To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (159439 ) 10/8/2003 12:21:19 AM From: Mephisto Respond to of 164684 Clark fired from Pentagon. I read story once in another paper. And here is an excerpt from Washington Post. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The Real Wesley Clark By Richard Cohen Thursday, September 18, 2003; Page A23 Excerpt: "All around Washington last week -- and before and after on the phone -- I've been busy asking people about Wesley Clark. I talked with people who worked with him, some of them very closely, asking over and over again a variation of the same question: Is Wesley Clark too weird for prime time? Let me first tell you why I asked the question: It's because Clark in effect got fired from the Pentagon. Not to put too fine a point on it, then-Defense Secretary Bill Cohen, joined by many of Clark's colleagues, came to just plain dislike him. Some of this had to do with policy -- the Kosovo campaign -- and some with their suspicion that Clark went over their heads to the White House. But some of it was deeply personal. Clark is sometimes compared to Eisenhower, another general who went into politics. But Ike was beloved. That's a word that never comes up when Clark is discussed. Something about Clark makes people bristle. He is undoubtedly brilliant -- a Rhodes scholar and first in his class at West Point. He is a fine athlete and a Vietnam combat veteran who was decorated for bravery. He won the respect, even the awe, of his colleagues, but too much of the time he did not win their friendship. The rap on Clark is that he lacks precisely those qualities that define a politician, particularly warmth and affability. David Halberstam, in his book "War in a Time of Peace," writes of Clark that even his most steadfast champion in the army, Gen. John Shalikashvili, recognized that Clark was too brash, too cocky, too driven, too self-absorbed, too hard on subordinates, too dismissive of critics and criticism -- but also too brilliant and talented to be overlooked. Shali promoted him."