Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 4 Jan 2004

WES CLARK -- Washingtonpost.com PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SURVEY 11/21/03

General Clark's Campaign was asked to respond to this issues survey given to all candidates for publication in the Washington Post. “Where does your candidate stand on these issues? Please respond with 2-3 sentences.
ABORTION
Partial Birth/Late Term
Wes Clark is pro-choice. This is a moral issue and a matter of privacy for women and their doctors, not government and politicians. Wes Clark opposes the legislation signed by President Bush which outlaws a safe and sometimes medically needed procedure, even in circumstances where women will suffer serious harm to their health. Wes Clark believes that any ban on late-term abortion should make a real exception for the life and health of a woman.

Minor Consent
Wes Clark hopes that a young woman could always talk with her family in making any serious medical decision. Unfortunately, in extreme cases that is not always possible. That’s why Wes Clark thinks that any parental notification requirements must include an exception that either allows another responsible adult to give permission or allows judicial bypass.

Funding For U.N. Overseas Abortion Programs
Wes Clark opposes the global gag rule. He thinks it violates the doctor-patient relationship, jeopardizes women’s health and infringes on speech. He also supports restoring funding for international family planning, maternal and child care and the UN Population Fund.
CIVIL LIBERTIES
Patriot Act
Wes Clark believes that law enforcement needs all the tools necessary to deal with the problems of terrorism. But the Patriot Act was jammed through Congress without proper debate and Attorney General John Ashcroft has used it to go after crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism. Wes Clark is concerned that the Patriot Act expands the authority of government investigators too much without sufficient judicial oversight. That’s why Wes Clark will call on Congress to fully review each provision of the Act, study the ways each has been used, and eliminate provisions that threaten our civil liberties.

Gay Marriage/Civil Unions
It is in the best interest of America to promote stable communities and families, this includes both heterosexual and same-sex families. Accordingly, Wes Clark believes that same-sex couples should not be denied rights to pensions, health insurance, family medical leave, bereavement leave, hospital visitation, survivor benefits, and other basic legal protections that all families and children need.

Death Penalty

Wes Clark believes the death penalty should be available for the most heinous crimes. At the same time, he is concerned about reports of mistakes on death row, and errors and unfairness in our criminal justice system. The death penalty is too often applied in a discriminatory and uneven way. If we are to carry out the ultimate penalty, it must be with the ultimate safeguards.

President Bush Faith-Based Program
Wes Clark is committed to the separation of church and state. He is concerned that President Bush’s faith-based initiative has the potential to use federal funds to encourage religious coercion and discrimination. But Wes Clark believes that faith-based social programs have done excellent work providing much needed services around the country.

Affirmative Action
Wes Clark supports affirmative action. The well-designed diversity programs used in the military helped to create a diverse organization with significant numbers of minorities in leadership positions. And its diversity made the military more effective, not less. The U.S. military is proof that affirmative action can work.

Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
Wes Clark supports tough penalties for criminals that are involved in drug trafficking and violent crimes. We need to make sure that we are getting the right folks off the street, for the right amount of time. But mandatory minimum sentences should be the exception, not the rule. We need to make sure we leave judges enough discretion to make decisions based on the facts of individual cases.

ECONOMY
Deficit
Wes Clark has released a detailed plan, called the "Saving for America’s Future Plan," to save $2.35 trillion over ten years to reduce the deficit each and every year and invest in priorities like health care. Wes Clark’s plan saves money by streamlining government and making it more efficient, cutting corporate welfare, promoting a more effective and multilateral Iraq policy, and recapturing revenue from those provisions of President Bush’s tax cuts that go to families making more than $200,000 annually.

Taxes
Wes Clark believes that taxes should be as low as possible but as high as necessary to pay for urgent national priorities like defense, health care, and Social Security. Wes Clark strongly supports tax reform to make the tax code fairer, simpler, more progressive, and more pro-growth. This is not only fair for America’s workers, but also smart for the economy.

Unemployment
Wes Clark has released a detailed Job Creation Plan to jumpstart the economy and reverse President Bush’s record of losing more than 3 million private-sector jobs. The jobs plan takes $100 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy and uses the money to pay for job creation. The jobs plan invests in homeland security to keep America secure while creating jobs, provides fiscal relief so that hard-pressed states do not have to pass tax increases onto working families, and provides tax incentives for job creation and small business investment.

