"I would have been a Republican"

[Bandit]

“I would have been a Republican,” Clark told them, “if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls.”
Sounds like he really has a solid Democratic Idealogy. For all of you that are going ape over Clark this statement should tell you how deep his beliefs run.

[Bertrand]

1. Stop it

Stop smearing other Dems and look towards promoting the ideas of your candidate instead of tearing down others. Man.


Edited for clarification.

[Bandit]

4. I post a quote and you say I'm tearing someone down.

Give me a break. Clark said that not me.

[JVS]

6. Ha ha!

Sorry, but having some sense of loyalty to the party is an issue. Look at how bad some green voters get raked over the coals here. Clark is no exception.

[Bertrand]

11. What you fail to mention (or realize)

is that there is actually proof that clark never called the whitehouse because of their records, and clark claimed to have been kidding. It then becomes a matter of word, that between Clark and the two GOP who claim otherwise. There's nothing solid about this story, so why would you go down to this level in order to smear someone that has the potential to defeat bush in 2004?

[JVS]

13. I didn't go down to that level

But the fact that the anecdote has legs speaks volumes.

[StephNW4Clark]

18. What?

I'm sorry, but that point is completely ridiculous. It has legs because Clark has emerged as a viable candidate and people are looking for anything - true or not - to stick to him. It has "legs" because it is sensational - not because it is valid.

[JVS]

21. Have you ever heard a joke about Jimi Hendrix and choking on a sandwich?

NO! Because that is a Mama Cass joke. When a joke circulates about someone it usually is based on what is known about them. Rephrase the Clark story in terms of Kucinich and it won't work at all.

[oustemnow]

29. This is "Gore says he invented the Internet" Part II

it's really sad that some DUers are falling for it.

[dfong63]

23. not smearing a dem

Stop smearing other Dems and look towards promoting the ideas of your candidate instead of tearing down others.

Clark is a phony, not a real dem. he fundraised for the GOP in 2001, and wouldn't even admit he was a dem until 2 weeks ago. now you're saying we can't criticize him because "he's a dem". sheesh. he even "jokes" about how he would have preferred to be a repub if they'd treated him better. it's not about which party is better for the country, it's about which party is better for Wes Clark's ambitions.

Clark wants to benefit from people's loyalty to the dem party, yet he himself has shown zero loyalty to that party. bah.

[iambe]

25. You must really have a love/hate thing going with clark

You post the exact same message in every single thread about him. I think it's too bad you have such a closed mind. Why not wait until you hear him speak in the debate?

[liberalhistorian]

2. Sounds to me like Clark was making a joke

and that you have absolutely no sense of humor!

[Pepperbelly]

3. Thats so ... yesterday ...

And as it turns out, Wesley is PROVEN to have been cracking wise with the two wingnuts because there were no calls from Clark to Rove.

[xray s]

8. Like the old Cherokee said...

[Eloriel]

16. Proven?

Not to me. Got links?

Eloriel

[StephNW4Clark]

19. Read the whole thread

[QC]

5. 3 threads on this topic w/ more than 140 replies already.

If you're actually interested in the subject, you might try a search and pull up the earlier threads.

[StephNW4Clark]

7. Clark Never Called Karl

Clark Never Called Karl
Wesley Clark says he would have been a Republican if Karl Rove had returned his phone calls. White House phone logs suggest otherwise.
by Matthew Continetti
09/22/2003 1:45:00 PM

Matthew Continetti, editorial assistant

"WHEN WILL Wesley Clark stop telling tall tales? In the current issue of Newsweek, Howard Fineman reports Clark told Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and University of Denver president Mark Holtzman that "I would have been a Republican if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls."

Unfortunately for Clark, the White House has logged every incoming phone call since the beginning of the Bush administration in January 2001. At the request of THE DAILY STANDARD, White House staffers went through the logs to check whether Clark had ever called White House political adviser Karl Rove. The general hadn't. What's more, Rove says he doesn't remember ever talking to Clark, either. "

[Skittles]

10. THANK YOU

Bandit, it couldn't possibly be the Rove smear campaign in action, could it? STOP BEING SO F***ING NAIVE.

