Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

just curious...since you seem to enjoy photoshopping so much, do you ever submit anything to the photoshop contests at fark.com or anywhere else?

I did >Here a few times, but I like to get in and out in 10 minutes or less. BTW, that Clark picture is not photoshopped

cool..i hadnt heard of that site before. might have to shoot a few over there myself.

They did call him the "Perfumed Prince" in NATO for a reason I reckon.

Too funny.

OH!!! I thought it was Johnny Carson.

Subject: The Democrats Best Shot??? BY JACK KELLY

Retired General Wesley Clark has thrown his helmet into the ring. He
has
improved the Democratic presidential field by entering it, just as he
improved the Army by leaving it. Clark is a brilliant man, and a brave
one. A Rhodes scholar, he was decorated three times for heroism as
commander of an armor company in Vietnam.

"Those of us who knew him as a captain thought the country would be
short-changed if he didn't rise to very high rank," said a retired Army
colonel who was a student of Clark's when Clark taught at West Point.
But Clark's kindergarten teacher probably noted that he doesn't play
well with others. Clark "is able, though not nearly as able as he
thinks, and has tended to put his career ahead of his men to the point
of excess," said a defense consultant well acquainted with the Army's
senior officers. "He is opportunistic and lacks integrity. He will be
an
absolute menace if he gets into a position where he can exert influence
on the Army because he lacks true vision and is prone to be
vindictive."

Clark "regards each and every one of his subordinates as a potential
threat to his career," said an officer who served under him when Clark
commanded a brigade of the 4th Infantry Division in the 1980s. An
officer who served under Clark when he commanded the First Cavalry
Division said he was "the poster child for everything that is wrong
with
the general officer corps."

Clark doesn't get along terribly well with superiors or with allies
either, which lead to his premature departure as commander of NATO.
Clark was CINCEUR when the Kosovo war began, and bears much of the
responsibility for President Clinton's decision to try to bomb Serb
dictator Slobodan Milosevic out of Kosovo. Clark argued that after a
few
days of bombing, Milosevic would fold his tent and slink away. When the
Serbs didn't budge after months of bombing, Clark lost Clinton's favor.
As the war dragged on, Clark advocated the use of ground troops. This
put him at loggerheads with Gen. Henry Shelton, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and with Gen. Eric Shinseki, chief of staff of
the Army, who thought this was a terrible idea. These generals faulted
Clark for getting America into an unnecessary war, and for having done
a
poor job of preparing for it.

"NATO did not expect a long war," wrote former Clinton national
security
aide Ivo Daalder. "Worse, it did not even prepare for the possibility."
The conduct of the war drew unprecedented criticism from Clark's
predecessor, Gen. George Joulwan, and a quiet rebellion by subordinate
commanders. "Clark found his control over ongoing operations eroding,"
wrote retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich. "Rather than the theater
commander, he became hardly more than a kibitzer."

What may have triggered Clark's early departure from NATO was a
confrontation with the British general who was to command NATO
peacekeepers. After a Serb surrender had been negotiated with the help
of the Russians, Clark ordered Sir Michael Jackson to parachute troops
onto the airport at the Kosovar capital of Pristina, so that NATO would
hold it before Russian peacekeepers arrived. Jackson refused. "I'm not
going to start the third world war for you," he told Clark, according
to
accounts in British newspapers. Shortly after the confrontation with
Jackson, Clark was told his tour as CINCEUR would end two months early.

Neither Shelton nor Defense Secretary William Cohen attended his
retirement ceremony, a remarkable snub for a four star general. Clark
read Milosevic wrong, helping to provoke the Kosovo war, which he then
fought badly. Clark picked up where he left off in his second career as
a television kibitzer of military operations. As an analyst for CNN,
Clark harshly criticized the war plan for Iraq devised by Gen. Tommy
Franks, the CENTCOM commander, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Clark turned out to be completely wrong. It says something fascinating
about the Democratic field that this failed general is the class of it.

I may have to give this more sunlight, but I'm busy at the moment. Thanks.