Reply #18: Counterspin Central

[Donna Zen]

HOW THE GOP WILL ATTACK CLARK: The campaign of rumor, innuendo and attacks against Wesley Clark will get extremely vicious. It will make the attacks on John McCain during the South Carolina GOP primary look tame in comparison.
For a rundown of the lines of attack, read this PeePer thread on Clark.

Among the attacks that will be launched on Clark are:

1) He's just a front for Hillary and Bill Clinton. Mostly, he will be portrayed <sub>as Hillary's Presidential stalking horse. There will be rumors flying that he would entertain asking her to join the ticket as his VP.

2) He's an unstable hothead who "almost started World War III." This line of attack has already been raised, ironically, by Katrina Vanden Heuvel on the pages of The Nation. That incident was less aggressive and hotheaded than it seemed. From the Washington Post:

"When the NATO allies realized, late on June 11, <1999> that the Russians were moving men toward Pristina, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the NATO commander, speedily devised a plan to deploy NATO troops by helicopter to the Pristina airport, creating the possibility for the first NATO-Russia confrontation since the end of the Cold War. But British Gen. Michael Jackson, head of the peacekeeping force, argued that such a move would upset the delicate arrangements he had negotiated with Yugoslav officers on their withdrawal from Kosovo, and Clark's plan was dropped."
In context, it's explainable. Read the Post article about the Russian plan to deploy over 1000 troops into Kosovo to stake out a Russian Zone of influence, and to preempt NATO. Later, it turns out, British troops DID confront the Russians at the airport:

"A top British military official tried angry words and body language, but failed Sunday to persuade Russian soldiers to allow British troops to enter the airport in the capital of Kosovo.
Control of the Pristina airport has become an unexpectedly tense issue since early Saturday, when Russian troops moved into the city ahead of British peacekeepers. The Russians settled at the airport, which was supposed be the headquarters for the international peacekeeping operation.

-----snip-------
I also seem to remember the Clinton administration taking a ton of criticism from Congressional Republicans about letting the Russian take the Pristna airport unchallenged. I may be wrong, but I swear they were attacking Clinton on this very issue. If some enterprising soul wants to dig that up, it might be very helpful. If not, I will do so at a later time.

3) He was involved in the Waco disaster. Clark commanded the 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas at the time of the Waco siege. Gun nuts and militia wackos will go bananas over this allegation.

4) They will repeat the smear perpetuated by George Will and the Weekly Standard that Wesley Clark lied about being contacted by the White House to hype the Iraq-9/11 connection.

5) They will try and downgrade his military service, which will be hard to do.

6) They will, probably in the "confederate" South bring up his Jewish ancestry.

7) He did not get along with his colleagues in the military. This is an effort to portray him as arrogant and aloof. Unable to work with people, etc. In other words, they will portray him as another Douglas MacArthur. Of course, to rightwingers, MacArthur was a hero.

It's unlikely that George W. Bush or most national Republicans will bring up some of these things directly. But you can bet that talk radio and the internet will be spreading this stuff like wildfire. I also wouldn't rule out "sympathetic" groups taking out radio adds, or doing push polls with these attacks.

The Clark campaign better damn well get ready to fight back against this stuff...hard. Ruthlessly, in fact. If I were Clark, I'd start hammering Bush for going AWOL. Believe it or not, while this is common knowledge to those who read this blog, most of the American public has no foggy clue about it. If Clark started hammering Bush on it, every day on the stump...and running campaign ads in key states, it would really get a lot more traction. .
But, he should hold back on it until Bush and Rove start unleashing the deluge of toxic waste I've listed here.

ADDENDUM: I should probably point out that I believe the Bush folks are, at this very moment, rifling through Gen. Clark's service record, NATO files, and any other scrap of paper that has anything to do with Wesley Clark.
Activity that, at one time, would have justified the appointment of an Independnet Counsel.

UPDATE: Sure enough, as Scoobie Davis discovered, Rush used many of these very attacks against Clark today.
And, of course, this drumbeat will go on day after day after day...without any balance. So much so, that Rush's listeners will actually believe all of this, even though 99% of it is complete bunk.

It will be repeated on every conservative radio show today, and for weeks afterward. Everytime Clark does something, it will be rehashed. Eventually, the rednecks and others who regularly listen to these jokers will assume its true, and start repeating it like a mantra.

By that time, it will be too late to rebut the charges in the traditional media.
That's how it works, folks.
That's why we have to fight back against this stuff now. And with both guns blazing

Hesiod // 9/17/2003 06:46:25 AM
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Wow...I hope you get to read this everyone. Should I report our recent citings of these activities in liberal forums. Hmmmm?

http://www.counterspin.blogspot.com/2003_09_14_counterspin_archive.html#106379711994726685</sub>