September 26, 2003 - On May 11, 2001 when the Bush Administration was just short of 4 months in office Retired General Wesley Clark spoke to the Pulaski County Republicans’ annual Lincoln Day Dinner in his hometown, Little Rock Arkansas. He told the GOP fundraiser that, “[I]'m very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice... people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there." He went on to give the Reagan credit for improving the lot of the military. He told the Pulaski County GOP that America’s military presence in Europe was welcomed and necessary. “I've learned from Europe is that are a lot of people out in the world who really, really love and admire the United States. Don't you ever believe it when you hear foreign leaders making nasty comments about us. That's them playing to their domestic politics as they misread it. Because when you talk to the people out there, they love us. They love our values. They love what we stand for in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights”, he told them.

What was the man who is now seeking to unseat the Bush Administration talking about four months to the day before the assault on America? Well, he saw an administration whose Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had told the world on February 24th “[Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." Just five days after Clark spoke the Secretary of State Powell said that America had kept the Iraqi in a box for the past 10 years so that he had been unable to either rebuild his military or develop weapons of mass destruction. Condoleezza Rice was saying, “Saddam does not control the northern part of the country. We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” That was the face the Bush Administration was showing to the world when Wesley Clark spoke in Little Rock.

Four months later the Bush administration was showing a different face to the world. The Justice Department commenced to demonstrate that it did not share the Europeans’ affection for the principles contained in Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Powell and Rice were singing from a different page than the one General Clark has praised them for. Clark was not a blind man and when he saw that the Administration was not what he thought that it was he began to look closer and did not like what he saw. He saw a concerted assault on the principles he held. Had Ken Rove “returned his calls”; had the President charted a different course; then General Clark would not be seeking the Presidency today.