Wesley Clark vs Fox News Channel Anchorguy

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Link to video is currently on this page. In case it goes away, a transcript. I don't pay attention to this station so I don't know the anchor's name or I'd type it in. Still, he caught them at their usual game.

 

--Transcript--

 

ANCHOR: Well it's not easy to call a four-star general with a heroic battlefield record weak on defense, that's one reason Democrats were so pleased to see him make a run for the White House. And we're very pleased now that he could take time out to be with us. Democratic presidential candidate retired General Wesley Clark. General, thanks a lot for coming in, appreciate it.

 

CLARK: Good to be with you.

 

ANCHOR: Who talked you into this?

 

CLARK: Well, it was a long process and essentially I looked in the direction the country was headed and I just wasn't pleased. I saw us going into a war we didn't need to be in, I saw tremendous problems at home, I saw tax cuts that didn't really make economics sense. I saw business problems, ethics problems in business, and I began to speak out about them and people came to me and many people asked me to run.

 

ANCHOR: Did Bill Clinton have the deciding vote in you running?

 

CLARK: No, he didn't. But I did talk to Bill Clinton, and I talked to Hillary, and I talked to a lot of leaders at the Democratic Party at various times over the last couple of years because like me they're very concerned about where things were, and where they're headed.

 

ANCHOR: One thing that you must be sick of by now, but I got to play the game too is bringing up statements that you've made in the past. You're not a politician at heart, therefore you've made some more mistakes than other people have, so people throw them back at you. One of them though is just yesterday. Maybe it wasn't a mistake but it caught our attention. On Meet The Press, you said something about Iraq. You said, "President Bush has said the war in Iraq is the centerpiece for the war on terror. It isn't. It's a sideshow. It's simply their easiest means of access to attack American soliders. That's all it is." You really think Iraq is only a sideshow?

 

CLARK: For the war on terror, it's a terrible distraction. And we should have gone directly after Osama Bin-Laden. Let's be clear about what happened. This administration decided to go to war against Saddam Hussein or at least to set all the plans in motion, while we were still bombing Afghanistan. And when Tommy Franks should have been challenged to come up with the plans to finish the job against Osama Bin-Laden, he was appearantly preparing plans to brief the President and the Seceretary of Defense on Iraq. We let Osama Bin-Laden get away, he's there in the mountains of western Pakistan, Newsweek magazine can find him, I don't know why we can't. And I propose that we have a joint US/Saudi force to go after Osama Bin-Laden. Let's finish this job on terrorism.

 

ANCHOR: Well let me just ask you: Do you know that Newsweek knows where Osama Bin-Laden is and isn't telling the world?

 

CLARK: Well I've seen the articles in Newsweek, I'm sure you have, and uh so you know I think we should start by talking to Newsweek. I think our US government should start. And I think we should be putting a full-court effort on Osama Bin-Laden. As for Iraq, we're in a mess. It was a war we didn't have to fight, we're there, now we got to have a success strategy. This administration hasn't had one, it called Jerry Bremmer back from Baghdad in an effort to cobble one together. It still doesn't go far enough. We need a success strategy for our foreign policy, we need a success strategy for Iraq. But don't ever make the mistake of believing that what we did in Iraq was related to the war on terrorism. It was related only tangentially and it distracted us from what we needed to do.

 

ANCHOR: But to call it... Whi while while...

 

CLARK: Unfortunately, now we have to finish it.

 

ANCHOR: Yeah, but general, while our men and wo...

 

CLARK: Now just wait a minute! You just wait a minute!

 

ANCHOR: Excuse me just one second, I just want to add on to that...

 

CLARK: No, I want to...

 

ANCHOR: While our men and women are dying in Iraq, is it proper to call it a sideshow?

 

CLARK: Our men and women in Iraq are doing a fabulous job! They're doing a great job, I love them, I respect them, and I honor them. My problem is with the President of the United States! He's the man who's responsible for this, as he told us, he was going to make the decision when to go to war, he did. Our men and women are doing everything their country are asking them to do, but for the war on terror it's not the right thing we should be asking them to do. Don't you DARE twist words into disrespect for the men and women in uniform! I love those men and women, I gave 34 years of my life to them, you better take my words the right way! This is about. the President of the United States and...

 

ANCHOR: General, I'm just repeating your own words to you.

 

CLARK: ...leadership. No sir, you are not! You are playing politics.

 

ANCHOR: Didn't you say Iraq was a sideshow?

