"That's why I'm supporting Hillary Clinton"
Submitted by Ruth on November 11, 2007 - 12:47pm.
Book TV | C-SPAN | Wesley Clark
(9 MB)
Book TV Question & Answer
(63 MB)
the question about Wes's endorsement of Hillary (blonde with dark rimmed glasses) and his reply. Was the entire Q & A not available? (I was using IE for download) The whole presentation was great!
The link to the entire Q&A is the lower screen shot.
"Some of them put on their cowboy boots and put their feet up on the desk." -Wes Clark
to recommend this highly enough! Thank you!
Man. Wes is SO the man!!!! :)
No time for an amateur in the White House.
Couldn't agree more! :)
I'm still troubled by her. She's smart no doubt's there, though I tend to think of her as cunning rather than wise.
I'm not sure I can agree with Wes that because she's been in the White House as First Lady that she has no selfish impulses, that it's all about public service. Nobody Drafted Hillary Clinton to run for president, she just decided for whatever reason, selfish or not, that she was going to run
I don't know Hillary personally, Wes does, so maybe I'm not in a position to be a good judge of character, but I know her record and that's what I'm going to have to base my vote on.
As for experience, there's no doubt Obama is green and Edwards even more so. But there are others further back in the pack who have as much experience as Hillary, be it Gravel Biden or Richardson. Hillary probably knows the white house a little better than most, I imagine she and Bill were a team.
But how much has that experience paid off, she had made some serious lapses in judgment that makes me question whether what she learned in the White House as first lady really prepared her for the oval office.
As for knowing how to win, Hillary Clinton is a very effective politician, probably more effective than Bill, she has better knowledge of how to play the game than any one else she is equally adept in the art of politics as Karl Rove.
She has managed to engineer her own electoral position over the past 15 years by lining up support making allies and finally when the time came, calling in all of her favors. But we should ask ourselves is that really what we want? And if not what other options do we have.
Since being elected to the Senate she hasn't really taken any remarkable stance on any major issue, which makes me question how bold of a leader she would be as president. It's no time for a novice, but it's no time for more of the same.
By that I mean that her Senate record leads me to beleive she is not willing to take the kind of tough stands needed to make progress on key issue's. President Clinton may slow down our downward spiral but not reverse it, merely delay the inevitable by two or three years.
it's going to take someone with cunning and knowing how to play the game of politics hopefully better than KRove. Whatever it takes to beat the bullying, thuggish regressives is fine with me for right now. Once we have a Dem WH, and a hopefully larger majority Congress, then we can start putting more focus on the things that must change -- starting with the f'ing corporate owned and run media.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
not sure Wes claimed she has "no selfish impulses" but he did cite the Clinton's public service record as a main reason for his backing her- that's big coming from he who values public service in such a deep & demonstrable way. That's different than saying someone has no selfish impulses, or even self interest- or better yet, that someone has enlightened self-interest, which they're interested in extending to us all, as the Clintons have demonstrated over decades over & over again.
By the way, very few people have been "drafted" to run for President in any meaningful sense- Wes was the first, since Eisenhauer, actually. Now it's Draft Gore, Draft Warner, Draft Newt, Draft Condi- Uh, none of these is a real draft in any meaningful sense- they're all people already in the political realm. So how she came to run doesn't seem especially relevant, but they why she's running is just as important for her to answer as it is for anyone else running.
I don't see any point in discounting & dismissing her experience & efforts in the WH as First Lady. At minimum she was exposed to back to back to back to back grad schools & surely polished her world views in ways that will be of immense value to us right now, as well as enjoying high regard around the world & representing an America to the rest of the world that we'd like to get back to as soon as humanly possible after the complete disasters of Bush's repugnant cowboy diplomacy.
Complain if you like about "triangulation", but triangulation is really just a conflict resolution tactic in & of itself. People decide to elect polticians for a lot of reasons- "hope" or "charisma" seems often to be cited. Me, I want someone who can negotiate & navigate & balance disparate & often conflicting interests with even handedness. So I want a negotiator with a strong hand who I suspect will create the least bad compromises. To me, of this very lousy field, she is the only candidate who can even pretend to BE of presidential caliber.
As a method, triangulation actually got Tony Blair, the Canadian liberal party (recently ousted) & the Australian admin (hopefully about to be ousted) into office. You have to first obtain power before you can use that power.
