September 25, 2003

WESLEY WOE

General Hugh Shelton’s criticism of Wesley Clark, a topic ’o the day throughout blogdom, has been noted by the NY Times:

A spokeswoman for the campaign, Kym Spell, said, "General Clark has served his country for 34 years and for General Shelton to make these comments came as a surprise and a huge disappointment."

I bet. It’s a surprise also that the NYT is among the first to run Shelton’s criticism. That paper could end up being quite influential one day.

UPDATE. The Boston Globe runs it, too. The weird thing about this is that the comments were made two whole weeks ago, and went unreported; in the 24 hours they’ve been in the public domain, they’ve caused a mini-firestorm. And here’s Deborah Orin in the NY Post:

Democratic Internet-land was frantic yesterday with e-mails zooming out a killer quote from Clark's ex-boss, respected former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Hugh Shelton, who sure isn't as crazy about him as Bill Clinton.

Posted by Tim Blair at September 25, 2003 05:13 PM
Comments

In response, Democrats will immediately commence a frontal assault of personal destruction on General Hugh Shelton. If only they were so tough on Castro, Saddam, or their KKK spokesman Senator Byrd.

Posted by: perfectsense at September 25, 2003 at 06:58 PM

The NYT newspaper has been having some lucid moments lately. It is almost becoming credible.

But, I'm sure it's only going thru a hormonal change and will soon be talking again in a high pitch.

Posted by: John J. Coupal at September 26, 2003 at 12:02 AM

I heard about that comment on a talk radio show the day it was made. People were commenting on it for a while. Never heard it on any news casts.

I get very angry with some of the 'news' organizations because they waste precious air time(or column space)reporting on Hollywood stars, like JLO and Ben. I can't figure out why the news should be given over to entertainment reporting.

I'd be willing to bet the papers that did NOT report on Shelton's statement DID report on JLO and Ben's non-marriage. Are there that many people that want it reported as news?

I'm sick of having Hollywood gossip treated as news. I'd much rather hear about *real news*.

Posted by: Chris Josephson at September 26, 2003 at 04:56 AM

Gen. Shelton's comments were reported in a very local weekly, the Los Altos Town Crier. Bloggers spread the word and the story was picked up by the bigs.

In my first job out of college, I was copy editor of the Town Crier. Trust me: It's a small paper. The Crier does not typically break national news. We were all over the garden clubs, though.

Posted by: Joanne Jacobs at September 27, 2003 at 03:45 AM

I guess Shelton's comments are interesting in a gossipy kind of way, but everyone already knows that Shelton dislikes Clark. His cowardly shot at Clark's "character" says a lot about Shelton. If Shelton's got some objective statement about Clark's behavior, views, etc, "out with it", otherwise, its just sounds like a guy who thought he put the knife in Clark's back for good, only to find out that Clark's not only bounced back, but has a good shot at being president of the United States. Must really irk Shelton.

Posted by: pj at September 27, 2003 at 08:47 AM

pj -- ha, ha, are you behind the curve.

Shelton had a VERY objective statement about Clark's demeanor and soldierly conduct -- he had him fired as SACEUR for being a grandstanding loudmouth who routinely violated the chain of command.

Truman fired MacArthur for similar conduct, and MacArthur had it coming, too.

Check out the latest issue of Newsweek. Clark's conduct at NATO (the fraternizing with Mladic, the leaks to the press, the order to assault the Russians holding Pristina airport) was so outrageous that even his patron Bubba Clinton didn't intervene to save his career.

Posted by: furious at September 27, 2003 at 05:49 PM