vote shocking simply has not been paying close enough attention to Democrats in Congress. Democrats may have found the courage to often unite against the Iraq War now that it is universally unpopular, but they still rattle sabers against Iran almost as well as the best Republican Chicken Hawks around. It is that knee jerk need to posture as tough as Republican that led a Democratic Senate to issue George Bush a blank check for war against Iraq in 2002. Very little has really changed. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/08/wes_clark_answers_the_question.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/08/wes_clark_answers_the_question.html Media Oppo Polls Wesley Clark Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:32:49 -0500 Two things the media loves nowadays are sports and reality TV. No wonder they are so enthralled by Presidential contests. What could possibly be better than two fields of high profile celebrities competing in a nonstop horserace over 18 months to win the Super Bowl of Politics? A serious discussion of the critical issues facing both our nation and the world? Nah, doesn’t even come close. Meet the Press was never able to muster the ratings that Survivor has. So it’s no surprise that General Wesley Clark’s potential 2008 run for President gets virtually no mention in the press. He’s not on their chosen island. But what about us Democrats? We aren’t covering 2008 Presidential races, we’re staging one. In theory we get to pick our candidates. Currently we have a nice group of announced ones. Wes Clark isn’t in that group, and neither is Al Gore or Russ Feingold. In Feingold’s case the reason is clear; early on he decided against running this year. Al Gore has done all he can to discourage speculation about him running for President, other than stating that under no circumstances will he run. So of course that encourages speculation about Al Gore running for President. That leaves Wes Clark, who candidly admits that he would like to run for President this year, if he can line up enough support. Which, it seems, discourages some Democrats from speculating about Clark. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/08/the_case_for_clark_08_best_if.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/08/the_case_for_clark_08_best_if.html Media Oppo Polls Wesley Clark Wed, 01 Aug 2007 01:30:10 -0500 For readers of tea leaves, the omens have not been favorable lately for a 2008 Gore Presidential run. For one thing, the man himself still sounds decidedly less than enthusiastic about the prospect, and there are those supposed semi-insider leaks that say Gore spoke more positively in private about the prospect two months ago than he has of late. Jimmy Carter seems convinced that Gore won’t run despite having personally urged Al to throw his hat into the ring. Now there is a report quoting his daughter Kristen saying at a book signing for her second novel that; “He's really not going to get in the race.” We have come to the near end of a dramatic run of events that have deservedly kept Al Gore’s name (and his mission) centered in the public eye. Starting with the release of “An Inconvenient Truth”, furthered by a campaign that organized many hundreds of simultaneous nation wide viewing parties, followed by “An Inconvenient Truth” winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Al Gore has been on a deeply meaningful and productive roll. Al Gore then published a high profile political book offering his unvarnished take on what is wrong with America; The Assault on Reason, which led to high profile book promotion opportunities both in the media and in person. Most recently Al Gore produced and hosted the world wide series of concerts, “Live Earth”, which highlighted the global environmental crisis facing all of us, which also spawned hundreds of viewing parties all across the nation. Finally, the Draft Gore movement capped all of this off with the delivery of 100,000 signatures on a petition to Al Gore, urging him to run for President. The buildup has reached a climax, the stage is set, but Al Gore isn’t seen standing in the wings, adjusting his bow tie, waiting for the curtains to open on a spot lit podium with a microphone pre- adjusted to his height. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/07/gore_clark_kos_and_the_2008_el.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/07/gore_clark_kos_and_the_2008_el.html Media Oppo Polls Wesley Clark Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:43:48 -0500 Repeatedly, Republicans in the U.S. Senate have shown both their willingness and their ability to muster the 40+ plus votes needed to sustain a filibuster by denying a motion for cloture. As a result several crucial Democratic legislative initiatives, which if polls are to be believed all had strong public support, have expired with a whimper not a bang. And each time the Democratic Senate leadership turns to the public with a collective shrug and says; “We tried but they won’t let us”, while public dissatisfaction with a Democratic Congress continues to grow. It must be frustrating for them. Is it their fault that the American people haven’t elected enough Democratic Senators yet to bring legislation to a vote when Republicans refuse to limit debate? No, it’s their fault for refusing to make Republicans either put up, or shut up. Each