The partisanship thrust on the nation is a purposeful development foisted on us by the hard right. Check out Pat Buchanan's remarks about how this infrastructure was put into place, he gives a great explanation of this in An Unreasonable Man- the Ralph Nader bio. This infrastructure was intended to & has successfully divided us. You can see what happens when the House (and Senate) is literally divided- we can't get anything much done without more of a mandate.
I'm not interested in Obama or Edwards blundering around as newbies & Richardson's schtick is just tired schtick. You can level all the same charges at Biden as you can at Clinton as far as being an insider & he perhaps has even less to show for it.
I think what sticks from your assessment of her is that she is a political animal and that's okay because we need people who are actually talented at navigating through charged political waters right now. We need a solid track record. She chose a safer route as a legislator to preserve her chance to try for the big prize. Agree or disagree, she has stayed alive to this point. We'll have to see what happens next. Personally I wish her luck & she has my support.
Based on what you know about her that Hillary will change once she becomes President.
Her conduct and positions as President are in my opinion unlikely to be much different than her conduct and positions in the Senate.
We do ourselves a serious diservice when we focus only on attribute such as electabilty and ignore whether or not they are likely to move key issues forward.
I'm not voting for Hope or Charisma, I'm voting for change because I feel we are fundamentally on the wrong track as a nation, and throwing the current junta out of power isn't enough. thier replacements cannot simply sweep the issues under the rug or give us more band aid solutions. There needs to be real meaningful change.
I saw that in Wes, I do not see it in Hillary, perhaps he can convince me and other's who have reservations otherwise, he's certainly one of the best advocates Hillary has. But for now I have deep reservations.
I'm not voting for a brand, a flavor or a feeling. I'm in dire need of a solid president & the endorsement means the world to me. Add Wilson & Holbrooke & others- it's a no-brainer (for me).
I came here initially years ago because I knew then that Wes Clark, if he were ever to serve as president, would exceed my wildest expectations. I came because I knew we were dragged into a war wrongly & without proper justification under questionable intelligence. I stuck around because of the leadership.
I don't think Hillary will "change" as a result of anything her potential election to POTUS might bring if you mean have some sort of internal conversion of some kind. I don't think she needs to change. But I think different avenues would be open to her should she take the presidency, that things would change around her. That would certainly have an impact, that's the idea. That's Politics 101.
She is a person who has lived much of her life on a very public stage but who to me is still a bit mysterious. I wouldn't pretend to know her on some kind of personal level. But I'm already very familiar with Hillary Clinton. She was my First Lady for eight years.
Hillary Clinton is shrewd. Maybe (just conjecture) had she ruled out a potential POTUS run, she might have selected different fights to fight along the way as a legislator. And if we were on that alternate path, and perhaps had there not been an attack & a rush to war(s) since, against the particular backdrop of recent American political history, things may have played out quite differently. Maybe she would be that liberal lion she is accused of being (but isn't). We might be having a completely different set of concerns about Hillary. Obviously that is not knowable.
As for change... hey let's not (mis)underestimate the impact having some somewhat decent, upstanding people in government could have, heh. That alone would be a big change!
She's not going to promise you the sun, the moon, the stars - Just the sun. Those others are at the moment completely unobtainable & if it happens, then some of us need to get on down the road & get working on the next generations of politicians we have to work with & get them in the star & moon business right away. We have a great opportunity to do that with WESPAC & the great work that has already started.
It's really important for this country to get stabilized on a number of levels immediately. The broken agencies, the military upsets, fiscal crises, healthcare scourge, plummeting currency, rampant corruption... There is a lot going on here, of which the international issues are paramount. I think she'll take a workmanlike approach.
And Hillary Clinton is a survivor. That counts for something in this world. This political landscape is merciless - then there's the media too. An almost incomprehensible mess.
In the GE sure I can and would vote for her barring of course some unforeseen vote to take us into Iran in which case I would vote green party to put an end to the madness.
But I can't really morally justify voting for her, I can't imagine how I'd explain to my future children why it is that I sold out my conscience because it was "good politics".
Right now I'm looking into Senator Gravel as an option, principles have got to count for something in this world? some of his position are not realistic, but the same could be said of Clinton.
James Mitchem: "I can't imagine how I'd explain to my future children why it is that I sold out my conscience because it was "good politics."
He knows Hillary personally, and we don't.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark -- Don't settle for less.
Make America All It Can Be!
