http://www.esquire.com/cgi-bin/printtool/print.cgi?pages=9&filename=%2Ffeatures%2Farticles%2F2003%2F030801_mfe_clark.html&x=59&y=14The article that gets into the soul of Wes Clark.....
snip
He gets his hair cut every two weeks. He swims every day he can, even when he's on the road, and when he can't he runs. Indeed, from the general's head to the general's toes, there's no part of him absent the imprint of his overarching will: He's taut and springy, with wide and slightly hunched shoulders that flare from the constriction of his narrow waist. He is in the habit of sticking his hands in his pockets, especially when he's making a speech, but even his nonchalance is purposeful. People at his speeches can be heard to remark, "He's small" when he glides to the stump, but he's not really; he's around five ten and not so much diminutive as compressed, like a man who never exhales. His stride is at once jaunty and athletic and somewhat artificial, like the stride of a man who has devoted time to teaching himself how to walk . . . as, in fact, he has, after getting shot four times in Vietnam. Taught himself to walk again, without a limp, despite the fact that a quarter of his calf muscle was gone; taught himself to shake hands manfully, despite the loss of the muscle around his right thumb. He had to learn those things because, as his wife says, he was desperately afraid of being profiled out of the Army. Can't be a general if you're a gimp. The only thing he couldn't do was teach himself how to play basketball again, because no matter how many hours he spent alone in the gym practicing his foul shots, he couldn't stabilize the ball. . . .
snip
This is what the general does. He internalizes his opponents—those on the other side of an issue or a battle—so that he may prevail over them. As an unintended consequence, he is a gifted mimic, whether of O'Reilly, Slobodan Milosevic ("General Clark, he obeys orders; he is like dog"), or, on one afternoon at WaveCrest, George W. Bush. His mimicry does not amount, in the case of our president, to mockery. It is simply his way of judging what Bush may have on the Democratic field so that he may judge what the Democratic field might possibly have on Bush. He is sitting in his office, eating lunch, talking about what might convince him to join the field or stay away. He is talking about running for president and saying that the mistake he does not want to make is the one that's most common: the mistake of finding the reason to run not in oneself but rather in one's opinion of the guy already holding office. "They look at him and say, ‘Hey, I'm smarter than that guy. If that guy can do it, it must not be that hard.' Well, they're wrong. It's hard. It's the hardest thing in the world. So you better have another reason." It's not the lure of power. He's had power. He was arguably the most powerful man in Europe and definitely one of the most powerful men in the world, and so he is not lusting for power so much as he is weighing his desire to "make a contribution" against what he believes is the ultimate consideration for anyone running for president against George Bush: "how much pain you can bear."
MORE
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
