RAPID FIRE - Silver Bullets

Admiral John Dalton, Former Secretary of the Navy, in a 2004 OP Ed--
"Wesley Clark is uniquely qualified to lead the nation - Today, America faces two fundamental challenges at home and abroad: keeping our country safe in a dangerous world, and restoring fiscal responsibility and prosperity for the working families of our nation. We must choose a President with experience and depth both for the domestic economy and the international arena. "

Maj. General Robert Scales responding to Shelton's insinuation while being interviewed by Fox News' Britt Hume:

"Well, first of all, they are whispered. You know, Brit, Wes Clark led a 19-nation coalition, he fought a war and he won it. If you are a general in war and you have to command such a disparate organization, there are times when you have got to be hard and you've got to be decisive. I mean no one complains about Jack Welch (search) running the best…being the best CEO in the country and he was tough. But I've known Wes for 40 years; he's also a passionate, committed, empathetic individual."

Specifically, MAJ. GEN. ROBERT SCALES stated during the Fox interview:

I've known Wes for 40 years; he's also a passionate, committed, empathetic individual. So, soldiers in wartime have to lead soldiers into battle and the lives of men and women are at stake. And sometimes that requires a degree of flintiness that you don't need in other professions.

HUME: What about those who suggest that his character reflects a kind of unbridled ambition that puts his career above all things, fair?

SCALES: No. No. Unfair. Again, like I say I've known him all my adult life. He is an individual who is committed to a higher calling. I mean he's got three holes in him and a Silver Star from Vietnam. He has a…the word patriot only partially describes his commitment to public service. And for as long as I've known him, he's always looked, you know, beyond himself and he's been committed to serving the nation. And I think what you are seeing happen here recently is an example of that. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97689,00.html

General Schwarkopf on CNBC News questioned about the whisper campaign....

BORGER: All right, General, I'm going to switch gears on you just for one last question, because we've been watching all of the Democrats react to the news of Saddam Hussein's capture. You made a little bit of news on our show on November 6th when you said of General Wesley Clark that he was not going to get your vote, that was for certain, because General Hugh Shelton had said that he was not a man of character and integrity. And you said, quote, "If that's the case, he's not the right man for president as far as I'm concerned." Have you changed your mind?
SCHWARZKOPF: Well, again, 'if that's the case' was a very, very important statement. You know, I don't know to this date--there's never been any attempt to explore with Hugh Shelton what he meant by that.
....I don't know what lack of character caused Hugh Shelton to say that, I don't know what lack of integrity caused Hugh Shelton to say that, and I'd like to hear more about it. And basically I just don't think that that's been addressed that much. And obviously to a lot of people that's not an issue at all."
http://ann.forclark.com/story/2004/1/8/191653/0022

Lt. Gen. James Hollingsworth, one of our Army's most distinguished war heroes, says: "Clark took a burst of AK fire, but didn't stop fighting. He stayed on the field 'til his mission was accomplished and his boys were safe. He was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart. And he earned 'em."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34738

Defense Secretary William Perry: who as deputy defense secretary first encountered Clark in 1994 when he was a three-star on the Joint Staff. "I was enormously impressed by him," said Perry, a legendary Pentagon technologist who served as defense secretary under Clinton.

Perry was so impressed, in fact, that with Clark facing retirement unless a four-star job could be found for him, Perry overrode the Army and insisted that Clark be appointed commander of the U.S. Southern Command, one of the military's powerful regional commanders in chief, or CINCs. "I was never sorry for that appointment," Perry said.
http://www.projo.com/extra/2003/candidates/content/projo_20030921_wpclark.6873b.html

Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs overrode the Army once again and made sure Clark became Supreme Allied Commander Europe, traditionally the most powerful CINC, with command of all U.S. and NATO forces on the continent.
http://www.projo.com/extra/2003/candidates/content/projo_20030921_wpclark.6873b.html

Col. Douglas Macgregor: There is this aspect of his character: He is loyal to people he knows are capable and competent," Macgregor said. "As for his peers, it's a function of jealousy and envy, and it's a case of misunderstanding. Gen. Clark is an intense person, he's passionate, and certainly the military is suspicious of people who are intense and passionate. He is a complex man who does not lend himself to simplistic formulations. But he is very competent, and devoted to the country."
http://www.projo.com/extra/2003/candidates/content/projo_20030921_wpclark.6873b.html

General Walter Kross, a former four-star Air Force general under whom Clark served on the staff of the Joint Chiefs in the mid-1990s. For two years Kross worked with Clark from 6:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night six days a week, and sometimes on Sundays. He disagrees strongly with Shelton and Cohen about Clark's abilities and character. When I asked him why Clark was disliked by some military officers, Kross replied,

"He's not the army general officer from central casting. He's the extra-ordinary senior officer who can do extra-ordinary work on the entire range of challenges senior officers have to face—including Kosovo and the Dayton Accords, on which he worked himself into exhaustion. No army officer from central casting can do that work, but Wes did. .....Some senior officers misinterpret drive, energy, and enthusiasm for overambition...he is outside the mold and that makes some other officers uncomfortable." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16795

Col. David Hackworth:

"I'm impressed. He is insightful, he has his act together, he understands what makes national security tick – and he thinks on his feet somewhere around Mach 3. No big surprise, since he graduated first in his class from West Point, which puts him in the supersmart set with Robert E. Lee, Douglas MacArthur and Maxwell Taylor.
Clark was so brilliant, he was whisked off to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and didn't get his boots into the Vietnam mud until well after his 1966 West Point class came close to achieving the academy record for the most Purple Hearts in any one war. When he finally got there, he took over a 1st Infantry Division rifle company and was badly wounded.
He doesn't suffer fools easily and wouldn't have allowed the dilettantes who convinced Dubya to do Iraq to even cut the White House lawn. So he should prepare for a fair amount of dart-throwing from detractors he's ripped into during the past three decades."http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34738

Andrew Young:

"I asked a whole lot of my friends who were generals and colonels and majors, who served over General Clark and under General Clark and every last one of them said to me that this is a good man, and if he were leading our nation they would be proud. son of the South capable of making a dangerous world a safer place for everybody. A man we are going to make the next president of the United States." http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/asp/FullConv.asp?forumId=F100000035&lastConvSeq=9789

The fizzling whisper campaign was brought to a halt when General Shelton was called on the carpet by Hague prosecutors who were trying Milosovic. Milosovic repeated what Gen. Shelton had whispered about General Clark, after Clark testified against Milosovic. Unfortunately for General Gossip, he had to call his unfortunate comments assailing Wes Clark's character "just politics".
http://wesleyclark.h1.ru/presidence4.htm#LA%20Meetup%20with%20Wes%20II
LA Meetup with Wes II Read for further insight on smears:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/10/int03221.html

And please note this New York Times article, which has since been archived, but which PrometheusSpeaks posted here.

Clark's Campaign Releases Glowing Accounts of His Military CareerOctober 16, 2003

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 — The campaign of Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who has based his Democratic presidential bid on his career in the United States Army, this week released 200 pages of internal military evaluations from his commanding officers, who repeatedly used only superlatives to describe his skills, energy and leadership abilities.

The comments of his commander when he oversaw a tank battalion in Germany in 1977 were typical: "The most brilliant and gifted officer I've known." The commander, Col. Charles G. Prather IV, added: "I have never been more impressed with an officer's talent and dedication." He added that he should rank with men like Douglas MacArthur.

A year later, the future General Clark, now 58, had advanced to assistant executive officer to Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr., then Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. In his evaluation, General Haig wrote: "Major Clark is an officer of impeccable character with a rare blend of personal qualities and professional attributes which uniquely qualify him as a soldier-scholar."
...

The records include high praise from Colin L. Powell, now secretary of state and then an assistant division commander at Fort Carson, Colo., who called then-Lieutenant Clark an officer of "the rarest potential." The evaluations end in 1993, when General Clark earned his second star; officers at or above the rank of two-star general do not receive such performance reviews.
...

The campaign plans to release the documents widely on Thursday when it will be making available for comment several officials who served in the Army with General Clark, including Gen. Don Kerrick, who is retired; Lt. Gen. Dan Christman, who is also retired; and Cris Hernandez, who was General Clark's security officer when he commanded the allied forces in Kosovo.
...
Gen. John Shalikashvili, who is retired and who is also a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ...called General Clark an outstanding commander who was "quick of mind and an extraordinary strategic thinker." He said General Clark would not have been promoted repeatedly if most of his commanders did not agree. ...

The years of evaluations released by the campaign show a cadet who rose through the ranks with ease. His superiors consistently described him as confident, imaginative, organized, an inspiration to his troops, a trusted adviser to his commanders and an officer with unlimited potential.

One commander took note of the superlatives frequently used in such reviews but said that then-Lieutenant Colonel Clark deserved them.

"Every once in a while, one is privileged to encounter an officer so uniquely gifted that the overworked superlatives commonly utilized on evaluation reports are inadequate to effectively describe his duty performance," the commander wrote in 1981. "LTC Clark is that officer. A brilliant, dynamic and exceptionally innovative commander, his battalion has been characterized by superb esprit, discipline and professionalism."

The next year, Colin Powell similarly noted the penchant for the "raters" on performance reviews to exaggerate. But in this case, he said, "The rater does not overstate." He added, "Wes Clark has been a superb battalion commander and will be a superb brigade commander. He is an officer of the rarest potential and will clearly rise to senior general officer rank. He will be one of the Army's leaders in the 1990's."

One recurring trait that appears in the evaluations is that General Clark always spoke his mind. The evaluations are replete with mentions that he "was not a yes-man," and "says what he thinks."

General Clark has made such qualities a theme of his presidential campaign. In almost every speech, the general, who has sharply criticized President Bush's conduct of the Iraq war, urges audiences to "challenge authority" and asserts that dissent is "the highest form of patriotism."

Through most of his career, his willingness to question served him well.

"Completely candid," one evaluator wrote in 1977. "Exceptionally stable," he added. "Never careless or irrational in his judgment."

It was the following year that General Haig wrote his evaluation.

"Major Clark's earnestness, sincerity of purpose and absolute dedication convey a moral force in his work which gives him a significant voice in this headquarters."

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