Has anyone considered, that Wes Clark will be possibly be one of the cabinet appointees in a Hillary Presidency. Do you not think that he will be fundamently one of the most respected leaders in her administration. The Presidency is only one branch of the administration...their are two others. Think about it...is it better to NOT have Wes involved at some level to lead this country, or not at all! I doubt, with the other candidates, Wes will lead our Country out of this mess...
Bill Clinton: We have two stars in the Democratic Party: Hillary Clinton and Wes Clark!!
Don't cut off your nose to Spite your face!!!
again!!!! I, too, came here for Wes Clark, and I'm still supporting him and his visions. I couldn't in my best judgment and many years of supporting Democratic candidates. BO or JE....they may have "hope" and want a "change", but that's not action in the direction this country must get out of the mess we're in in the ME.... More countries are not getting involved: Pakistan, for one, (one of our best supporters) and already HAS nukes, and we need someone who KNOWS the leaders for many years, have a good rapport, understands foreign policy, knows how diplomacy should be done, not just have a casual acquaintance.
Hillary shows me more promise than the other top two candidates.
I'm trying hard not to compare candidates to Wes, because none of them are - not by a long shot. That is sooooo hard to do sometimes. I've not decided on Clinton yet, though Wes' endorsement is a big plus in her column, so yes I'm leaning that way. But I understand your reservation.
I like Edwards' economic populism a lot. I like Obama's hopefulness and broad appeal and focus on healing our divides a lot. I like Clinton's experience, her progressive voting record, and the people she is surrounding herself with are top-notch competent. I do defend her sometimes more than the others, because I think some of the criticisms of her are so vastly overblown as to be ridiculous. I've also defended Obama from the whole "inexperience= incompetent" meme, because it's just silly - the man is quite accomplished.
I want massive change as well, but I also am asking myself "What's the best way to get there?" I have some thoughts on that, due to my having been very close via family to the radical right movement when its grassroots started in the 70's and 80's, that I may blog on later.
I think she's deliberate. I think she very much can lead, and is in many ways biding her time, building the alliances she will need. She is no Don Quixote, and will not tilt at a single windmill until she knows she can take the sucker down.
I don't agree with her on everything, and I think that some of the "triangulation" complaints have merit. But a lot of it is also lambasting what is simply good smart politicking. We need smart. We need some wheel and deal and knowing how to MOVE agendas in the sludge that is Washington, and that's just the truth. Ugly truth, but truth nonetheless. I'd bet my ass she knows where a lot of the problems are festering in the backrooms of our government, and would strive to fumigate them to some degree, restore sanity, reason, and COMPETENCE to our institutions.
Sometimes "insider", like most things, can be both a negative and a positive, a slur and an advantage.
I've looked extensively at her voting record, and it pretty much mirrors Obama's (though she did vote no to confirming Gen. "I-have-no-idea-about-body-armor" Casey, and Obama voted yes.) She's definitely no Liebermann tool - she votes against him a lot. And the charges that she is "the same as Bush" are just insanely laughable. She ain't Kucinich, but she sure as heck is not a Repug.
Looking at voting records-- I love when bloggers rely on reading legislation, looking at voting records!
In case anyone wants a one stop site for checking their Senator's / Presidential candidate's (same thing these days) voting records, that's easy to navigate-- I suggest this one:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_110_1.htm
Click on the vote number to see the Yeas and Nays broken down by Critter. You can customize your viewing by Senator name or by State as you wish.
Provides a good picture of the critters habits without the spin cycle.
I was spoiled by Wes, and getting used to anything less is perhaps a little harder for me, unlike many of you politics for me started with Wes Clark.
Many other Clarkies however have had many more years of experience, disappointment and disillusionment with politicians and have largely come to accept it as the norm.
Hillary probably doesn't seem that bad compared to most, but after Wes having no basis for comparision they all seem unfit.
So often, political choices, whether regarding candidates or issues, come down to difficult second-best or even least-worst choices.
When there's no chocolate for desert at a party, I'm usually a little disappointed. But, when I'm hungry enough, I still always pick from what is offered.
In politics and desert, something is usually better than nothing.
Nick Kelly
Wes Clark still could be the national security candidate.
And save my "lesser of two evil's" vote for the General Election when I actually have no choice but to choose between Hillary and Giuliani. In which case Hillary would be the obvious choice.