Corporate Governance
Wes Clark supports sound governmental policy that sets the right rules of the game ‚All common-sense rules that don’t impede the markets, but make them work more fairly, openly and efficiently, so that our economy will never be weakened again by the collapse of integrity we have seen in the Enron era.

Trade
Free trade has the potential to raise living standards both domestically and overseas, but it must be free and fair. Wes Clark would insist that all nations play by the rules while promoting trade. Wes Clark also believes that we should review all of our existing trade agreements to ensure that our trading partners are living up to their agreements to open their markets to U.S. products. And he believes that labor and environmental standards must be central elements of all new trade agreements.
EDUCATION
College Tuition
Wes Clark is concerned that too many Americans are finding that rising tuition costs are making it more and more difficult to go to college. Furthermore, our system of financial assistance to college students is unduly complicated and insufficient. Wes Clark will be presenting a plan to help every young person in this country get the chance to go to college.

Vouchers
Wes Clark opposes all measures that would weaken our public school system, including school vouchers. Wes Clark believes that the best way to educate our children is by strengthening the public school system, not taking resources away from them.

No Child Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind Act, as implemented by President Bush, has been a failure. It is wrong to impose a tremendous new mandate on states and local communities and then deprive them of the resources they need to succeed. The Bush Administration has focused too much on narrow tests and punishments, and too little on ensuring that every child can learn and succeed.

ENERGY
ANWR
Wes Clark believes that we should pass the pristine wilderness of ANWR onto our children just as we found it. He supports designating ANWR as a wilderness area, putting it permanently off limits to oil and gas development. We cannot drill our way to energy independence, and we should not spoil the splendor of ANWR trying.

Alternative Forms/Sources
Wes Clark strongly believes that the government has a role in encouraging the use of clean, renewable energy. He favors incentives to encourage use of hybrid and fuel cell cars, hydrogen power, wind power, and biomass. Transitioning towards clean and renewable fuels is vital for our environment, public health and security.

Mideast Oil Wes Clark believes it’s vital that America not be held hostage to oil markets controlled by Middle East countries that do not place America’s interests first. But he recognizes that we cannot drill our way to energy security. Rather, Wes Clark plans to decrease America’s reliance on all oil by encouraging efficiency and the development of alternative fuels and technologies, such as hydrogen, biofuels, hybrids and fuel cells.

Electricity Infrastructure A robust and reliable electrical grid is critical to our economic security and the public health and safety. In addition to mandatory reliability standards that were included in the energy bill, Wes Clark believes that greater regional coordination and planning through regional transmission organizations, the development of sound markets, and enhanced returns investors? in infrastructure upgrades will promote the development of an electrical grid for the 21st century. Moreover, Wes Clark will promote competition by supporting non-discriminatory access to the grid to ensure that the full range of competitors, including clean and renewable generators, will be able to help meet our future energy needs.
FOREIGN POLICY
U.N. Relations
As President, Wes Clark will work to repair America’s relationship with the United Nations following President Bush’s colossal failure there last winter and spring. He believes the United Nations has a central role to play in combating threats, including terrorism‚ and solving political and humanitarian problems around the world.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Wes Clark believes the United States must be actively involved in seeking a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He believes America must continue its historic and unshakeable commitment to the security of Israel. At the same time, America must do all it can to restore America’s leadership role as a peacemaker in the region to promote a two-state solution, which will provide security for Israel and self-determination for Palestinians.

Immigration Immigrants from around the world have helped build this country and make it the strong nation it is today. They are invaluable to our economy and a vital part of the work force. In light of 9/11 and other concerns, Wes Clark would tighten up our borders to ensure that fewer illegal immigrants get into this country. But Wes Clark believes that we need to find ways to ensure that law-abiding, undocumented workers have a way to eventually earn their citizenship. Immigration reform should meet the needs of immigrants themselves, as well as their employers and the larger community, and it should reflect the core values: economic security, family reunification, and homeland security.

N. Korea For the safety of the United States and the world, we must work to stop North Korea from developing an arsenal of nuclear weapons. As president, Wes Clark will actively engage North Korea in good-faith negotiations. His goal will be to implement a comprehensive, enforceable, verifiable agreement to freeze its existing nuclear weapons development and destroy materials and programs it may have already created.

