Run, Sir Clark, Run...

by teejay 95 Replies latest social current

• 

  teejay

  That's him Six. The man is FOR REAL and I'm getting damn excited! More from the article...
  
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  Indeed, the general is something of a prodigy where the future is concerned. Once, the U. S. Army tested a thousand of its officers to see how well they extrapolated future trends from current patterns. The general, long before he was a general, finished first, and now, when he articulates the principles that would inform the creation of his political platform, he does so in terms of "outcomes" five, thirty, and a hundred years in the future.
  
  For your five-year outcome, you concentrate on rebuilding the economy. For your optimum thirty-year outcome, education. And for your optimum hundred-year outcome, the entire institutional environment. And you start now. You acknowledge the interdependence of all outcomes so that you don't make the terrible mistake of rebuilding the economy at the expense of education, at the expense of the environment.
  
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  Now YOU tell ME... is the man the bomb or what?!! :D
• 

  xjw_b12

  Sounds like Jesus F. Christ.......
• 

  teejay

  Sounds like Jesus F. Christ....
  
  :D
  
  Personally, from the way The General sounds, I think he'd give Mr. Christ a serious run for his money!
  
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  You get the sense, talking to the general, that he has thought it through and decided that the only way to beat Bush is to go to war against him. You get that sense because suddenly, as you are talking to the general, he stands up from his peaceful lunch, and suddenly he is doing Bush.
  
  Suddenly he is the warrior president, addressing the delegates at the Republican convention in New York in September 2004, saying that on behalf of the American people, he has fought terrorists at home and abroad, saying that he has fought and won two wars against states that sponsor terrorism, saying that because of his efforts, the American people are safer than they were three years ago and that—and here he finds the resonating Dubyan chord—"there is sunshine ahead."
  
  Then he stops and, reverting back to himself, says, "Now tell me. What Democrat can go up against that?"
  
  Answer: the Democrat who can ask George Bush questions he doesn't want to hear, questions he's afraid of. The Democrat who has been trained to ask those questions. The Democrat who has made asking those questions a way of life.
• 

  teejay

  Accountability is the value that he hopes to export from military to civilian life, the value that informs even his most fledgling attempt to formulate a platform, the value by which he hopes America's education system will be rebuilt, with teaching professionalized in the new century the same way soldiering was at the end of the last. And it is the value that makes whatever policy disagreements he has with President Bush seem strangely personal, for it is the value that distinguishes a warrior from, well, a warrior president.

  Could the general ever claim the right to make such weighty decisions, given his lack of political experience? Well, the president has claimed the right to make such weighty decisions without the benefit of military experience, his spotty record as a fighter pilot for the Texas Air National Guard notwithstanding. In General Clark's world, the importance of having served in the military has much less to do with the courage required for combat than it does with the courage required for full accountability. "In the Navy, when a ship runs aground, the commanding officer is relieved of duty, no matter what the reason. Now, I'm not saying we ought to hold politicians to that standard, but still. . . ."
• 

  DakotaRed

  he's more than just a veteran, a guy who heard the call of his country and marched and drilled and slogged and shot people and got shot at and did his time

  I have to wonder how many he sent to their deaths as a Commanding Officer? Odd, Bush engages in warfare and many die and he is a lying warmonger, but a former Commander, who personally would have sent many off to die, is a hero, when he declares himself a Democrat.

  I wonder how many Bush personally shot, versus how many Clark did? I guess as long as you are a Liberal Democrat, it doesn't really matter how many deaths you may be responsible for.

  http://www.zpub.com/un/clark.html
• 

  jelly

  I have voted both democrat and republican. My vote depends who they run, and what I feel the country needs at the time. Currently, the only dem that has a snowballs chance is Lieberman, but he probably will not get the nomination; he is a centrist in an increasingly left focused party.

  I would have to see what Clark is all about before I could support him. It is not enough just to attack Bush's policies I need to know what these guys plan to do.

  Terry
• 

  Swickley

  I agree that Clark is a brilliant prospect -- and here is my 2 cents:

  First choice: re-elect Bill Clinton

  Second choice: Dean/Clark

  For all the Clinton critics out there, look beyond the BJ rhetoric at just a few of the great things he did for this country:

  
  The Violence Against Women Act --President Clinton championed and signed into law Violence Against Women Act, bolstering local law enforcement, prosecution, and victims' services; He quadrupled funding to domestic violence shelters and signed the Interstate Stalking Punishment and Prevention Act, making it a Federal crime to cross state lines intending to injure or harass another person. And the Administration established a nationwide 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline, which provides immediate crisis intervention, counseling and referrals for those in need.

