LITTLE ROCK – First, because he's too smart for the job.
The former general and one-time presidential candidate spoke this morning to a crowd of alternative weekly journalists here at the AAN conference, fresh from an appearance at YearlyKos in Las Vegas. The man is bright, actually professorially smart, and charismatic. He combines a unique blend of immigrant, working class background, a military man's sense of purpose and order and a Democrat's compassion.
The bulk of his speech wasn't too far different from the kinds of things he talked about during his unsuccessful 2004 presidential run. The most interesting point, however, came during a brief Q&A, when the editor/publisher of the Bay Guardian asked Gen. Clark how – given Clark's strong insistence that Iraq was a war we did not have to fight and should not have – he justifies keeping U.S. military there now.
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2006.
