Wes Clark, Party Hack

I just got an e-mail from WesPac, laid out in the same style and graphics as all the e-mails from Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi & co. -- I don't know how I got on this Democratic Party mailing list, and I usually delete them with no more than a cursory skim. But I've heard Wes Clark sound like a thoughtful centrist, especially on Iraq, so it's disappointing to see him put his name to this piece of party hackery. It seems to be a prerequisite for aspirants to the Democratic presidential nomination, but it's degrading.

On Tuesday, the message sent by Connecticut voters was loud and clear. They want change, and they want Ned Lamont to represent them in the U.S. Senate, voting for Ned by a 52% - 48% margin over Senator Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary.

You see, despite what Joe Lieberman believes, invading Iraq and diverting our attention away from Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden is not being strong on national security. Blind allegiance to George W. Bush and his failed "stay the course" strategy is not being strong on national security. And no, Senator Lieberman, no matter how you demonize your opponents, there is no "antisecurity wing" of the Democratic Party.

Indeed, Connecticut Democrats recognized all of this, and yesterday they chose Ned Lamont as their nominee for the U.S. Senate. Now, I hope you'll join me in supporting Ned as he heads into the general election this November.

Stand with Connecticut Democrats. Send a message to Joe Lieberman to end his Independent campaign for CT Senate.

As a Democrat, I respect the will of the Connecticut Democratic voters and their decision to make Ned Lamont their nominee. Even before the election results came in on Tuesday, Ned Lamont showed his respect for the voters by committing to abide by the Democratic primary result and support whoever won.

Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, began collecting petition signatures to run as an Independent several weeks ago while concurrently running in the Democratic primary. In short, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

Despite his efforts to appear on the November ballot as an Independent, I held out hope that Joe would withdraw from the Connecticut Senate race after the primary votes were counted. Unfortunately, Joe has announced his candidacy as an Independent candidate, running against Ned, the Democratic nominee.

Today, I ask you to email Joe Lieberman. Urge him to respect the will of Connecticut Democrats and end his Independent candidacy for CT Senate.

Right now, for non-Republicans who want to be President, the Democratic Party is still where the money is. But it's not where the courage is, or where the future is. Wes Clark may find himself wanting to run as an independent candidate when it becomes clear that he's not going to get the Democrat brass ring. Will this party hackery then be forgiven and forgotten?

Comments

[Harry Gottlieb]

Your comment "thoughtful centrist" regarding Wes Clark implies that his point of view is not "thoughtful," and that centrists are the wave of the future.

My view is we should be planning to pull out of Iraq as soon as possible, preferably within the next six months.

My thoughtful position is closer to that of Joe Murtha than to that of any other politician.

We don't belong in Iraq. The longer we stay there, the more we are contributing to recruitng for worldwide terrorism.

Our troops deserve to come home.

The international loss of respect we have suffered negatively affects our ability to gain support for other initiatives such as a plan for peace for Israel/Lebanon.

Ancient Mariner

[amba]

The international loss of respect we have suffered negatively affects our ability to gain support for other initiatives such as a plan for peace for Israel/Lebanon.

I certainly agree with that.

What Wes Clark said, if I remember rightly -- months ago, before the violence got as bad as it is now -- was that Iraq was not a problem that could be solved with military only; it had to be solved politically -- which means by Iraqis who want, or don't want, one united country -- but that a military presence was necessary until Iraqis could take it over, just to provide the minimal security that makes a political process possible.

If we simply pull out and come home, å la John Murtha, we will have:

a) conceded victory to the jihadis who've been trying to foment and provoke civil war, not only for their own sectarian purposes but in order to defeat us;

b) gone into Iraq, ruined it -- thrown it wide open to the worst forces both within and without -- and left its people in the lurch;

c) given the Sunni Bin Ladenist jihadis a new training base in the Sunni part of Iraq;

d) massively increased the influence of Iran.

If we leave Iraq, Israel will be destroyed. It may be destroyed anyway. Bin Laden's gang gained a lot of courage from being able to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and imagine how emboldened they will be if they're able to drive "us" out of the Middle East -- a plan which includes destroying Israel. You ready for that? Maybe Israel should never have been put there, but it's too late now.

A lot of people are saying this is a Munich moment. I'm not sure when you were trying to sign up for WWII -- whether it was before or after Pearl Harbor -- but this is another world war and another holocaust.

First the Republicans screwed things up by trying to dump Saddam on the cheap -- they should either not have gone in at all, or listened to the experts who told them they'd need two to three times as many troops -- and now the Democrats are going to finish the job by just conceding defeat and pulling out. We could try to retreat within our own borders? We could let the Middle East be a Caliphate, do without their oil (believe me, I wish we would, but the transition will be an economic cataclysm), and the terrorism would miraculously stop -- if we just toss them Israel? You really believe that would work? You want that on our conscience?

"Bring the troops home now" is understandable and emotional wishful thinking.

[amba]

To continue with the curious WWII parallels:

If we hadn't been attacked at Pearl Harbor, we might not have gone into WWII, not even to aid a tiny country, our closest ally and "relative" in Europe and the mother of our own language and culture, Great Britain.

If we hadn't been attacked on September 11, would we have gone to war with fascist Islam even to aid a tiny country, our closest ally and "relative" in the middle East and the mother of our own Judaeo-Christian religious culture, Israel?

[Irving]

Actually, we did go to war to aid a tiny country, Kuwait, that was attacked by a fascist Islamic country, Iraq. And Wes Clark has too many enemies in the military. If you thought the boat attack ads against Kerry's wartime experience were bad, wait and see what Rove does to Clark.