The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon

The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon

The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon

Fiction in the style of Wesley Clark

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Wesley Clark is nuttier than the candy bar that bears his name. For a man who had held himself up as a measured alternative to Howard Dean, he does not seem to me to be any less of a conspiracy-spinning, jabbering lunatic.

Consider the past year. First Clark claimed that after 9/11 the White House called him and told him to blame the attacks on Iraq. When challenged, he changed his story, saying it was a member of a Canadian think tank on the Middle East. No such think tank exists. Clark had to retreat from his words yet again.

Next came his story that the Bush administration, angry about his opposition to its policies, called CNN and tried to pressure the network to fire Clark from his job as a commentator. Now, it is hard to see why anyone around President Bush would believe the Saddam sympathizers at liberal CNN would accede to such a request. It is equally unfathomable that CNN would not have publicized this request to help advance their thesis that anti-war sentiment in the media was being “censored.” Not only does Clark fabricate stories, he cannot even make them plausible stories.

Clark then claimed that he would have supported the President and remained a Republican “if Karl Rove had returned my calls.” Karl Rove is the Democrats’ favorite target, the evil mastermind behind President Bush. For instance, Ambassador Charles Wilson IV, who “investigated” Iraqi nuclear proliferation by drinking tea in a cafe in Niger for a week, accused Rove of disclosing his wife’s status as a CIA analyst in retaliation for Wilson’s criticisms. The phone records of the White House have revealed that Clark never called Karl Rove, so it is anyone’s guess what Clark was talking about on this one.

Finally, Clark claimed to have seen a Defense Department list of six countries that would be targeted next. When he was challenged to back this claim up, Clark once again obfuscated, “You only have to listen to the gossip around Washington and to hear what the neo-conservatives are saying, and you will get the flavor of this.” Another buzzword target of Democrat wrath, and another raft of nonsense.

When you combine Clark’s pattern of delusional fabrication with his irresponsible, professional wrestler-style boast that, were he to be elected, the U.S. would not be attacked by terrorists, you have a candidate who is unqualified to be president. This leaves aside entirely the number one unspoken fact about Clark: he has zero experience when it comes to the domestic side of politics. And if you believed everything Clark has been saying these past months, then I’ve got a few more things you may not know about him.

I spoke to a disgruntled former member of Clark’s campaign team—well, more of a personal assistant who consulted with Clark on landscaping. Whoever it was, he told me that Clark actually did support attacking Iraq, until he had a secret meeting with Saddam Hussein, orchestrated by billionaire Democrat backer George Soros, while Hussein was on the run from U.S. forces. Stroking his scraggly beard, Hussein handed Clark a duffel bag full of gold Krugerrands and promised him “plenty more where that came from,” to persuade him to flip positions and enter the presidential race. Hussein was less concerned with saving his own skin than with taking revenge on his arch-nemesis, President Bush, by ensuring his defeat.

The official story on Clark’s departure from the military is that he resigned. I got a call from a musician in a New Mexico chamber orchestra that there is more to that story. Everyone knows Clark is on record as a staunch advocate of gay marriage, and has called for a new policy towards homosexuality in the military, “don’t misbehave,” to replace the “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise. What they don’t know, according to my source, is that Clark could not seem to follow his own proposed policy. He surrounded himself with tall, attractive male aides-de-camp, and took delight in pinning medals to their well toned chests. One chafed at this treatment; Clark threatened to “Go Srebrenica on his ass.” When the Joint Chiefs got word of this, they forced Clark out, but allowed him to claim to have resigned to keep suspicion down.

Finally, there is Clark’s history on race. While a young boy in Arkansas, attending Little Rock High School, Clark was president of the so-called “Anti-Miscegenation Alliance.” One former classmate—well, actually a dentist who watched a documentary on the civil rights movement—oh hell, an unusually learned tropical bird, claims that this group would gather after classes and plot strategies for thwarting integration. Once, says this source, when Clark witnessed a black male student make eye contact with a white female student, Clark went “ballistic,” clubbing the male student over the head with the axe handle he carried everywhere in those days.

Wesley Clark is not going to be president, but at least he can while away his days spending those Krugerrands and writing nickel-a-pound spy thrillers.

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