Wes Clark: Guest Report

Wes Clark: Guest Report

More shameless cribbing. Promoted from the comments, a guest post by Dale Shultz:

The Hawkeye Labor Council put on a good hog roast Saturday night. They actually had a stuffed pig on there on the buffet table - later Blouin said he was surprised when he saw it, because he didn't know they were going to invite Nussle to this event. Blouin gave the best speech I've seen from him so far. He ripped Nussle apart, and kept everyone laughing at the same time; if he can keep that up he'll cruise through the general election. David Loebsack also gave a good talk.

Gen. Wesley Clark was the main speaker, and I learned some new things about him; for example, his dad died when he was three years old, and his mom raised him alone without a lot of money.

He led the NATO force in Kosovo, which was a successful nation-building exercise, and he was mad that Rumsfeld ignored all the US's institutional knowledge on reconstruction when he decided to invade Iraq. However, he said that leaving immediately would be very damaging to the US's long-term reputation.

In the most disturbing part of his speech, he said that on Sept. 20, 2001, his former aides told him that Rummy had already decided to invade Iraq, and that by November, they were telling him about a five year plan to roll up Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Iran.

Clark wound up with some comments on domestic policy. He supports the Estate Tax, and national single payer health insurance (like we already have in the military), and he opposes judging schools by standardized test results.