time the Republicans demonstrate that they have the votes they need to filibuster Democratic legislation to death, Democrats respond with an emphatic “there’s really no need to bother” as they move on to the next item on their legislative agenda. From where I sit it seems like they’re all just going through the motions. Democrats propose important legislation which they are confident reflects the will of the people, and then Republicans tap them on the shoulder and say “you don’t have 60 votes”. Democrats respond;”we can’t argue with your math”. The legislation dies, dueling Press Releases get released to the press, and they all move on to repeating the exact same charade with the next important piece of Democratic legislation. It seems like a “gentleman’s agreement” prevails in the Senate that says in unspoken words, “none of us are up for the stress of a real filibuster anymore, so let’s have cloture votes instead, and if Republicans can muster 40 votes we’ll consider that a substitute for a successful filibuster and save all of us a lot of unnecessary trouble.” Well what’s wrong with that, some might ask? If you know you will lose anyway, why not say uncle early and save yourself an unnecessary fight? I suppose it’s a fair question. When I begin to formulate an answer my mind fixes on an image from many years ago. If you allow me a short digression, I think you will understand why. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/07/why_do_democrats_fear_a_filibu.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/07/why_do_democrats_fear_a_filibu.html Congress Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:10:25 -0500 Some observers perceive a double standard in how the Republican Party of today trumpets the righteousness of President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence compared to their prior zeal for impeaching Bill Clinton when he was President. Obviously they are missing the point Bill Clinton was a hard working life long public servant who had never been in trouble with the law before the Republicans in Congress impeached him for lying under oath. There was no underlying crime involved, just a lapse in personal morality for which no one was ever charged. But Clinton lying under oath then, in the eyes of the Republican Party, was reason enough to bring down a government and nullify a national election in which the voters of our nation chose Bill Clinton as their President. “Sorry voters”, said the Republicans, “but no one is above the law; Bill Clinton lied under oath so he can’t remain your President. We must spend hundreds of millions of dollars and months of Congress’s time seeking Clinton’s removal from office, because lying under oath must have consequences. This isn’t about a blow job; it’s about the rule of law.” Now, with Scooter Libby spared from spending a single night sleeping in a jail cell, it’s important to realize that this isn’t about intentionally taking America into war under false pretences. Nor is it about illegally outing a C.I.A. agent out of partisan political vindictiveness, because no charges on that were ever brought. No, the commutation of Libby’s prison sentence is about mercy for a hard working life long public servant who had never been in trouble with the law before, and it is about the pursuit of justice, because making Scooter Libby spend as many hours in jail for his conviction on obstruction of justice, as Paris Hilton did for evading court imposed restrictions on her driving, would have been a miscarriage of justice, verging on cruel and unusual punishment for a man who was only following the wishes of his President when he committed his crime. Fortunately for Scooter Libby, he served an activist President who felt free to disregard legally established sentencing guidelines, and empowered to overrule a strict interpretationist judge and jury to substitute instead his own enlightened understanding of justice for the rote rule of law that our judicial system slavishly attempts to impose equally on all Americans. Fortunately for Scooter Libby, George W. Bush is in the mainstream of today’s Republican Party, which rejects a firm moral compass with rigid definitions of right and wrong. Instead the modern G.O.P. enthusiastically embraces relativism, which is what allowed them to rise up against our Commander in Chief during America’s war in Kosovo, while Bill Clinton was President, without forfeiting their freedom to condemn dissent against our current Commander in Chief, George W. Bush, as unpatriotic and verging on treasonous during this time of war inside Iraq. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/07/freed_from_the_shackles_of_ide.