 

CLARK: No, sir! No, sir. You are playing politics with the men and women in uniform. You are, sir!

 

ANCHOR: I'm sorry, I just read back your own statements, General.

 

CLARK: ...And I challenge you: take it straight. You take it straight.

 

ANCHOR: And General let me just tell you, General, please, one thing that we have, we are, our military advisors have assured us is that there is nothing but respect they want you to have for your military career and for your respect for those now in the military. As the father of a marine, we both share that respect for men and women in the military. So don't get me wrong on that, I just wanted...

 

CLARK: I think that you're distorting...

 

ANCHOR: ...to make clear what you meant by that statement that you made. I just quoted you on that statement.

 

CLARK: I think you're trying to distort my meaning, so I want to make it very clear, and I think you said I made it clear. The sideshow is not the men and women in uniform. It's the leadership of the President of the United States who would get us into this. And I think we need to be very straight in covering this. I'm not afraid to say what's right and wrong in this country, and I'm speaking out, David. And I'm telling you this: that war in Iraq was a war that did not have to be fought.

 

ANCHOR: Okay. General, again, we're just reading back your statements. I'm sorry that you were so upset at our having done that, but that's all we did. We didn't have any implication beyond that.

 

CLARK: You did have an implication.

 

ANCHOR: No. And General...

 

CLARK: And that's why...

 

ANCHOR: We were just try to figure out what it was that you meant.

 

CLARK: ...I think it's very unfair.

 

ANCHOR: And I'd ask you again...

 

CLARK: Well you know it now.

 

ANCHOR: ...But I don't want to go through that territory once again.

 

CLARK: Well, good.

 

ANCHOR: But we do want to thank you for coming on, General.

 

CLARK: Thank you, and thank you for clearing that up so there's absolutely no understand on the part of Fox or it's viewers. I love the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. But I think this administration has asked them to do the wrong thing in Iraq. We're in a mess, and I know how to get us out of it. And I will.

 

ANCHOR: Well, General Wesley Clark, we do hope you come back to explain to us how to get out of the mess that you think we're in. We hope to have you back.

 

CLARK: Thank you.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

I think they need to hire someone for Clark to remind him of things he's said and what he stands for. I don't see how this man has any hope of being president if he can't keep his own comments and stances straight.

[Guest Cerebus]

Whoever this anchor is, is a complete moron. Did anyone see Meet the Press on Sunday? Tim Russert brought back every contradicting statement and ambiguous comment Clark made and grilled him about it. Here are some from the interview.

 

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to your role in Kosovo, because this caught my eye in the profile in New Yorker magazine: “Clark had declared that chief among America’s mistakes was that it had gone to war in Iraq without ‘the mantle of authority’ bestowed by United Nations approval. But hadn’t the Kosovo war also been conducted without the endorsement of the U.N. Security Council? Yes, Clark allowed, and in that regard the Kosovo war was ‘technically illegal.’ He went on, ‘The Russians, the Chinese, they said both would veto it. There was never a chance that it would be authorized.’”

      You believe Kosovo was technically illegal?

(Videotape, Clark For President ad):

      Announcer: Now, when we need a leader to clean up the mess in Iraq, he’s the one who has done it. In the Balkans, he helped negotiate a peace between age-old enemies, and led a multinational force that stopped a campaign of terror, liberated a people and brought peace without the loss of a single American soldier.

      (End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Are you suggesting that if you were in charge, you could have liberated Iraq without the loss of a single American soldier?.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to talk a whole lot more about Iraq, but I want to stay on Kosovo for just a second. In 1995, the president of the United States announced, and you echoed it, that the troops would be home from Kosovo in a year. That never happened. No one believed at the time it would happen. In hindsight, did you mislead the American people in suggesting the troops would be home in a year when they’re, in fact, still there?

MR. RUSSERT: This was the article back in 1994 in the Washington paper: “A senior Pentagon official has ignored State Department warnings not to meet with Serb officials suspected of ordering deaths of civilians in a campaign known as ethnic cleansing, State Department officials said. Despite the department’s protests, Army Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, the Joint Chiefs of Staff director of strategy, plans and policy, met with Serb General Ratko Mladic, who had been named a war crimes  suspect...”

      Here’s a photograph. You’re wearing his hat. He’s wearing yours. The article goes on to say that you had exchanged caps, that he had given you a bottle of brandy and a pistol inscribed in Cyrillic. “‘It’s like cavorting with Hermann Goering,’ one U.S. official complained.’” Hitler’s number two, of course. That was a mistake, wasn’t it?