I don't like Hillary, but I detest Giuliani.
it's the possibility of a Romney nomination that most concerns me. I know all of his negatives, yet it's still possible that he could upset the field in Iowa and NH, and go on to secure the nomination. And if he manages that, no matter who we nominate, Dems will find themselves in one heck of a hard race. Any Republican who can win the Governorship of Massachusetts is bound to find many "I don't like Hillary" people who he can con into voting for him. Please don't let him con you. Policy-wise, he is Bush, redux; and he's smarter, more capable, more photogenic, and more fervent. A Romney presidency would continue our long swing to the right, and ultimately further divide our country.
Nick Kelly
Wes Clark still could be the national security candidate.
I really don't think Romney has much of a chance against Rudy, and in the election I don't see him playing that well, he doesn't have 9/11 to harp on, at least not to the extent Rudy does.
but he is very focused on winning in Iowa and NH, where he has been in the lead for quite a while now. Today there is news that Giuliani is concentrating his efforts on "big" states. That may well backfire on him if Romney gets lots of media coverage after (very possibly) winning Iowa and NH. There is quite a lot about Mitt Romney that many Republicans and Independents (not to mention Democrats) don't yet know, and it's all far more appealing than Rudy's life story.
Romney doesn't need "9/11" to harp on. Not for the general election anyway. Many voters are sick of that, and Romney's appeal is all about a better future. In that way, he has a touch of Reagan in him that none of the other Republicans do.
But, all is possible in politics. Romney may blunder somewhere big-time before Iowa. Or, Giuliani's people might smear him ala what Bush did to John McCain. If either of those happen, I'm not certain Romney's campaign will be able to recover.
Nick Kelly
Wes Clark still could be the national security candidate.
Ruth, is the body of his speech coming later? The first download was the one question and answer, and the second download was the rest of the Q&A. I have my own video DVD of the speech but don't know how to get it on my hard drive.
(I have Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Photoshop Elements, but haven't ever tried them. Would one of them do the trick?)
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark -- Don't settle for less.
Make America All It Can Be!
Looking forward to watching this again!! Yippee!!
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
...has written the definitive book on The Green Zone during the early days of the occupation Iraq.
Sickening descriptions of Bernard Keric's behavior during his few months in Baghdad where he was sent to build a police force. The Imperial Viceroy Paul Bremer. The twentysomethings sent by the Bush administration to establish a Jeffersonian democracy who had a disco for entertainment where the women came dressed in hot-pants.
"Imperial Life in the Emerald City."
If you haven't felt the rage yet, read this.
I just got this from Amazon & it's been on my to do pile... so I was happy to see Chandrasekran on Book TV on the same day as Wes, seemed fortuituous. I also have Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine on deck- but since her seminal No Logo is also in the house which I hadn't read decided to plow through that first. It's incredibly illuminating.
I've been thinking of that weird Paula Zahn town hall out in Ohio, I think it was, that had Kerik up against Wes & how that was one of the most bizarre matchups ever seen on television.
I was trying to recall where it took place, but couldn't.
Indeed, when I saw it, I was puzzled. I believe someone else was to oppose WKC, but had to cancel.
As it turns out, what a wonderful contrast: The Democrat: Wesley Kanne Clark. The Republican: Bernard Keric.
Emblematic of what the two parties represent, I'd say.
In 1996 and 1980, I thought that the incumbents deserved to be re-elected because they had proven themselves to be the best of all the possible candidates, so I voted for them. Jimmy lost, but Bill won.
Also, twice in my life, I've thought that it might be really possible come November for me to vote for the best of all the non-incumbent candidates. But neither of them were nominated.
So, I've never really been able to cast a non-incumbent presidential election ballot for the person I really considered best for the job.
Barring some extremely unlikely miracle that puts Wes at the top of the Democratic ticket, that will not be any different for me next year.
Hillary Clinton is all the things that Wes says about her. Imo as well, all things considered, she appears to me to be the best of the remaining candidates. That is, if I look at Hillary vs all of the other candidates, one characteristic at a time, it is possible for me to find some of the other candidates to have certain more appealing individual characteristics. But, I also find that those are few in number when measured against any single alternative candidate. That is why she seems the best of those now running, and it is why I would very likely eventually have come to support her even if Wes had remained neutral.
Bill Clinton beat some pretty long odds when he was first elected, and he made a very good President. I think that Hillary Clinton has the potential to do likewise, provided that she places the very best people in the top positions of government. If that happens, I can foresee very enthusiastic support for her re-election in 2012.
Nick Kelly
Wes Clark still could be the national security candidate.
Thanks for posting this Ruth, but when I click the link to download, it results in a 404 page not found.