From the Diaries -- Brent

Feeling a bit heady from the Blogger's Round Table treat, I think we all sort of drifted out of the room in a dizzy pack, with Gert and Wes pulling up the back.  A very odd thing happened upon walking out into the bustling living room.  An older gentleman, wearing a Wes Clark '08 button on his lapel, chomping on some crudites, stopped me and inquired, "Who is Wes Clark?"   Pause.  Excuse me?   Again, "Who is Wes Clark, who is he?"   I figured it was a test to see how avid a supporter I actually was, so I rattled off the top resume points with ease when no sooner had "Supreme Allied Commander of NATO" dropped from my mouth -- than Wes himself approached from behind me to shake his first hand in the room, and it was this gentleman's...This man, who had apparently wandered in from-- somewhere (?) for a bite, was about to shake a four star General's hand, unwittingly.  Characteristic Wes, he boomed "Hello!  How are ya doin'? Thanks for coming out tonight."  Crudite cruncher was appropriately awed....

Wes's speech to the crowd was strong and extremely well-received.  I will say, guaging the group's responses, that the section wherein he defines our current situation as a "Tragedy" hit home the strongest.  I saw more collective heads nodding as he rattled off the reasons we were embroiled in a Tragedy (with a capital T because the proportions defy lower case) at that point.  It's a bold choice to talk in these epic terms to Americans, but a wise one because everyone else is tap dancing around the inevitable, afraid of sounding too pessimistic or of discouraging further an already bleakly demoralized electorate.  But in keeping with "telling it like it is"... Wes Clark calls our current situation in America and in Iraq properly -- a Tragedy.  That's what you get for studying the Greeks.

Michael Webber's brilliant introduction to Wes on stage was capped with-- "- a man whose staff has NO indictments...General Wesley Clark!" met with roaring applause.

Wes wasted no time in stating his primary goal of "changing the mix on Capitol Hill in order to change America" and then edged right into introducing Gert and Wes Jr. to the crowd.  On Wes Jr " He did his duty-- 4 years in the Army in the early '90s, proving he doesn't have to wear an American flag lapel pin to serve...

"Flashback

General Clark proposes a remarkable idea-- What if we could somehow take everything that is happening today and flash it back to October 28th, 2004, explain to the American people that this is where we'd be in one year from now should Bush win.  BEFORE the election.  Or, as Wes most deliciously phrased it; "Before Bush received the largest number of COUNTED votes"!  ( Insert huge laughs here and one piercing squeal from an election integrity activist who shall remain nameless....)  Then he rattled off the list, leading into the Tragedy Scenario:

2000 dead in Iraq

A White House that's under assault

A Supreme Court-- they'll get a hard-line right winger up there, I'm sure on this

An economy that's motoring along but not producing jobs

A White House without an agenda or strategy or really anything other than some fixed obsolete ideas

He likened the obsolesence of ideas to Bush's penchant for "borrowing" everybody else's old policies, looking backwards instead of forwards.  He took Reagan's tax cuts, he took JFK's Space program, he took his father's war with Saddam Hussein.

And here we are today.  What would America have thought if they could have seen this before walking into the polling booth?

"I view it as a Tragedy.  A tragedy in Iraq for the men and women in uniform, for our country.  A tragedy in Washington for the greatest nation in the world to have someone in the office of the Vice President indicted ....we have to ask what else is going to happen...."

Democrats Call to ACTION-- The Three Elements

General Clark REALLY wants us poised to win in 2006.  It's hyperfocus time.  Put all other ideas and grandiose schemes aside for the moment and hone in on Congressional 2006 elections.  Without success there.... well, it looks grim for us.

He has a three point plan for the Party and he is asking all of us to help with it.

1) VALUES

Wes says the democrats have been victims of 20 years of negative "branding"  that we need to be conscious of and transform.  The stereotypes aren't true and we need to break them down.  We need to demonstrate that we are the party of values, moral values-- "Now Republicans would have you believe values are moral values and moral values just mean sex.  They whisper about never disgracing the White House, but what they're doing is...they're titillating themselves I think!" ( Huge laughs)    

Here is where he discusses the COMMON GOOD and big picture values. About caring for each other, why this country came together-- to provide for the common defense and promote general welfare. He elaborates on the concept of "community" and equal opportunity, the duty of those better off to help out those less advantaged-- as a uniquely American obligation.  He cites Gordon Gekko from "Wall Street" and insists that he is wrong....that greeed is NOT good or right!  "Our values are-- the Common Good!!"

