Four-Star Disappointment?
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 22, 2003; 8:27 AM
Wesley Clark's media honeymoon lasted less than a day.
It ended on a plane from Arkansas to Florida on Thursday, when four reporters chatted him up and the retired general backed off his opposition to the war in Iraq. A day later, however, Clark flipped on his position yet again, saying that he would have opposed the war. Despite these initial missteps, he is, incredibly enough, leading the Democratic pack at 14 percent in a Newsweek poll out today.
All this, of course, followed an 11-minute announcement speech that contained no specifics and even fewer rhetorical flourishes.
Now, the underlying journalistic question is, does he have the right stuff for a presidential campaign?
It's not as though Clark didn't have time to think about what he would say as an '04 contender, having played peek-a-boo about his candidacy for months. So he could have come up with a couple of proposals that would have won media respect and put some meat on the bones of his fledgling campaign.
This is not to say that Clark doesn't bring a terrific resume, and rock-solid credibility on national security, to the campaign trail. But as many candidates have learned over the years, having done a lot of important stuff in the past doesn't do you much good if you can't cope with the frenzied campaign environment. John Glenn orbited the earth, Bob Kerrey left limbs in Vietnam, Bob Dole was a World War II hero, yet they fizzled in their White House runs.
What Clark lacks most of all is a reason to be running -- a compelling message that transcends his military service. He also has to show that he can hit major-league journalistic pitching. So far, he's left a vacuum that has been filled with speculative stories about how he's really doing Hillary's bidding, is a stalking horse for the Clintons, and so on.
Some quickie profiles have also found that Clark rubbed a lot of people the wrong way when he was a general and the commander in Kosovo.
Normally, all this would play out over a period of months as Clark field-tested his message and reporters took their time assembling critical profiles. But by orchestrating a big buildup and then charging in four months before Iowa, he has speeded up the process -- and obliterated the traditional honeymoon.
Here's how the big papers covered the plane interview.
The Boston Globe: "Retired Army General Wesley K. Clark said that he probably would have voted for the congressional resolution that authorized President Bush to wage war in Iraq, taking a position on a key campaign issue closer to that of Senator John F. Kerry than Howard Dean's strong antiwar stance. . . .
" 'Either General Clark's previous position on the war has been badly misrepresented by the press, or this is a serious reinvention of his own position,' said Jim Jordan, Kerry's campaign manager. 'He's been, since the commencement of the war, and even before, an absolutely brutal critic of the administration, so we're stunned to learn that his position is actually the same as Senator Kerry's.' "
Translation: Nyah nyah nyah.
The New York Times: "Moving to fill in the blanks of his candidacy a day after he announced for president, General Clark also said that he had been a Republican who had turned Democratic after listening to the early campaign appeals of a fellow Arkansan, Bill Clinton.
"Indeed, after caustically comparing the actions of the Bush administration to what he described as the abuses of Richard M. Nixon, he said that he voted for Mr. Nixon in 1972. He also said he had voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.
"The general's remarks in a free-rolling 90-minute airborne interview suggested the extent of the adjustment he faces in becoming a presidential candidate.
" 'Mary, help!' he called to his press secretary, Mary Jacoby, at the front of the plane, as he faced questions about Iraq. 'Come back and listen to this.'
"At one point, Ms. Jacoby interrupted the interview, which included four reporters who were traveling on the general's jet, to make certain that General Clark's views on the original Iraq resolution were clear."
The old what-the-general-really-meant-to-say routine.
The Washington Post: "Clark said he has few specific policy ideas to offer voters right now and offered a few thoughts that might surprise Democrats flocking to his campaign. As recently as Sunday night, he was unsure if he should run for president, so Clark said voters need to give him time to think things through.
"Clark's statement on the war resolution put him at odds with former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whose stock has soared among Democratic activists in recent months on the strength of his antiwar position. It could make it difficult for Clark to differentiate himself from the other nine candidates in the field on policy, other than by touting his résumé as a former Army general and commander of NATO forces in Kosovo.
"In the interview, Clark did not offer any new ideas or solutions for Iraq that other candidates have not already proposed."
USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro is distinctly unimpressed:
"Wednesday afternoon in Little Rock, retired general Wesley Clark ended a year of suspense about his political intentions by delivering a cliché-filled 11-minute oration that brought to mind the Peggy Lee ballad, Is That All There Is? . . .
