For the radical right, there is no bigger boogie man than Bill Clinton. We provide some perspective on President Clinton's relationship with General Clark.

The right-wing is now claiming that Clark was Clinton's General, that there is and always has been some secret alliance between the two men; even Congressional members are asking if Clark is a 'stalking horse' for Hillary Clinton. Spencer Ackerman's 9/25/03 brilliant article in the New Republic reveals that not only was Clark not 'Clinton's General', but Clark continually fought against a Clintonian military and was ultimately fired because of his principled opposition to half-hearted measures and false antiseptic measures. Indeed, it was conservative like Thomas Donnelly who now call Clark 'Howard Dean in uniform" that railed against his dismissal and lauded his heroism. After Clark's dismissal, Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institution wrote that Clark "was cast aside by his political masters."

In contrast to Clinton's promise of having no ground troops in Kosovo, Clark repeatedly and unsuccessfully pushed for more forces, ground troops, and much more aggressive policy to stop the ethnic cleansing. Indeed, alone in the military, Clark pushed for intervention in Rwanda to stop the ethnic cleansing that led to the slaughter of millions. Clark has never shied away from the use of force, unlike the Pentagon, and Clinton.

Indeed, Clark's delayed entrance into the Democratic Party might be traceable to his abrupt and callous dismissal at the hands of William Cohen, Clinton's Secretary of Defense, and Clinton's failure to back a successful General who had won him a war, and, in retrospect, one of Clinton's most important foreign policy legacies.