 

2) FAITH & THE GOLDEN RULE

Religion.  Here he tells us the Regent University story (see Part 1) where he debated Newt Gingrich and Oliver North (groans from crowd).  He says he learned that Pat Robertson has his Christian Broadcasting Network piped into the Middle East with their messages translated into Arabic.  "--- which is perhaps why there's a lot of resistance.  Maybe when karen Hughes goes over there and says how much we respect them, maybe they don't believe us"  (huge laughs again)

We hear the story of Wes's own religious background from being born to a Jewish father, raised Baptist, becoming Protestant at West Point, marrying Gert- an Irish Catholic and converting to Catholicism, to currently attending a Presbytarian Church!  A veritable mosaic of faiths! 

And then he ties it back into Values--" Every religion I've studied have one thing in common...If you believe in faith, you're obligated-- if you're more advantaged, to help those who are less advantaged.  And there's only ONE political party that practices that faith, and that's OUR party!

3) SERVICE & PATRIOTISM

"We're a party of service".   Wes has all the Veterans and active members of the Military raise their hands and he contrasts that number with the amount recently at the crowd of 500 at Regent's University.... But he expands service to incorporate Hospital volunteer work, Peace Corps and the country's call to arms when in need.  I think from the two audiences with General Clark that night, he is deeply concerned about our Military today for a number of reasons.  He cited the PTSD statistics (near 30%), we know how wrenched he is about torture of prisoners, the declining enlistment of the Army, and now he brings up the thinking of some that they are too good or too priviledged to serve.  He wants to encourage enlistment but at a time of public sentiment about Iraq reaching it nadir...he may be fighting an uphill battle. 

 

He emphasized the need to make the Democratic party a NATIONAL party by placing less focus on local "pet issues" which he feels are splintering the party,  and more focus on being the party that "helps your neighbor in need" for ordinary people , combining Values, Faith and Service as a platform and concentrating more on "what's good for America".

 

What about 2008?

 

When queried about 2008 and a Presidential run, he coyly sidesteps the issue by saying he is flattered and LOVES seeing all the "buttons and all", but it's now time to help change the Party, the platform and the branding to take back Congress in '06.  Period.  I interpret that to mean that after we take back Congress in '06 he will begin to work on his Presidential run for 2008... but that's just me!

 

IRAQWhen a question was posed about exit strategy for Iraq, you could hear his voice shift into an uncommon weariness.  As if he were tired -- physically tired-- of having to defend his strategy ideas.  As if he had said it so many times before and why weren't they getting it?  A combination of frustration and fatigue.  He laid it out clearly and logically but some die hard "get out yesterday" folks were unconvinced.  Can't win 'em all.  I won't belabor his Iraq policy as most of us here know it, but only to say the bottom line being "No arbitrary timeline.  An event-driven strategy-- train Iraqis, establish regional cooperation with Syria and Iran..." and so on.  He was emphatic that it was NOT Vietnam and shouldn't be confused with it in discussion.  Referring to it as a "war of choice" in which we made a mess, blew all the opportunity that might have been there and now we needed to be smarter about the exit

 

My favorite was the wrap up of the Iraq answer when the General declared forcefully, convincingly;

" There will be accountability on this administration for taking us into a war we didn't have to fight.  They will be held accountable, You watch...these folks will be held accountable!"

I'm pretty sure my heart rate dropped into a meditative realm when he pronounced those statements.  Because, at the end of the day, his is the rare voice amidst a cacophony of noisy blather that singularly stands out because--

I can believe him. 

 

Afterwards both Wes and Gert were mobbed by well wishers and new converts eager to get a hand shake (or hold...) and a word of praise.  Wes looked to Gert for his own exit strategy that night, not nearly as complicated as the Iraq one and Gert, as the General's General...came through outstandingly.

 

This is a man so in love with his wife, his family, his country-- you have to pinch yourself in his presence to be sure you haven't gone back in a time warp to some fictional Ozzie and Harriet world where Eddie Haskell might drop in at any moment and spoil the fun. When Gert stepped up to thank everyone for coming out, Wes stepped back one step and gazed at her with a glowing admiration that you just can't forge. 

hekebolos (DKos Blogger extraordinaire) and I were fortunate to have a talk with Congressional candidate Russ Warner (running against hiss booo David Drier) and his dear, sweet son in uniform, back from 17 months in Iraq in the first Cavalry.  His innocent, open facial expression belied nothing of what he must have witnessed.  I asked him how he could distinguish the insurgency.  He said "There's no way, you can't ma'am".  We are all pulling for Mr. Warner to beat Drier out of office, of course, but doubly so with a son who has served.

As most of us know, an 'audience' with the General- public or private-  only reconfirms your belief that here is someone - on the horizon right now for very specific reasons.  Someone "made for these times".  Someone made to conquer, in a country desperately seeking solutions.  Ironically - it's a retired four star General who's actually out there "winning the hearts and minds" that this sorry administration has left behind.