The Blogger Roundtable in Los Angeles
February 4, 2006
On February 4, 2006 General Clark hosted at an event in Los Angeles specifically for bloggers. Attendees at the roundtable meeting included Mark Kleiman, hekebolos, Stephen and Pam Anderson of SteveAudio.blogspot.com, Kevin Drum, Gary Abramson, John Amato and Arianna Huffington among others.
Accounts from some of those in attendance are below.
The Blogger Round Table in L.A. with General Clark by ms in la
I am suffering from General Exhaustion.
Following the General around for just one day and night can be daunting, excitement levels being what they are when he enters a room. I hope the Republicans will not discover that he has in fact been cloned, and that there are now three Wes Clarks for Karl Rove to deal with. It is the only explanation for his being everywhere.. The pace he keeps is too boggling to account for otherwise.
Wes Clark: We need to save American democracy! by Reality Bites Back
If ever the Democratic Party found itself closer to the precipice of nonexistence, there is one sherpa with the instinct to reach deep into the haze of the darkening blizzard and pull us through to a sunlit summit: Wes Clark. Am I biased? Hell yeah! Because he's got the best resume EVER? No. Because he's got Clintonian charisma? No. Because I was fortunate to stand face to face with the General and hear what echoes in the depths of his brilliant mind for 3 solid hours, and let me tell you, with every fiber of my being - this man could be the Cincinnatus of the modern world.
Shooting for a C- in Iraq by Mark Kleinman
The discussion about Iran seemed to me the most exciting piece of Wes Clark's discussion with bloggers in Los Angeles yesterday, but it wasn't the focus of his presentation. Mostly he talked about Iraq. He argued that all the chances to get an A in the course were behind us, and we had a choice now between going for a C- and accepting an F.and
The Iranian puzzle by Mark Kleinman
Clark was chillingly detailed about the nature of a possible military intervention to take out Iran's nuclear program: 14 days, 4000 air sorties, some special forces operations on the ground to penetrate the labs buried under schools and hospitals. He thought the whole thing could be done without many U.S. casualties, and that we could destroy Iranian command & control and put a major dent in its nuclear weapons acquisition process.
The problem, according to Clark, — in Iran as in Iraq — is what to do after "Mission Accomplished."
How Likely is a Military Strike Against Iran? by Kevin Drum
I was up in Los Angeles today, and along with a dozen other bloggers I spent about an hour chatting with Wes Clark, who was in town for a political rally. Clark had some provocative things to say about Iran and its nuclear program, especially in light of today's news that the IAEA has reported Iran to the UN Security Council because of concerns that they're developing nuclear weapons.
Clark: They picked the two-foot rattlesnake in a box by hekebolos
Clark was talking about national security, and how the Democrats need to recapture the mantle of national security from the Republicans.
"Now, as important as it is how we deal with Iraq from here on out, and how we deal with Iran from here on out--as important as that is, if we want to be the party of national security, we need to talk not just about where we go from the bad situation we're in now--we need to talk about how we got there. Bush talked about the axis of evil. Whatever you want to call these countries, there were three of them: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Of these, North Korea was the most dangerous. They were developing nuclear weapons, and the administration didn't do anything about it. ....
Iraq was a two-foot rattlesnake in a box. ...