Straight talk or nothing for CNN's Dobbs Retired Gen. Wesley Clark was a long-time CNN military analyst but there's one cable network host he didn't impress: Lou Dobbs. Clark was a guest on Dobb's business show during the Iraq war and the host felt the former NATO boss seemed to push his own political agenda than provide the straight military skinny on the Pentagon plan, reports our Mark Mazzetti. The result: Dobbs, who hosts "Lou Dobbs Tonight," told a conference of reporters and military brass last week that he barred Clark from his show for the remainder of the war. Of course, he might not have know that CNN had moved to do the same thing when it came to using the likely Democratic presidential candidate as an impartial war analyst. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/whisphome.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------- His analysis of the war was completely inept. If Dobbs is correct though, Clark contributed to emboldening our enemies by forecasting failure on CNN. Only Clark knows the truth, but if he chose to put a partisan spin on his war coverage, then he probably contributed to the deaths of some U.S. troops by giving confidence to the enemy. Regarding the war coverage, Clark is either a poor military analyst, or a despicable person. I don't want either as President of the United States.
Hey, you may NOT use the if I can't say "come on, man". and.........you don't think that senior Iraqi military officials weren't glued to American Cable News outlets?? I think you are dead wrong.
I never said you couldn't say that. Get your posters straight. OK, so even if they were, and they relayed this info to their troops, I fail to see how them hearing this would bolster their confidence to kill more U.S. troops. It's disgraceful, absurd and slanderous to assume that Clark's words led to more deaths in Iraq. If anything, you should be arguing that Bush telling the people still fighting against our troops to "Bring It On" led to more troops dying, if you're going to make an absurd argument like that.
you're correct, it WAS seemingly inept, yet now seems increasingly valid. Incidentally, his analysis was similar not only to that of numerous field commanders (the marine general who said "this isn't the enemy we wargamed for"), but also to Pentagon officials (shinseki), and lower level personnel (check any number of contemporaneous articles from embedded war correspondents ). Of course, you pointed this out in the other two Wesley Clark threads, but I'm glad you started another one just to remind us where you stand on whether or not he is a despicable person.
Look, you and Tex have got to get the whole Rocketman mess cleared up, or prepare to suffer from the confusion of the masses. Also, my logic is far from absurd. The Iraqi military clearly wanted the US troops to get bogged down and suffer enormous casualities, in hope that public and world opinion would turn against Bush before Baghdad could be overrun. If Clark was forecasting the exact same scenario the Iraqis desired, and his opinion was partisan spin instead of the truth, then he was giving confidence to the enemy to keep fighting.
Morton Kondrake of Roll Call says, “The Democratic party should think very carefully about taking advice from Wesley Clark, who has been a doomsayer about this from the beginning.” “The two big losers of the war in the media were Gen. Barry McCaffrey and Wesley Clark,” says University of Virginia political-science professor Larry Sabato. “They were so wrong. They got way out on a limb on criticizing the Pentagon and the war plan and obviously the success of the operation cut the limb off.”
Dobbs has clearly been the most conservative "anchor" on CNN since he returned. And CNN wouldn't use someone for a commentator who is exploring becoming a candidate for President. It's called journalistic integrity. I'm surprised you ever watch CNN. I thought you believed it to be a bastion of liberalism? Or did you just get this from the U.S. News and World Report website... from the "whispers" column. As for your comments... hell, it's not worth a response from me. Dobbs is trolling for ratings. You have your bait in the water for something else.
Sabato is wrong, the losers are the people who died (and are stilll dying) so that Rumsfield could do his Sun Tzu impression.
You're the only person who's ever had us confused. So, do you feel that Bush egging on the loyalists has contributed to the deaths of more troops? I still completely disagree with you about the power of Clark's words. You're giving them way too much credit.
Forecasting doom to further Presidential aspirations is far different from making gameplan changes in the field. When a potential Democrat nominee for President gets banned from a major news show for duplicity, that is big news.
Well, you look exactly alike from the "n" over. No, because Bush was responding to a threat. Could be, but I don't think so.
So predicting that the war might not go well leads to deaths, but taunting those killing your soldiers does not. Okiedokie. Sorry, you're still the only one that's ever got us confused in nearly five years on this board.
the best evidence that Wesley Clark may be a good option is way republicans and their sycophants are pissing their pants over him
No, that is not my point at all. The question is- was Clark giving honest analysis or not? Dobbs says no. Only Clark knows for sure.
1) Every retired general spoke in the same guarded words re: Iraq. 2) There are people that are asking Clark to join the race. He is not a candidate yet. 3) Were you chuck taylor once? When I ignored littlexxx and TJ, I noticed that I had ignored somebody named chuck taylor once. Was chuck taylor one of the 'personalities' (if you can call it that) of Say_Jack too? 4) check out an old article (Kaplan?) on Slate, in which it is argued that the way in which we decimated the Iraqis (yes T72s aren't complete jokes) was that we had bought off their generals. The 'worrywarts', of course, weren't aware of this (considering most people expect at least a bit of patriotism, even when the war is a lost cause... see Vietnam)... so in their defense, it was accurate to speak in guarded tones (but then again, anything that wasn't cowboy rhetoric was apparently treacherous, so I suppose I'm wasting my time). spot on friendly fan.
Let me get this straight. He was wrong, but even if he was right, he was wrong for saying it and should have said what he thought was wrong and that would have been right, and he would have been right. Yeah, it's huge news. I actually just had to tell my secretary to stop yapping over the phone about Lou Dobbs and Moneyline and get to work. Look, you hate clark just like you hate all other non-republicans, but now you're putting up this silly charade about how you are pretending to make an independent,non biased inquiry and finding out all these horrible things about him, apparently out of some sense of insecurity that he may unseat precious W. That's fine that you don't like him, but save the act, it's pointless.
Messenger of what? I see nothing of substance here, just an attempt to smear a man who served his country well for over 30 years, was wounded and decorated for valor, was thought highly enough to rise to Supreme NATO Commander, is a Rhodes Scholar, graduated first in his class from West Point, managed to get a Masters Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and still found time to have a family. Yes, this is a guy who would give aid and comfort to the enemy. What bullsh*t. I'm going to lunch.
