Wesley Clark: When Smart People Do Dumb Things

Imagine that you went on a job interview for a position you’d coveted for years. Perhaps feeling a bit under-qualified, you figure you’ll dazzle your would-be employer with your intellect and your passion. You take your best shot—show how absolutely gung-ho you are—and head home to wait for what you hope will be that momentous call. Instead of phoning you, however, the Big Kahuna makes a public speech denouncing you. Yes, singling you out as the problem. And although he doesn’t mention you by name, that’s little consolation: The whole world knows who he was talking about. Your name is mud. Actually, it’s Wesley K. Clark…

The political world was agog this past Sunday when Clark, a former Army general, seemed to disparage John McCain’s military record. He probably didn’t mean it that way, exactly, it’s just that in his zeal to curry favor with Barack Obama, who Clark had opposed in the Democratic primaries, that’s how it came out. Appearing on Face the Nation, Clark started out on placid seas, talking about moving past partisanship and so on. But when CBS newsman Bob Schieffer asked Clark why he had previously refered to McCain as "untested and untried," Clark suddenly ran aground.

 The reaction to this was about what one would expect. Friends of McCain, friends of civil discourse, for that matter, pointed out the following:

(1) McCain’s Vietnam War-era “qualification,” insofar as it goes, wasn’t getting shot down, it was his heroism as a POW for 5 ½ years, most specifically refusing North Vietnam’s offer of an early release despite grievous injuries, and enduring repeated torture for adhering to the Navy’s “first in, first out” doctrine regarding prisoners.

 (2) McCain’s governmental expertise now spans 25 years in the House and Senate, 21 years more than Obama.

 (3) Likewise, Clark’s ungenerous assessment of McCain’s résumé tended to underscore the fact that, in addition to never having served in the military, Obama lacks executive experience altogether.

 (4) And it raised one final question about Obama: Was he really considering such an ungracious fellow as Wes Clark to be his running mate?

Camp Obama waited no time at all before distancing themselves from Clark. In a well-crafted speech on patriotism in Missouri, Obama said the following:

“Beyond a loyalty to America’s ideals, beyond a willingness to dissent on behalf of those ideals, I also believe that patriotism must, if it is to mean anything, involve the willingness to sacrifice, to give up something we value on behalf of a larger cause. For those who have fought under the flag of this nation—for the young veterans I meet when I visit Walter Reed; for those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country—no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides. We must always express our profound gratitude for the service of our men and women in uniform. Period. Full stop.”

In fairness to the Democrats’ nominee, it is not known if Clark was ever on Obama’s short list, long list, or any list at all when it comes to the vice presidential slot. But the entire episode, which Clark kept alive for the third day in a row, raised yet a fifth question: Why does such a smart guy say such dumb things?

Sports fans may (or may not) remember a football player named Ed “Too Tall” Jones. He was an all-American lineman in college chosen as the number one pick in the 1974 NFL draft. He became a star lineman for the Dallas Cowboys, with speed, size, good looks, a nice salary, and a Super Bowl ring. But he wanted more. He wanted to be the heavyweight champion of the world, like Jack Dempsey or Joe Louis. So he quit the Dallas cowboys, and took up boxing. Ed Jones didn’t embarrass himself, but he learned while struggling to defeat a handful of nobodies that prize fighting is a profession. In professional boxing, he was, essentially a dilettante. So he returned to football.

Wes Clark has this in common with “Too Tall” Jones: He’s the much-promoted organization man who longs to be the unquestioned leader, ruling alone at the top. (Except that he can’t return to the U.S. Army.) But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Wesley Clark entered West Point in 1962, the year of Douglas MacArthur’s famed “Duty, Honor, Country” speech at the Academy. Four years later, Clark graduated as the valedictorian of his class. After a summer in Airborne school, he was off to study at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. From there, it was Ranger school at Fort Benning, Ga., then he was commissioned as a captain in the 82^nd Airborne. Fast-tracked Army officers in those days had their tickets punched in Vietnam, but Clark did more than that. He was sent to the war zone on May 21, 1969, serving as a staff officer behind the lines, winning a Bronze Star for his work. The following January, he was given a field commission in the 1^st Infantry Division. Shot in battle, Clark continued to give orders to his men, who counterattacked and overran a Vietcong position. In addition to his Purple Heart, the young officer was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action.

Bright, squared-away, and handsome, Clark kept moving. He served in the White House, on the staff of Supreme Allied Commander Alexander Haig, as he rose through the ranks. He earned his first general’s star in 1992. A month later, an acquaintance and fellow Arkansan named Bill Clinton became the commander-in-chief, which only accelerated his advancement. Five years later, he was Supreme NATO commander in Europe.

Although the details remain murky, Clark was nudged out of that post in 2000, two years early. One credible explanation for why this happened was that Clark alienated his military superiors, including Secretary of Defense William Cohen, by playing his White House connections when it came to Balkans’ policy instead of following the chain of command. One fellow general also said publicly that Clark had lied to him about a promotion that both men wanted. “His reputation…was that he was overly ambitious,” one retired officer told Jim Geraghty, a reporter with States News Service in Washington. “He would stab anybody around him in the back if they threatened his career....”

That seemed a harsh judgment for a decorated officer and confirmed hero, but upon leaving the Army, Clark’s own actions confirmed a perception of naked ambition. In May 2001, he spoke at a Republican fundraiser in Arkansas, lauding President Bush and his top foreign policy aides, and leading to speculation that he might run for president someday—as a Republican. By 2003, however, Clark had declared himself a Democrat, and was trashing the Bush administration, and the president, often in unseemly and personal terms.

The main argument Clark advanced for his campaign was that he would bring about a “new” sort of patriotism, and while worked up would shout that he wouldn’t let his patriotism be questioned by Bush & Co. There were two major flaws in this approach. The first was that Bush had simply never questioned Clark’s patriotism, had never mentioned him publicly at all, actually. The second was that it was Clark and his surrogates who were forever questioning the patriotism of Bush and his fellow Republicans. It all got a little weird, really, when Clark was asked at a press conference about his endorsement by Hollywood lefty Michael Moore. Clark’s response was essentially to accuse the journalists who asked him about Moore of doing the Republicans’ bidding. In the end, Clark won a single 2004 presidential primary, Oklahoma’s, and disappeared from view. In other words, Wes Clark, decorated soldier, was a poorer politician than Too Tall Jones was a boxer.

And so he promptly began campaigning to be vice president—and still is doing so, as it happens. For most of this year, Clark was a Hillary Clinton man. In fact, he first used the John McCain-ain’t-really-qualified rap back in March while promoting Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy. He was a bit more artful then, or maybe our attention was diverted. In any event, Clark may have felt that as a Clintonite he got too late a start on trying to be Obama’s choice as Veep. Hence, Sunday’s outburst. In this morning's New York Times, Gail Collins defended Clark, sort of. She offered the view that there are more important controversies. She's surely right about that, although it may not seem that way to Wes Clark.

Meanwhile, a seemingly chastened Wes Clark took to the airways ostensibly to clean up his mess. Except that he couldn’t quite pull it off. Asked if he owed McCain an apology, Clark promptly said he was sorry…to Obama.

All of which brings us to the second explanation: Ambitions that are simply Too Tall can cloud the cognitive abilities of even the smartest people. Or, as one of the general’s former Army colleagues said of Clark back in 2004: “He’s got unequaled strengths in intellect, and weaknesses in ambition. The question is, does the ambition get so blinding that it gets in the way of his intellect?”