"The problem was not the lack of specific policy proposals in the Clark speech. Those can come later. Rather, what was lacking was a clearly expressed rationale for his unorthodox candidacy. In his big moment on the cable news shows, Clark offered pedestrian sentiments such as his promise, 'This 21st century is going to be our American century just like the 20th century was.' It is impossible to escape the sense that during his year of will-I-or-won't-I mulling the former NATO commander never fully answered the pesky question of precisely what he would say if he were a candidate."
An NYT piece says there's some substance to the Clinton rumors:
"Behind Gen. Wesley K. Clark's candidacy for the White House is a former president fanning the flames.
"General Clark, in fact, said today that he had had a series of conversations with both the former president, Bill Clinton, and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, as well as close aides to them and that all of them had encouraged him to run."
Andrew Sullivan flunks the general on foreign policy:
"Reading this essay by Wesley Clark, I have to say I'm not reassured that he has what it takes to wage a war on terror. If he had been president, the war in Afghanistan would probably not have taken place, let alone the war against Saddam. His first instinct after the deadliest act of war against the American heartland in history was to help the United Nations set up an International Criminal Tribunal on International Terrorism. I'm not even making that up. Maybe Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia could head up the committee.
"If I were to imagine a parody of what a Rhodes Scholar would come up with in such a moment, I'd be hard pressed to come up with something more perfect. His insistence throughout the piece is on process, process, process. Everything is seen through the prism of NATO's Kosovo campaign, his one claim to military glory. Can you imagine having to get every special ops target in Afghanistan approved by 19 different countries, including those who opposed any action against the Taliban? Can you even begin to imagine constructing a case for any action in Iraq under similar auspices? It simply wouldn't have happened."
John Ellis invokes the Hillary specter on TechCentralStation:
"In practical political terms, the front-loading of the 2004 primary and caucus schedule means that former Vermont Governor Howard Dean will almost certainly be one of the two remaining candidates after the New Hampshire primary. He will finish first or second in Iowa. He will probably win New Hampshire (with Republican cross-over help). At that point, an Anybody But Dean (similar to the Anybody But McGovern in 1972 and Anybody But Carter in 1976 movements) would be all but impossible to organize. There simply wouldn't be enough time.
"Enter General Wesley Clark, a Clinton/McAuliffe production if there ever was one (Clark's advisors, almost to a person, are all veteran Clinton hacks). General Clark's candidacy is the Anybody But Dean campaign. With a twist. The twist is that Hillary Clinton's name will soon be floated as his running mate. The message will be that Clark-Clinton will unite the party. All of this has happened or will soon happen before a single vote has been cast. That's how much front-loading the primary schedule has exaggerated the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire and distorted the nomination process."
In Salon, David Kusnet poses the question that many political observers (all right, one or two) are asking these days:
"Why hasn't Kerry caught fire? He has suffered from his muted, muddled message, confused by a campaign that airs its disagreements in public, and his own patrician reserve. Many observers think his manner has only become more subdued after his recovery from prostate cancer earlier this year, although he insists he feels fine and made a full recovery.
"At a time of war and recession, core Democrats' twin passions are peace and populism. But Kerry is no longer seen as a peace activist, and he never was a populist. . . .
"From a patrician background and now a multimillionaire-by-marriage, Kerry doesn't bash big business, as Edwards does, or boast of devoting his career to the cause of working families, as Gephardt does.
"Former advisors recall that he rejected populist appeals in his reelection campaign in 1996, even though polling showed that it would have been popular to berate profitable corporations for laying off employees. This year, too, his domestic policy positions are complex and nuanced. He calls for repealing Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy but not those, such as the children's tax credit and the elimination of the marriage penalty, that benefit the middle class. And he proposed expanding health insurance through a less costly and comprehensive program than those proposed by Gephardt and Dean.
"While these positions have popular appeal, especially in the general election, they don't lend themselves to sound bites and bumper stickers. Kerry's campaign has had a hard time framing and focusing his message. In interviews with advisors, staffers and supporters, no two offered the same answer to the question: 'Tell me Kerry's message in one or two sentences.'"
Give me a week and I'll try to boil it down.
Plenty of fallout over Dick Grasso's ouster at the stock exchange. Most accounts depict him as a greedhead, but Larry Kudlow begs to differ on National Review:
"A kangaroo court of liberal-leaning journalists and Democratic state treasurers charged and convicted former New York Stock Exchange CEO Dick Grasso with an unpardonable sin -- success.