  In 1994 President Clinton signed into law the Family and Medical Leave Act (giving families time off from work to care for sick relatives, child-birth, adoption, their own illnesses, and giving job protection and time off to those affected by domestic violence) (NOW CAN YOU IMAGINE"BUSH" SIGNING THAT INTO LAW??? In fact, Bush Sr. refused to sign the same bill)

  Earned Income Tax Credit: President Clinton expanded EITC Tax Cuts which gave 15 million working
  families receive additional tax relief and in 1998;

  Clinton/Gore proposed and passed the $1,500 HOPE Scholarship credits, making the first two years of college
  universally available for 6 million students, and the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit, a 20 percent credit helping more than 7 million students offset tuition costs for college or lifetime learning and increased the maximum Pell Grant award to $3,300;

  President Clinton enacted the single largest investment in Health Care for Children since 1965 ($24 billion State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP));

  President Clinton signed into law the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which helps individuals keep health insurance when they change jobs, guarantees renewability of coverage, and ensures access to health insurance for small businesses;

  
  Since President Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law, more than 500,000 felons, fugitives and domestic abusers have been prevented from purchasing guns.

  President Clinton signed into law the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act which requires insurance companies to cover the cost of reconstructive breast surgery for women who have undergone a mastectomy.

  President Clinton signed into law (1994) the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) which protects the employment and re-employment rights of members of the military;

  President Clinton appointed the First Women Ever to Serve as Attorney General, Janet Reno; and Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright;

  AND-- under the Clinton/Gore administration: Most New Jobs Ever Created Under a Single administration; Lowered Unemployment to its Lowest Level in More than 30 Years; Highest Homeownership Rate on Record; Largest Surplus Ever: The surplus in FY 2000 was $237 billion, the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever in history.
  
  Bill Clinton did incredible things for this country, but thanks to right wing republicans and religious freaks, the general, uninformed public only remember the BJ.

  
  
• 

  jelly

  I thought Clinton was a good 'caretaker' president. However, it never ceases to amaze me the liberal lefts support for him.

  • Clinton supported free trade - NAFTA
  • Reformed Welfare
  • Was always blowing something up somewhere

  Clinton was a very moderate democrat, and not much differnt than a moderate republican. thats why I supported him. Why did you guys on the left support him? I mean he did take your party to the right, of course since 9/11 it has ran back to the left and then some.

  Terry
• 

  teejay

  I have to wonder how many he sent to their deaths as a Commanding Officer? Odd, Bush engages in warfare and many die and he is a lying warmonger, but a former Commander, who personally would have sent many off to die, is a hero, when he declares himself a Democrat.
  
  Dakota,
  
  Don't be ridiculous. He served for more than thirty years in the military. "Sending people to their deaths" is what people do who are in the military business. Not the same as a draft-dodging president who talks as if he's the sheriff in a small Old West town.
  
  
  I wonder how many Bush personally shot, versus how many Clark did?
  
  Is that how you vote now, Dakota? By how many people the candidate has shot? Is that the best argument you can come up with against The General? I hope so.
  
  ....shakin' in their boots...
• 

  teejay

  >>>><I>First choice: re-elect Bill Clinton</I>

  Swickley,

  When it comes to President Clinton, here on this board I've made my feelings crystal clear. I have little doubt that, if he decided to run, he could easily win a third term. In lieu of that possibility, I think your second choice is a very fine one, not to mention a superior alternative to what we're forced to deal with now.

  More from the article:

  President Bush was the Commander in Chief during the greatest security failure in this nation's history. He has not had the courage to be held accountable and indeed has done his best to prevent even a review of what happened on that day. And yet he wears a flight suit with COMMANDER IN CHIEF on the front and claims prestige as a warrior president? It is something no soldier could countenance. And it makes him vulnerable to a candidate in whom the value of accountability is ingrained and for whom the question the Commander in Chief doesn't want to hear—the question of what he knew about 9/11 before 9/11 even happened—is the question that must be asked as a matter of military honor.

  [bold mine]