Posted on 09/17/2003 1:52:09 PM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
September 17th, 2003
Dateline: Little Rock, Arkansas
Last night I decided that I would attend the Wesley Clark for President announcement.
As a Conservative Republican of longtime standing I would venture into “Enemy” territory and see what the lay of the land was with Clark and his grass roots band of miscreants.
It was a warm day of about 88 degrees and the turnout, excluding the media, was about 200 to 250 people.
Everyone from the Arkansas Democratic Party hierarchy was there, including Former Senator David Pryor, Congressman Marion Berry, Clinton Library Foundation Head Skip Rutherford, Former Governor Jim Guy Tucker, et al. A most eccentric and eclectic gathering from central Arkansas and around the state.
I mingled around before the ‘festivities” began and took a number of pictures. Security was not very tight so I was able to move around quite freely. I observed a number of Anti-Bush signs as well as the expected Clark banners, signs and lapel pins.
I finally situated myself right in front of the TV media grandstand so I could have a good view and who do I end up standing next to for the announcement but Former Governor Jim Guy Tucker and his wife Betty.
Of course being the polite gentleman I am I made small talk with Mr. Tucker and by standing next to him was able to beautifully blend in with the surroundings and not blow my cover.
As things started music was playing over the loud speakers and it was familiar but I could not place it. Turned out later I found out it was the theme from the Robert Redford baseball film “The Natural”. So guess General Clark somehow identifies with that movie and Robert Redford.
In any event he was introduced by first by Congressman Marion Berry and then Former Senator David Pryor, both of whom tried to link Clark to Generals Eisenhower & MacArthur. Pryor even tried using MacArthur’s most famous phrase, “Old soldiers never die they just fade away”, then added something to this effect,” they come out of retirement to answer the call to serve their country again as President of the United States”. Pryor was serving a up a lot of corn pone and the sycophants were eating up as fast as he could dish it out.
Finally General Clark takes the podium to make his “Official” announcement and then ramble on for about 15 minutes on the ills of the nation and making a number of jabs at President Bush and his administration.
He talked of his major economic speech that he would be giving in a few weeks with his secret plan to get the econmy growing again. He tried to link the current economy and it’s problems by harking back to President Herbert Hoover in the 1930's. It looks as if Clark is taking a page from Clinton’s 1992 campaign and will try and paint this as the worst economy since the Depression.
He also talked about how Americans no longer feel safe since 9-11 and that our civil liberties are threatened. Of course he forgot to mention this country is at war and we are on a war footing.
In essence he mouthed the current Democratic Anti-Bush talking points. I wonder if Bill Clinton wrote his speech, it sounded so like him.
At the end of his remarks he said, “Get ready, we’re moving out”. The only thing he forgot to add to that is ,”To the sound of the guns”. Wherever they might be. I remember Pat Buchanan using that kind of phrase during the 1996 primary campaign.
General Clark said he and his new command will be moving North to Iowa and New Hampshire to do battle. I suspect that Clark resembles more General George McClellan, the very cautious Civil War Commander that Lincoln fired, rather than General Ulysses S. Grant.
That was the end of the ceremonies and the General made his way through a receiving line of former Clinton sycophants trying to relive the past glory of years gone by.
All in all it was a pathetic scene with a very naive and circumspect Wesley Clark.
Before you get defensive I have a little experience in this area, along with 'hellinahandcart' and 'KLT.'
Bingo! This new canidate has the Clinton smell all over him. My guess is that the strategy is to have a "war hero" decry the recent military actions ordered by the President because that is the President's strong suit. After Clark goes on the attack (and the media fawns and gushes over him) to the point of nearly neutralizing the Presidents war record, that is when Hillary will step in. FWIW
Brit Hume or someone on his show last night said that the deadline would be Nov 21 (or Oct 21) for Hillary to file in either Iowa or New Hampshire.
Great report!
and while I understand perfectly, you could have done a little something irritating and therefore not worthy of a beating into pulp.
Afterall, as Thomas Jefferson said in his letter to William Smith...
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."
Guess the good Captain was doing recon, not a probing attack.
It would have been nice to ask Tucker something like: "I have this friend who's a Repub and always talks about the Arkancides around Clinton. Any truth to that? I always thought he was way wrong, but he actually makes it sound plausible."
Might have been interesting to hear Tucker's response, especially if Cap'n had established a rappoire with Tucker first.
Still, I can't fault the Cap'n for wanting to keep his knee caps. He did good.
Nitro, what do you think would have been good to try? (I'm interested in your ideas even though hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy for us to speculate after the Cap'n actually went out and did it and should be saluted for that.)
I can't say what I might have done in this particular instance, but check out my post #6 and see what I did do.
Bill, we were just having some fun NYC style.
I feel confident you would have jumped in and kicked a little ass if you saw your bud's in trouble!!
I've FReeped the ANSWER flotsam and jetsam here in the DC area. (ANSWER and IAC are both fronts for the communists of the Workers World Party.) We've had several FReepers assaulted, but fortunately the assaults have been very minor, probably similar to the pushing that you got at IAC in NYC.
I would strongly recommend having police nearby if one is going to FReep the ANSWER crowd. Last April when DC Chapter FReeped ANSWER, it was a line of DC's Finest who prevented dozens of the leftist thugs from bashing our skulls in (they said that was there plan). We had about a dozen FReepers vs. thousands of leftists with an anarchist contingent of several hundred including dozens ready to bash our skulls.
You're right that I would come to the aid of a true patriot such as yourself, but I'll avoid confronting large groups of ANSWER and similar Marxist and anarchist thugs without police presence.
I'm surprised that 4 or 5 of them did not seriously attack you after you were run out of their treason planning session.
You are a very brave patriot!
If a Freep is in the offing, you stay home!!
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