If Barack Obama wins the Democratic presidential nomination and picks Wes Clark as VP, McCain's desperate fear tactics would dissolve before the first debate started. Wes, like Barack, has said that a foreign policy dominated by military force instead of sound diplomacy makes us less safe and alienates the rest of the world, working as a recruiting tool for those who practice terror. That seems pretty obvious, but when a retired Four-Star says it, even the "weaker ones", as Woody Allen might say, would be less likely to "panic".
Wes Clark would drive a stake through the heart of McCain's fear tactics.
But perhaps an even more compelling reason to hope for an Obama/Clark team is that Wes Clark has spoken so eloquently about the values that he and Barack share - our democratic principles; legitimacy over expedience; the rule of law; fairness and equity. When Wes ran for president in 2004, his campaign platform was well aligned with the goals that Obama has espoused in his campaign on tax fairness, renewable energy, empowering workers, fair trade and so on. Even Barack Obama's promise of higher education opportunities in return for public service was very important to Wes Clark.
Also Barack Obama and Wes Clark are both, by temperament, - rational, thoughtful, articulate, empowering and enlightened, as opposed to authoritarian, top down, preachy, my way or the highway, guys.
Wes Clark said that he slowly reached the conclusion that single payer universal health care was necessary to solve our health care problems because the administrative costs of private health insurance are 10 times that of Medicade and we need those savings to cover the 47+ million uninsured. I'm hoping that Senator Obama reaches the same conclusion.
Finally, I believe an Obama/Clark ticket could win in a landslide, offering down ballot Democrats the coattails to win enough Congressional seats to bring a workable majority to the Congress. That's what we need to fulfill the public's hunger for a progressive policy shift.
Wes Clark stood right beside Hillary Clinton as she thrashed him in ways I'd expect out of Karl Rove. Wes Clark may find a cabinet seat, but he definitely isn't being rewarded with a VP spot.
Had I been able to speak with Wes, I would have argued that Wes Clark's principles, courage and integrity trump the political savvy that lifelong politicians accumulate.
I think George w Bush has made most of us pretty cynical about the political "arts".
So I hope that Wes Clark will at some point say "enough" to the tactics that are being used by a desperate Clinton campaign.
I'm also waiting for Sheldon Whitehouse to change his support...he stood by clapping while Senator Clinton went on a rant in RI.
The only candidate to agree with Nunn/Boren (and Henry Kissinger) and to support Nunn's position on nuclear proliferation at the Oklahoma meeting last month was Barack Obama. So there is a clear generational break between these two Democratic visions of foreign policy and here and in other ways, Obama harks back to Nunn and leaps over the Clinton/Albright generation - and Hillary's point of view on this which should come as no surprise is the same as her husband's. That is probably why Obama was endorsed by Susan Eisenhower, who was at the meeting in Oklahoma and who also called together the foreign policy elders like Kennan to oppose Clinton's NATO initiative (which 90 Senators voted for) on incursion into Russia's near frontier.
Sam Nunn has been mentioned as a possible VP for Obama. An Obama Presidency will almost certainly take a different foreign policy tack than the Reagan/Clinton direction which was primary the same (Kagan/Kristol).
General Clark has been critical of Obama on many occations, starting at the Daily Kos convention last summer, about the time he went to work for the Clintons. I don't see that he had any choice but to support the Clinton camp as Bill was his Commander-in-Chief and the important work Clark did in his life was with Bill's approval and sometimes with the disapproval of the army.
In my opinion the best work General Clark ever did in his life was in opposition to the war on Iraq from '04 to June '07. He opposed the war when few other men and women of his credibility, character and distinguished personal history did. He gave the Democrats a new track and kept them on that track until the war fever had passed. Among politicians, veterans and soldiers, he carried this point of view virtually alone, like a candle cupped in his hands, for quite a long time.
That work is not finished. In one of his books and in the Amy Goodman interview he did last year, Clark called for an investigation of the roots of the war on Iraq as he had heard from friends in the Pentagon that this invasion would take place long before it had been made public. This fully needs to be investigated if America is ever to find credibility with the world again and with our new generations. It is clear that laws have been broken, crimes have been committed and they would be war crimes. This is a very delicate task and requires women and men of the utmost character. These hearings should start with Wes Clark. (And Larry Wilkerson.)
Clark certainly should be on the short list for Defense, State, or National Security Advisor, though. And Obama should not (and probably won't) hold his loyalty to Clinton too strongly against him.