When to Use U.S. Military Power Having devoted more than half his life to service in the U.S. army, Wes Clark understands that war must be a last resort‚ after all political, diplomatic, and other efforts to a problem have been exhausted. He will deploy the U.S. military when vital U.S. interests are at stake. As he showed in Kosovo, however, Wes Clark believes that as the world’s only superpower, morality sometimes compels America to intervene militarily to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

IRAQ
U.S. Involvement/Troops
Wes Clark opposed the war in Iraq, but he believes it’s vital that America not cut and run. We should help Iraqis rebuild and create a stable, democratic country that is no longer a threat to its neighbors. One element of Wes Clark’s four-part strategy for success in Iraq is to transform the force mix in Iraq from the current force, which is vulnerable to ambush and attack, to a flexible, agile, intelligence-driven force more capable of carrying out effective counter-insurgency and combating guerilla tactics.

Vote on the Iraq Resolution Wes Clark believes in supporting the troops, but he also believed Congress neglected its oversight role by failing to demand that the Administration provide a concrete success strategy to justify its $87 billion request. Given its record of failure and blunder in Iraq, General Clark opposes granting the Administration a blank check to continue these failures. It’s bad for the troops and does little to advance America’s goals in Iraq. General Clark would be prepared to provide substantial funds for reconstruction pursuant to his strategy for Iraq and, of course, would want to make sure that American forces have the funding and equipment they need to perform their mission.

Funding Post-War Iraq It’s imperative that we provide enough funding to achieve our goal in Iraq: a stable, democratic country that is no longer a threat to its neighbors. Wes Clark would work together with the international community, yielding political authority in return for more assistance from other nations and international institutions like the United Nations, NATO, and the World Bank. Finally, Wes Clark would insist on competitive bidding for all contracts in Iraq.

U.N. Role The United Nations is neither able nor willing to take over the military operations, but it should nevertheless play a central role in building a stable, democratic Iraq. America must include the United Nations not only in humanitarian efforts, but also in assisting the Iraqi people with building the political and civil institutions necessary for a successful democracy. A more robust U.N. role will relieve the burden on the U.S. and confer legitimacy on the new Iraqi government in the eyes of the world.

HEALTH CARE
Re-importation of Prescription Drugs
Wes Clark believes that Americans ought to be able to purchase safe, low-cost prescription drugs from Canada, subject to appropriate safeguards.

Expanding Medicare to Include a Prescription Drug Benefit America’s seniors need and deserve a comprehensive, meaningful and affordable prescription drug benefit through Medicare. Too many older Americans are faced with the untenable choice between needed medications and other necessities of life. Unfortunately, the bill currently before Congress does too little for America’s seniors and too much to reward HMOs and large drug companies. Wes Clark favors a drug bill that strengthens Medicare instead of undermining it by forcing seniors into HMOs.

Health Care Coverage Wes Clark has proposed a detailed health care plan that emphasizes: (1) Value: getting more bang for your health buck by emphasizing prevention, evidence-based medicine, disease management, use of information technology, and sensible cost-sharing, saving money while improving outcomes. (2) Affordability: providing tax credits for families of four making up to $90,000 to reduce their health insurance premiums. (3) Universal access to health insurance coverage: provides universal access to health coverage, insuring 32 million Americans, including all 13 million children and college-age adults who lack coverage today.

Malpractice Caps It’s clearly unacceptable that Americans in some areas cannot access the physicians they need because those doctors can no longer afford their malpractice insurance premiums. Wes Clark’s health plan would help prevent these problems from occurring in the first place by using the latest technology to reduce medical errors. In addition, Wes Clark believes that the civil justice system, like any other complex mechanism, is not perfect, and that anomalies must be corrected where excesses have been found. Wes Clark does not support putting caps on damages, as they do not really fix the problem and may prevent deserving victims from receiving compensation for their legitimate injuries.
HOMELAND SECURITY

Border Security Increasing border security is an important priority. Wes Clark’s Job Creation Plan includes a two-year $40 billion Homeland Security Fund that will be used, in part, to increase border security through training and equipment for customs and Coast Guard. Wes Clark would also work with other governments toward accomplishing shared objectives so that people who cross the border are prepared, screened, safe and not exploited by either side.

Transportation Security The Aviation Security Act addressed the major security issues in our aviation system, though there is still work to be done in this area, as recent security "tests" by news organizations and individuals have shown. Wes Clark’s homeland security plan will be used in part to fund transportation security initiatives like securing bridges, tunnels, trains and rail stations.

Funding for State and Local Homeland Security Needs States and localities have had a large increase in their homeland security responsibilities without a corresponding increase in their homeland security resources. In addition to dedicated homeland security funding, Wes Clark’s Job Creation Plan would also provide $40 billion over two years in fiscal relief for states and localities, helping them pay the cost of training and equipping first responders and local law enforcement.