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/07/freed_from_the_shackles_of_ide.html Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:44:39 -0500 Subtitle: When Pushers Sell You a First Hit Cheap – Worst Case Scenario. The Neocons are mobilizing again, this time pushing hard for an American strike on Iran. Few any longer doubt their remarkably tenacious resolve to seek further war, but many seem to doubt that they can sell that program once again, given the deteriorating state of their currently sponsored debacle in Iraq. I was blogging recently on another site where someone threw out the question, “Where would they find the money to pay for another war?” which led me on a journey that brought me to this Blog. And let me be upfront about it; I decided to throw moderation to the wind with this one. This time my worst fears are given free reign. Before giving my bleak answer to the question posed above, prior to detailing the admittedly nightmare scenario it derives from, let me first tell you where I’m coming from. I think neocon true believers view the world as a giant version of the board game RISK. In that game one empire triumphs, while all else lose. They believe a war larger than the one we momentarily are confined to, one fought to secure strategic Middle Eastern oil reserves which America “needs” for our future, is inevitable. And by triggering that war sooner rather than later, the cost to win it, by their accounting, will be lower than the tab putting it off would add up to. But the American public is reluctant; we have seen too much war already, and few are willing to now pay the price that an expanded war entails. So what is a good Neocon to do? How about the following: http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/count_on_a_pusher_to_sell_you.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/count_on_a_pusher_to_sell_you.html Iran Wesley Clark Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:48:44 -0500 Don’t count me among them. What I am looking for in a candidate now I simply am not finding. Of those who actually might have or could still run in 2008, I think Al Gore, Wes Clark, Russ Feingold, or John Kerry would be more to my liking than those who are now running. And that is just sticking to those who at one point or another expressed any possibility of running in 2008; it’s not a fantasy list. There’s not a Bill Bradley, Mario Cuomo, or George Mitchell among them. OK, I will grant you that John Kerry was unlikely to be embraced again by our Party as our standard bearer so quickly on the heels of his failure to secure the White House in 2004, but there are many in our party who do still yearn for his experience and leadership. And while I disagreed with him about the importance of learning from our mistakes on how we got into Iraq, Mark Warner was a formidable potential leader too. On a "good day" I might include Warner also in the field that should have run instead of the one we now have. So why am I not impressed with those now being offered to us? http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/some_say_the_democrats_have_a.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/some_say_the_democrats_have_a.html Media Polls Wesley Clark Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:20:09 -0500 The neocons have selected the designated next enemy of the United States, and they are hard at work convincing Americans to fear Iran. The public comments we just heard Joe Lieberman utter about the need to bomb Iran are just the tip of the iceberg. They position populist right wing pitch man Glen Beck on the air nightly at CNN Headline News, ranting about Iran. They pepper Jewish media with polemics about Iran, playing up fears for Israel’s security where few non Jews will notice their efforts. They have multiple front groups widely distribute email warnings about the urgent need to stand up to Iran, playing on every fear of radical Muslims imaginable, playing “the Christian card” without hesitation, while they label Iran our arch enemy at the center of a “clash of civilizations”. Republican candidates for President like nothing better than an opportunity to turn their tough act toward Tehran, where they leap frog each other to the heights of belligerency in the name of protecting America, providing cover while they safely back peddle on Iraq. Just like they morphed Osama Bin Ladin into Saddam Hussein in 2002, neocons morph Al Qaeda into Iran today, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the new Saddam Hussein who we must be trained to fear. And it is working. They are making significant steady progress in alarming the general public about Iran. They act like slippery weasels and say "True, Iraq was never a grave threat, but Iran actually was, and now the Iranian threat is getting greater all the time. It doesn't matter if you think attacking Iraq was a mistake, because Iran is the real deal, and now we finally must face up to something we should have dealt with a long time ago" http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/we_are_losing_the_fight_over_i.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/we_are_losing_the_fight_over_i.html Iran Wesley Clark Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:05:22 -0500 General, being the astute observer of political and social phenomena that I know you to be, I am sure that you have noticed how a number of us are still attempting to encourage you to run for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. And being the slightly less astute but still observant followers of all things political that we are, we in turn have noticed that you have not ruled out running for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. We have been at this stalemate now for quite a while. http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/my_final_open_letter_to_genera.html http://www.aleftturnforclark.com/2007/06/my_final_open_letter_to_genera.html Media Oppo Polls Wesley Clark Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:12:49 -0500