Mark Steyn puts a shoe to Wes Clark.
So I'd say Howard Dean is a sane man pretending to be crazy. Whereas General Clark gives every indication of a crazy man pretending to be sane.
Now I'm not talking about things like this screwy response to a question from MSNBC's Chris Matthews. The general had indicated he wished Osama bin Laden to be tried at the Hague and sentenced to life in prison. "But," asked Matthews, "doesn't life in Holland beat life in a cave?"
"Not in a Dutch prison, Chris," said Clark. "They're under water, they're damp, they're cold. They're really miserable."
Dutch prisons are under water? Good thing Clark's not as dumb as Bush or Quayle, eh?
Mark, you've got to cut the Democrats some slack on this. They've spent the last four years deluding themselves that Bush is "stupid" and a "deserter," and they haven't had time to actually listen to what the Retiree is saying.
Nor am I talking about his flip-flops on Iraq. That's just an extreme version of standard-issue political opportunism: If you're a CNN military analyst who gets schmoozed into running as the standard bearer of the anti-war movement, there's bound to be a few not entirely convincing lurches in continuity.
So it would seem. But hey, it gets you the endorsement of an overheated braggart who five years ago accused you of conducting a "slaughter."
But what shifts him from unprincipled and thoughtless to the out-of-his-tree category is stuff like this:
''If I'd been president, I would have had Osama bin Laden by this time.''
And:
''I'm going to take care of the American people. We are not going to have one of these incidents. I think the two greatest lies that have been told in the last three years are: You couldn't have prevented 9/11 and there's another one that's bound to happen.''
Normal presidential candidates just don't say things like this. By ''normal,'' I mean candidates like Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton.
Quotes like that make my skin crawl.
Clark was sold to the Democratic Party as a military man of peaceful manner: Generals are from Mars, but this one's from Venus. But there's a common theme to every glimpse of the real Clark, whether it's his own private fantasies about the White House calling him on 9/11 or memories of those who served with him, like the British general who refused an order by Clark to launch an insane attack on Russian forces in Kosovo: At best, he's a thin-skinned, vain, insecure man with a need to insert himself at the center of every story; at worst, he's a paranoid megalomaniac narcissist.
Or just a plain old maniac.
But there's an upside to everything. Given the fact that the Republicans have millions at their disposal to throw at the Retiree, I fully expect him to get his ass booted all the way back to Burpleson AFB should he be the candidate in November.
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