Yes, he said it on MTP. I've also been looking for the exact quote. I know there was talk here on FR when he said it. Russert never called him on it, but everyone here was aghast -- never heard anything anywhere on any other media -- d'oh!

Any guesses as to how many times John F'n Kerry will remind us he served in Vietnam?

Great find -- I think this is showing Clark's Oxford education -- thanks to the great liberal, Cecil Rhodes.

While Chris Wallace is reading the talking points....he did allow Jim Gellespi to answer the question completely, so let me give him credit.......... Maybe Chris is on the side of truth....I'll give him another week......

Did you notice how Wallace took an after the bell cheap shot at Gillespie saying that Gillespie was using "talking points"? I miss Tony greatly.

notice how confident Juan is when neither Brit nor Charles K. are there to swat him around?

LOL! I'm gonna miss Juan getting whacked in the nose with the (rhetorical) rolled-up newspaper.

That makes two of us. We are leaving at 11 to go to a relatives house in Kenosha and watch the game on the big screen TV. Going to be a good time--if they win. Otherwise we will be driving home in a snowstorm and very depressed!

Notice how many issues he "supports, BUT"?

I thnk his handlers (including Mary, perhaps) have come up with this kind of defensive response to questions about his previous support for nearly everything President Bush favors.

One of the few non-defensive responses is his definite pro-choice position. Hillary! would never let her candidate be pro-life.

Clark is almost as whacky, but not many know it yet, and he does bring a military cred, and Clinton support with him. He's had the primary season to tune his message, drop the idiotic accusations from his stump speeches, etc. Clark is trainable and would stick his foot in mouth much less in the general election campaign.

Clark will be equally tainted as Dean, should he receive the demwit nomination. In fact, it will be more delicious to nab the bastards (Clark & Clinton) in their lies about Clinton firing Clark.

It's because some people switched when the Dem party started embracing Civil Rights and the GOP became for States Rights...

More REP. voted for the civil rights act than DEMS in 1964.

The reason John Ashcroft recused is because it leads to a prominent DEMOCRAT and he didn't want to be accused of politics before an election

There are several layers to the Wilson/Plame business that raise serious questions, none having to do with the Bush administration "leaking" Plame's name and/or occupation. I am hoping and praying that Fitzgerald is doing a very thorough investigation that will lay it all out. I will be very disappointed if the focus is the bogus charge of the name "leak".

Did you notice how Wallace took an after the bell cheap shot at Gillespie saying that Gillespie was using "talking points"? I miss Tony greatly.

Yeah, I caught that also... cheap shot indeed. I also really miss Tony Snow. Fox News Sunday is awfully dull now without him, IMO. What happened to the humor and fun music leading up to the commercial breaks?

FoxFan ping!

Please see #172. What say you, fellow FReepers?

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.

Clark's got plenty of baggage; being fired, wanting to attack the Russians at the Kosovo(?) airport, wearing the enemies cap, Admiral Shelton's telling comments, Weasely calling for help from his aide, "what do I think"....for starters, but only political addicts are aware of most of this. A complicit mainstream media will prop him up in a general election.

Fortunately, he's an empty suit, and his weak spots and ludicrous policies would become exposed during a campaign, but not as badly as Dean, imho.

Yes, I have. After his first week and he is still pitiful. It would be much more informative to watch the grass grow or if up north the snow fall.

Ok we aren't always current on the latest news ehre in Baghdad. Can someone tell me why Tony Snow is no longer the host of Fox News Sunday and why the son of Mike F'n Wallace is now the host?

Like many, I don't understand FOX trying to get along and be liberal...compassionate liberal TV we don't want. A typical sunday if I ran it would we host Brit Hume, with a panel of Gingrich, Tom Delay, Donald Rumsfeld, and if there has to be a dem, make it Barbara Boxer.

More REP. voted for the civil rights act than DEMS in 1964.

And that's why Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are Republicans, right?

...but only political addicts are aware of most of this. A complicit mainstream media will prop him up in a general election.

You're right, of course, about the mainstream media. They will got to extremes to protect anyone running against Bush, but will be helpless to watch the truth about Clark being told in endless political ads, which will result in the media HAVING to cover the story. That's the best part about our guy being in the White House. Much to the angst of his opponents, Bush has the bully pulpit and has used it quite well thus far.

That quote -- "country founded on a principle of progressive taxation" -- and more here:

http://www.issues2000.org/2004/Wesley_Clark_Tax_Reform.htm

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