Shortly after Howard Dean asked General Clark to be his running mate, Mr. Dean said Wesley Clark was a "Republican." The facts tell a different tale.

The old joke about the Democratic Party is that our party often organizes itself as a circular firing squad. Indeed, it seems as if Democrats lose out on a broader agenda too often because of internal bickering. I am dismayed, therefore, that the individual carrying the mantle of honesty and straight talk this primary season, Howard Dean, is in fact dishonestly spreading fear and false allegations about General Clark, a man wounded in the service of his country, whose perseverance and integrity stopped a genocide and whose personal principles have engaged progressive social policy his whole life.

Howard Dean, after attempting to recruit Clark as his VP pick, claimed on Face the Nation that Clark was a Republican, and that Clark was a proponent of the war in Iraq. ''He was a Republican until 25 days ago,'' Dean commented. "I assumed he was a Democrat all along," Dean said. He continued, "I had assumed he was always against the war. It's not like he misled me. I just never asked him the questions." Both of these charges are simply untrue. Clark is not nor has he ever been a Republican. He has, however, supported the Democratic Party apparatus, and been one of the sharpest critics of Republican foreign policy, the failed leadership of George Bush and Tom Delay. Clark campaigned in 2002 for Democrats Katrina Swett, Max Cleland, and Tom Lantos, he voted in the Arkansas primary as a Democrat, and gave money to Democratic Senatorial candidate Erskin Bowles. Prior to this time, he served in the military for 34 years, a non-partisan institution that explicitly frowns upon partisan political involvement. Registered as an independent, Clark nevertheless voted for Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and Gore in 2000. His criticisms of the war in Iraq have been coherent, prescient, and devastatingly effective, and Clark was the most public defender of Michael Moore's passionate dissent at the Oscars.

Before Clark entered the race, Clark was actually an informal advisor to Dean's campaign. Indeed, Dean said about Clark: "His thinking has helped me enormously," he said in August. "Our views are strikingly similar on a lot of issues, including Iraq." Does this sound like someone who "never asked him the questions" about Iraq? No. And do Clark's positions on issues - pro-choice, in favor of a strong progressive tax system, multilateralism, teacher empowerment, pro-environment and alternative energy, and anti-tax cut - sound Republican? Of course not.

What gives Dean's charges, dishonest as they may be, credence, is that Clark spoke at both Democratic and Republican fundraisers in early 2001, and that he praised Bush's team in May, 2001, before 9/11 and before the aggressively unilateralist direction of this administration had taken shape. The path of Clark's return to the Democratic fold is illustrative, as it's the path most of America will understand, and will follow, in 2004.

Clark joined the Democratic Party earlier this year, after a gradual and sharpening disagreement with the direction of Bush's foreign and domestic policy team. The reason he did not join earlier, though, is because Clark himself was unceremoniously betrayed by Democratic administration officials after 34 years in the military and a stunning success in Kosovo, a military victory achieved despite tremendous internal opposition in the Pentagon and no American casualties. One month after this Balkan victory, Secretary of Defense William Cohen had Clark fired, and General Hugh Shelton leaked his firing to the press one hour after Clark himself was told. President Clinton disclaimed responsibility, and Clark retired, stunned, elegantly remaining silent on his ouster even though he had delivered the most important foreign policy success of Clinton's Presidency. (General Shelton has continued to this day to make vague accusations about Clark's character.) After the crude manner in which he was treated by the Democratic political leadership in the White House, Clark returned to civilian life and began to explore partisan politics and a business career. The Democratic Party suggested he run for Governor of Arkansas, the Republicans suggested he run for Congress.

This was a dark time for Clark. His principles had always been progressive. In his career, his actions have expressed a broad appreciation for social justice. In the early 80s as an army commander, he went beyond enforcing shiny shoes and clean barracks and addressed such incipient social problems as spousal abuse and teenage suicide in military families. He fought for preventative health care and empowerment of teachers, and reformed the entire model for instituting accountability in the armed forces. His exploration of the Republican Party, therefore, did not go well. In his own words, he said that after becoming discouraged, after trying to speak out and not being heard by the Republican Party, he came back, depressed, to Arkansas. He was sorting through the belongings of his biological father - Benjamin Kanne - and came across a small card which read "Delegate - Democratic National Convention".

Clark, as near to emotionalism as he allows, said "I knew then what I had to do, I had come home." And he is home. He campaigned for Democrats in 2002, he has criticized the Republican agenda, and he has presented a clear alternative, which Governor Dean, despite his angry tone of defiance, has not. This is likely why Howard Dean wanted Wesley Clark for his Vice Presidential choice. Indeed, the real story here is Clark's unmatched integrity and vision for a nation founded on public service and shared burdens, shared risks, and shared rewards, and his choice of the Democratic Party as that vehicle which best represents those ideals. This choice stands in stark contrast to Howard Dean, who, despite rhetoric of principled honesty, picks principles as they become politically convenient. In the early 1990s, before he represented the 'Democratic wing of the Democratic Party', Dean allied with Newt Gingrich in outspoken opposition to a strong Medicare and Social Security programs. Prior to the war in Iraq, Dean spoke about how Saddam Hussein probably had weapons of mass destruction, while after the war, he claimed he was the only Democrat not 'fooled' by Bush's claims that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, while it distresses all of us to countenance negativity on a fellow party member, Dean's attacks only serve to highlight Dean's own record of dishonest hypocrisy.

To those who claim Clark is late to the Democratic Party, that is undeniably true. But Clark is not new to public service, and he is not new to the principles of the Democratic Party. Indeed, there is nothing that represents Democratic Party principles and human rights more than stopping a genocide. Nothing. One could play the horserace game, and point out that General Clark is our best chance to take back the White House. More than that, Clark is our chance to take back our country and elect Democratic leaders on every level. Do not let rumors and scurrilous self-serving political gamesmanship prevent us from electing the greatest President we may well see in our lifetimes.

SOURCE: Clarkmyths.com which is no longer online.