Re: Michael Moore

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Whichever candidate will best serve the marketing needs of his next
> film? (Some of which, I hear, will be animated in China.)
>
> Dan Scanlan

February 11, 2004

Campaign Diary
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Farewell, Clark: "Dude, Where's My Candidate?"
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

We await Michael Moore’s concession speech after his hero, General 
Wesley Clark, tasted the ashes of defeat in Tennessee and Virginia and 
sensibly threw in the towel.

If Dean was the hero of the dot coms, Clark was a creation of the 
Arkansas-Hollywood axis embodied in Clinton-era stage managers such as 
Harry and Linda Thomason, Mary Steenbergen and Ted Danson. It was 
supposed to be The Man from Hope: The Sequel, this time with a genuine 
military officer, rather than Bill the Draft Dodger. The roll-out for 
the Clark campaign was Linda Thomason’s Native Son, alluding to Clark’s 
early years in Little Rock. At Clark’s elbow was Bruce Lindsay, former 
law partner of Bill Clinton and later his White House counsel. Lindsay 
put it about that Clark’s mission was to stop the meteoric surge of 
Howard Dean and Clark told reporters that the Clintons had urged to get 
into the race. In the weeks before the Iowa caucus Clark was the only 
Democratic candidate who was able to get Clinton to appear in a campaign 
commercial. Rep Rahm Emanuel, former Clinton White House staffer, 
declared for Clark. Further glitzy support came from the 
Detroit-Hollywood axis of Michael Moore and Madonna who, in the wake of 
her hero’s withdrawal, has now said she’s moving to France. Additional 
liberal backing came from the New York Review of Books, which ran an 
entire chapter of Clark’s unreadable campaign bio.

Tottering under the burdens of such sponsorship, Clark was soon 
sprawling in a heap of contradictions. He had supported the attack on 
Iraq, but now he opposed it. The war was launched under fraudulent 
pretences but yes, he had agreed with Bush and Rumsfeld about the menace 
of Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. It wasn’t long before his campaign was dead in 
the water as ordinary voters couldn’t figure what Clark was all about. 
Virginia was meant to be his big state, and he didn’t break into double 
figures.

Moral: get Bill Clinton or Al Gore throwing you their support and you 
sink like a stone to the bottom. At least Gore’s support of Dean was an 
honest bet on a man Gore thought was the likely winner and a good 
opponent to put up against Bush. As always, the Clintons were playing a 
selfish game. For them Clark’s function was to merely stop Dean, thus 
preserving their power within the Democratic National Committee. Day 
after day Clinton Mafiosi like McAuliffe, Carville and Begala worked the 
phones and the talk shows, deriding Dean and their onslaught was very 
effective.

full: http://www.counterpunch.org/

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