[Pastiche423]

26. What's to be naive about?

clark, by his own omission, voted repug until he was 44 fucking years old! I submit that more than half of DUers that post, are under that age. Think about it, youngins.

And you want people to believe it's RW propaganda that he's a true blue Dem???

Who's being naive here?

[iambe]

30. You seem kind of paranoid

Don't you think people can change political affiliations? Of course, whether you support Clark is up to you.

[Bandit]

12. So you are saying someone is lying?

I would suspect the whitehouse to be the one but who knows.

[Skittles]

15. F*** YES THEY ARE LYING

WAKE THE F*** UP

[QC]

24. Do you mean to say that a Republican might smear an opponent?

Say it ain't so!

[Kahuna]

9. This is a dupe and has already been hashed out...

Results = another petty attempt to smear Clark.

[_NorCal_D_]

14. Enough.

Didn't we go through this already?

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[msanger]

20. and clark eats dead babies too.

I heard it from a very reliable source. no kidding. Very reliable. But is was off the record.

He also informed me that, dean eats kittens for breakfast, kerry loves to snack on the puppy dog brains, and kucinich.... it would make you gag.

Bush on the other hand, only eats wheaties, apple pie, and mom.

[RC]

22. Bu$h eats

Mom?

[Hippo_Tron]

27. LOL that's hillarious... n/t

[ermoore]

28. Look . . .

Two things are possible here. Obviously someone is lying. It's either Clark or it's the Whitehouse.

Now, Clark definitely said that. It's in Newsweek. I don't think Karl Rove's power extends so far as to fabricate a quote in Newsweek Magazine. I haven't heard of Clard denying it either.

That means that either Clark was lying about making the calls or the WH was lying about never receiving any calls. The WH has records so in the public eye (obviously not the DU eye) that lends it a certain amount of credibility. I can't imagine that Clark would lie about that, but whatever . . . it's not important.

The point is Clark was *this* close to being a Republican. *This* close. It seems to me that Clark's chief qualification for the nomination is that he has the best chance to beat Bush, but doesn't his ideology matter? I mean apparently Clark could very well be running on a Republican ticket if Gore had won the 2000 contest.

I guess I'm just asking if it bothers anyone else that Clark was that close to being a Repube? Is the only thing anyone cares about anymore beating Bush? Doesn't ideology matter too? I mean, why not have a Clark/Lieberman ticket? Ok, I'll stop.

[iambe]

32. I understand your concern

I think once Clark enters the debate with the other Democrats, there will be a real answer and not all of this second-guessing.

[Pastiche423]

33. Yes it bothers me

A LOT!

Democratic ideology matters to me A LOT!

If clark is a true blue Dem, then I am a true blue repug.

[oustemnow]

34. third and most likely possibility is that he was cracking wise

and the Standard (who had a damn editorial assistant write the story because even the right-wing hacks didn't want their names on it) reported it as an earnest statement. You do recall the whole brouhaha about Gore saying his mother sang "Look for the Union Label" to him as a child. And then--OMG!--it turns out the song was written much later than that?

Turned out it was a joke, reported as a serious remark. How soon some people forget.

Here's a tip: WHen a supposed news article starts with the lead, "When will Wesley Clark stop telling tall tales?" that's a pretty good clue that there's an agenda at play.

[QC]

35. "Clark definitely said that. It's in Newsweek."

Now there's a statement that really takes one's breath away. It must be true, because it was in a news magazine.

If you will read the article, a couple of things will stand out:

1. The author is Howard Fineman, who never met a Republican ass he could resist kissing.

2. Even Fineman does not claim to have heard the remark himself. The story was relayed to him by two particularly nasty Republican ideologues. Google their names if you don't believe me.

It's quite a leap to take a secondhand story relayed by two committed Busheviks to a particularly credulous reporter and treat it as a metaphysical certainty.

[FDRrocks]

31. All the dignity...

of Colin Powell?

He would've been a republican, but now he can be president with a little D, woohoo!