 

These are serious tough questions (the transcript can be found here) but the point is that while Russert wasn't stupid enough to make such boneheaded leaps of logic (Iraq not having to do with the war on terrorism to it being a "sideshow") I think if he had made a similar comment it would have been answered in a calm organized way? Why? Because Meet the Press is a "real" show while only right-wing yahoos watch OMG FAUX NEWS so its okay to abuse the anchors and be an ass. The viewers aren't going to vote for you anyway and you can get the "angry Democrats" who hear aout it to get more riled up for the Showdown in 2004.

[Vyce 0]

People were so excited to have this guy jump into the race.

 

Then he opened his mouth and boy, was the illusion ruined.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

LOL -- the folks at Special Report had a field day with this.

 

This is why I don't read fiction -- the real world is much more entertaining.

 

Let's have Newsweek join the War on Terror -- GOLD.

 

If only Jonathan Alter and Anna Quindlen would embark on suicide missions to rid the world of bin Laden and Saddam, the world would be rid of two terrorists.

 

Not to mention Osama and Hussein...

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Let's have Newsweek join the War on Terror -- GOLD.

I don't think what he said was exactly the same as "let's go ask Newsweek where Osama is" but hey, it's up to your interpretation. Yes, Clark does shoot himself in the foot a lot, but I thought it was fun that he exposed the usual Fox game.

 

This reminds me of the guy who asked the 18 year old trying to draft Hillary in a rather slow and deliberate voice (the kind that you use to talk to young infants) "Do you know that every time Hillary has been asked if she'll run that she's said no?" As though the kid was going to say "No, I didn't" and give up his whole thing right there.

[NoCalMike 0]

Sounds like the news anchor got schooled and was just trying to be an ass.

[Guest JMA]

Sounds like the news anchor got schooled and was just trying to be an ass.

Kinda reminds me of the Krustry runs for Congress episode of The Simpsons.

 

"Welcome to Fox News--your voice for evil."

 

"You make a very adulterous point..."

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Let's have Newsweek join the War on Terror -- GOLD.

I don't think what he said was exactly the same as "let's go ask Newsweek where Osama is" but hey, it's up to your interpretation. Yes, Clark does shoot himself in the foot a lot, but I thought it was fun that he exposed the usual Fox game.

I was setting up my Alter/Anna line with that quote.

 

We let Osama Bin-Laden get away, he's there in the mountains of western Pakistan, Newsweek magazine can find him, I don't know why we can't.

 

ANCHOR: Well let me just ask you: Do you know that Newsweek knows where Osama Bin-Laden is and isn't telling the world?

 

CLARK: Well I've seen the articles in Newsweek, I'm sure you have, and uh so you know I think we should start by talking to Newsweek.

 

Sounds like Wesley's doing some recruitin’ to me.

 

Sounds like the news anchor got schooled and was just trying to be an ass.

 

Sounds to me like Wes was the ass, but like Jobber said, it's up to your interpretation...

[Swift Terror 0]

Clark: "We're in a mess, and I know how to get us out of it. And I will."

 

Clarify that, General, and many of us will--just maybe--begin to think you have some concrete answers. He has only offered contradicting positions and incredibly simplistic solutions. He has stated that one of the primary goals that he recommends is to "find Bin Laden"--wow, thanks for that, General.

[Lando Griffin 0]

He also is in favor of cute babies and against crime.

[Swift Terror 0]

When asked by David Letterman if, were he President, he would have found Bin Laden by now, he said: "Yes, I would have." Another classic from the General.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

When asked by David Letterman if, were he President, he would have found Bin Laden by now, he said: "Yes, I would have." Another classic from the General.

 

What's he going to say? "No." or "I don't think so, Dave, he's too sneaky for us."

 

When Bush was on Leno back in '00 he said he was going to win California. I laughed at that more than I would at just about anything Wacky Wesley blabbers about (although Wes mentioning Rush's ESPN situation during his presidential campaign is an exception).

 

Yes, Terror, I'M QUESTIONING YOUR QUESTIONING OF CLARK'S PATRIOTISM!...

Edited November 22, 2003 by kkktookmybabyaway

[Swift Terror 0]

He could have replied, "Well, Dave, that's impossible for me to say." Which would be the truth.

 

I don't believe I ever questioned his patriotism, he's a decorated General for God's sake. I'm only pointing out his current, post-military duty actions/comments, which are not very clear and sometimes contradictory.