"This collection of class-envy warriors put such relentless pressure on the NYSE that Grasso was finally forced by his board to resign. Grasso, of course, was the man whose Herculean efforts were behind the reopening of the stock exchange only four business days after the terrorist bombing of downtown New York. But the so-called titans of finance who sit on the NYSE board were so mau-maued by the media and political onslaught that they actually sided against the man who inflicted the first major blow on Osama's terrorism.
"There was no scandal here. Dick Grasso accepted a big pay package endorsed on two occasions by the NYSE board in return for 35 years of successful service. What is scandalous is that key Big Board officials -- like Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs, Philip Purcell of Morgan Stanley, and William Harrison of JP Morgan Chase -- succumbed to the pressure of newspaper headlines and abandoned Grasso. . . .
"Let's be very clear about this: Grasso has done nothing wrong. Nothing, that is, except believe his own board when they offered him a large pay package for his long-term service. Grasso did not fraudulently cook the books, steal from the corporate cookie jar, lie to federal prosecutors, or engage in insider trading. He is no Worldcom Bernie Ebbers, Enron Kenneth Lay, or Tyco Dennis Kozlowski."
Fair enough. But he was also supposed to be regulating the corporate chieftains who gave him the offensively large pay package.
On CBS MarketWatch, Jon Friedman rips one network's approach to Grassogate:
"CNBC's gavel-to-gavel coverage of former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso's $140-million pay package was so relentless that I couldn't help but wonder if they weren't out to get him. . . .
"There's no question the compensation package and the resignation are big news, and not just in the business world.
"But the network's coverage grew so exasperating -- to the point of showing Grasso's surreptitious arrival for work Wednesday -- that some viewers gave up watching. . . .
"Again and again this week, CNBC buttonholed CEOs and pressed them to give sound bites about Grasso. Most of them were too slick to play the game, though. They preferred to discuss their companies, sometimes producing awkward exchanges. . . .
"I wish CNBC could do more than try to show a procession of (outraged!) people, yelling and screaming that Grasso should be tarred and feathered. How about less melodrama and more analysis?"
My Monday print column chronicles a Bush media offensive, and uses J. Lo as a jumping-off point for some journalistic observations.
Perhaps you've heard about the president disavowing any link between Saddam and 9/11. Editor & Publisher examines why the story didn't get more play:
"For months leading up this year's war on Iraq, the Bush administration implied that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The argument was well-received by Americans, and might have been the single leading factor behind public support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. An oft-cited poll conducted by The Washington Post last month revealed that 69% of Americans continue to believe it likely that Hussein was personally involved in 9/11.
"No real evidence to support this has emerged, however, leading some (including E&P, just last week) to declare that the media had failed in its duty to correct the public misperception. So when President George Bush admitted on Wednesday, for the first time, that there was 'no evidence that Hussein was involved with the September 11th' attacks, one would assume that would be big news and an opportunity for the press to make up for past failings.
"And according to some newspapers, it was a big story. The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune (both owned by the Tribune Co.) ran front-page stories on the revelation Thursday. But an analysis of most major American newspapers found the story either buried deep within the paper -- or completely absent.
"Of America's 12 highest-circulation daily papers, only the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News ran anything about it on the front page. In The New York Times, the story was relegated to page 22. USA Today: page 16. The Houston Chronicle: page 3. The San Francisco Chronicle: page 14. The Washington Post: page 18. Newsday: page 41. The New York Daily News: page 14. The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention it at all."
Finally, Rush & Molloy of the New York Daily News get a gossipy peek at Madeleine Albright's memoir:
"There must be 50 ways to leave a secretary of state, but Joseph Albright took the direct route.
"Without warning [in 1982], he said: 'This marriage is dead and I am in love with someone else,' recalls Madeleine Albright in her new memoir, 'Madame Secretary.'
" '[He] told me he was moving out . . . to live in Atlanta, where the woman he loved was a reporter. Beyond saying that she was considerably younger and beautiful, Joe didn't volunteer more information.'
"Madeleine Albright remembers that Joseph, a newspaper heir and foreign correspondent, 'called me daily. [He'd say,] "I love you 60% and her 40%." Or the next day, "I love her 70% and you 30%." '
"He later married Marcia Kunstel, still his wife and writing partner."
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