The Wrong Stuff

I made a mistake.
Several months ago I signed a Draft Wesley Clark petition on the Internet. When asked to submit a comment along with my signature, I wrote “Please help save the Democratic Party from itself.” I really thought he could do it.
I’m still on the mailing list, but I can no longer bring myself to open the emails.
Chris Suellentrop at Slate compiled some oddball quotes from the general’s campaign in New Hampshire. I must say he misrepresents the first, and the second is no big deal. But here are the rest.

The president was not and has not been held accountable yet for misleading the American people. He is continuing to associate Saddam, Iraq, and the problem of terrorism. Yet the only terrorists that are in Iraq are the people that have come there to attack us.

As if the only reason Iraqi Baathists are in their own country is to attack us. As if Abu Nidal only moved to Baghdad for the rent and the cheap eats. As if Saddam’s brazen financial support to Hamas and Islamic Jihad didn’t qualify him as a state supporter of international terrorists.

Now, there’s one party in America that’s made the United Nations the enemy. And I don’t know how many of you have ever read that series of books that’s published by the Christian right that’s called the “Left Behind” series? Probably nobody’s read it up here. But don’t feel bad, I’m not recommending it to you. I’m just telling you that according to the book cover that I saw in the airport, 55 million copies have been printed. And in it, the Antichrist is the United Nations. And so there’s this huge, ill-informed body of sentiment out there that’s just grinding away against the United Nations.

As if the Christian Right even has 55 million members in the first place. As if the only criticism of the United Nations is that it’s Satanic. As if I and plenty of other people didn’t learn all about the perfidy of the United Nations from liberals in the 1990s when the UN sat back and watched Bosnians and Kosovars get massacred by Slobo. Surely the general knows something about that.

Young men in an Islamic culture cannot get married until they can support a family. No job, no marriage. No marriage, unhappy young men. They get real angry, they feel real frustrated, they feel real powerless. And a certain number of them are being exploited in the mosques by this recruiting network.

Actually, it’s the well-educated people who are most likely to join terror networks. Not the unemployed who can’t get a date. But don’t take my word for it. Read all about it yourself in The Guardian.

Newsweek magazine says he’s [Osama bin Laden] in the mountains of western Pakistan. And I guess if Newsweek could find him there, we could, too, if we wanted to.

Ah, my favorite. Bush doesn’t want to catch Osama bin Laden. It’s just like in Jim Treacher’s Moveon fantasy ad:

And instead of a rubber duck in the hot tub, he has an Osama Bin Laden doll which he hugs and kisses like a little girl hugging a baby doll.
“I wuv woo, ‘Sahmmy!”
The Osama Doll is dressed like Mrs. Beasley.

I’m of the opinion that Osama bin Laden is DNA on rocks. But who knows? I could be wrong.
What I’m not wrong about is that Wesley Clark is nuts if he thinks Bush can’t see the upshot of nabbing bin Laden in an election year.
UPDATE: Roger L. Simon reminds me of the reasons I liked Clark in the first place, and shows that Clark’s current campaign has all the integrity of lime jello.