Just found a great account from an Iowa lawyer who was in on an informal lunch discussion with Clark-- pretty impressive journalism for a blogger:
yin.blog-city.com
Friday, 19 September 2003
<<...As I mentioned previously, retired Gen. Wesley Clark came to Iowa today to deliver the annual Levitt Lecture at the University of Iowa. This lecture had been arranged long ago, prior to his announcing his candidacy for the Presidency, but obviously recent events made his appearance far more newsworthy to the local press.
He had lunch at the law school with the faculty, and I was lucky enough to be at the table he came to. (Well, my more experienced colleagues orchestrated that by ensuring that there were two open seats, one for Gen. Clark and one for his shepherd, Dean Hines. Randy Bezanson then made sure to catch the Dean's eyes and beckoned them over.) I say "lucky" because I had plenty of opportunity to ask Gen. Clark questions and to follow up on some of them in this informal environment.
Here are some quick thoughts on various issues discussed at the lunch table, during the informal Q&A session just afterward, or during his Levitt Lecture:
* On social security, he seems to think that the solution to the anticipated deficit was to raise the cap on the Social Security taxes (i.e., currently, only the first $87,000 or so of income is subject to the payroll tax). He is against raising the retirement age, because that is the same as a cut in benefits. At the same time, he recognizes that the "lockbox" concept is nonsense, because the government has a "unified" budget.
* On the kinds of judicial nominees he would aim for, he said that he would look for ones who bring balance and no ideological agenda; he identified Justices Breyer and Souter as examples.
* He thinks that Bush v. Gore was a bad decision because the Supreme Court shouldn't have intervened into such a matter. [Interesting, since Justices Souter and Breyer voted with the big 5 that the Florida recount process was a problem. Of course, it is plausible to say that there might have been a violation, but it still wasn't worth the Supreme Court's attention.]
* On whether the Chinese government should be forced to revalue the Yuan (unit of currency), he agreed that it would need to be done in the long run, but thinks it can't be done right now because there are too many underperforming loans in the Chinese economic system. Essentially, the Chinese economy needs to be fixed before revaluation can be done.
* He likes the French. In fact, just before he stepped down as the NATO Supreme Commander, a French political leader told him, "You should have been French!" Coming from the French, that sounds like high praise. He did note that the French suffer from a similar problem to what he believes the current administration suffers from, namely, too narrow of a view of self-interest.
* He believes that going into Iraq was a mistake because Iraq posed no imminent threat and there was time to take other measures. He would not have voted for a measure allowing the President to go to war (over Iraq), although he would have voted for a resolution to give the President "leverage" provided that the President would have had to come back to Congress. [This was not at the lunch table, so I didn't have a chance to ask him what kind of resolution he had in mind. It sounds like maybe what he meant is that the resolution would have allowed the President to seek U.N. approval, which would then be followed by an actual vote by Congress to authorize military force.]
* However, now that we are in Iraq, we can't just pull out -- that would lead to chaos and all but invite Al Qaeda to move in.
* He believes that preemptive strikes are warranted under appropriate circumstances, though they should be subject to extremely stringent standards of proof. He would not want the President to say, in response to a threat, "Gee, let's wait and see if it really is anthrax, and when people get sick in New York, then we'll get mad."
* On gays in the military, he believed at the time that the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy was okay, but he also pointed out that back in the days of the draft, being gay would not get you excused. He now believes that the policy should be reevaluated because it does not seem to be working well. He favors the British policy, which is "Don't ask, don't misbehave."
* He sees three major issues in the election: (1) the war on terrorism; (2) the economy; and (3) the future of the American presidency.
* "How did we get here?" He traces the current split between the U.S. and continental Europe not to Iraq, but rather to the end of the Cold War. "What happened is we won . . . and we lost. We lost our mission, our sense of purpose. It had been to contain the expansion of communism, to deter Russian attacks, to help fledgling democracies." Now, he says, we are "rudderless." What should be our direction?
1) Inclusiveness: "You don't make us safer by erecting walls to keep others out, but by building bridges. . . ."
2) International organizations: "We have to use international institutions, not condemn and abuse them." We need the U.N., and the U.N. needs us, he said.
3) Use of force: We should believe in a strong and effective military, but we should also realize that force is to be used as a last resort. "It's very difficult to change people's minds when you are bombing and killing them."
* On terrorism, he favors focusing on the terrorists and funding, as opposed to countries. However, in probably the most controversial part of his speech, he singled out Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt as the "central fronts" -- Saudi Arabia because of "hatred spewing out of" the country, Pakistan because of its madrassas, and Egypt to a lesser extent.
* On whether U.S. soldiers should serve in U.N. missions led by non-Americans, he was skeptical. The U.N. was fine for observer or peacekeeping missions, but for missions with the serious potential for military conflict, the U.N. had no military command capability. He prefers a NATO command, because "we trust NATO commanders." But he emphasized the need for the U.N. imprimatur because around the rest of the world, what the U.N. says is law.
* He did realize that aspects of the U.N. were less than perfect. He refused to defend the fact that Syria is chairing the U.N. Disarmament Commission and that Libya is chairing the U.N. Humans Rights Commission, labeling those as "absurd."
He impressed many of my colleagues and me. Of course, considering that many (most?) of my colleagues are Democrats, perhaps that's not unexpected. But I have to say that given the breadth of questions he was getting, he showed remarkable command of factual matters and political issues. What I was most impressed with was his willingness to accept reality and to state clear opinions. The Social Security question was probably the best indication of this. You might disagree with raising the cap on the amount of income subject to the payroll tax, but the reality is that there are only four things that can be done: (1) raise the retirement age; (2) cut benefits; (3) raise the payroll tax (either the rate or the amount of income taxed); or (4) some combination of two or all three. Some people might think it is better to cut benefits, say, to the wealthy elderly by means-testing. Some might think we should all suffer a little and cut benefits across the board. But I give Gen. Clark immense credit for being, as far as I can tell, the first of the major candidates to select from that unpalatable menu. [But see Update 2 below.]
I've read across the blogosphere that Gen. Clark comes across as cold and impersonal, but here in Iowa he did not seem that way. Well, there was the moment at lunch when he received a cell phone call, which he answered, "General Clark." You have to think that the number of people who have his cell phone number is not that large; what would my wife think if she called me on my cell phone and I answered, "Professor Yin."
Anyway, I hope that as he begins campaigning, Gen. Clark continues to display the forthrightness that he showed today. The way things look now, if I were Dick Gephardt, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley Braun, or Joe Lieberman, I wouldn't be making plans to be campaigning past the Democratic primary...>> |
