Obama can pick someone other than Clark at this point. Clark almost sounds better for President than Obama does now. Every other VP selection right now have been relatively silent on the issue of Russia. I just do not see any other them, even with vaunted foreign policy experience, as being capable of dealing with the issue. Now is not the time to learn Russian history and you can't really deal with that 3am phone call if you don't know how to talk to the person on the other end of the line.

soon we'll know.

Clark will almost certainly play an important role in an Obama administration.  Obama doesn't have to choose him as VP to take advantage of his expertise.

A former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO is looking better and better. Right now, I'd be stunned if it wasn't Obama/Clark.

Everyone always pigeon-holes Wes Clark into a military position but that is such a fraction of his worth and his expertise.  Besides...he will have only been out of the military for 9 years in 2009 and the roolz say it must be 10. Put him where he'd do the best job and where he can function superbly - Wes Clark for President!

He's a valuable ally to Obama. He'll undoubtedly be SecDef.

The Department of Defense executed an about-face a little while ago in that while they used to say that their role was exclusively fighting and winning wars and that they weren't suited to other soft-power duties like humanitarian work, that's now been accepted as part of their strategic operations as a consequence of some of the lessons learned in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Army's new field manual even makes a specific point of saying that future conflicts won't be won by force alone, but require interagency cooperation between the military and the government's informational, economic and diplomatic entities.

I don't see anyone on the national stage who understands that as well as Wes Clark, with the possible exceptions of Lee Hamilton and James Baker, who incorporated economic and diplomatic proposals into the overarching plan for the Iraq Study Group.  We need 21st Century leadership at the DoD and State to meet the challenges posed by these 21st Century conflicts.  And considering how Bush and McCain fought to strip out all the 'soft power' provisions from the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, I think it's pretty clear we won't get that 21st Century leadership if the Republicans win in November.

Secretary Gates has already been urging a more rational mix of soft and hard power for the last two years.

Would that be all of the soft-power?  Gates is better than the last SecDef we had, but he's still succumbed to the rest of the Bush administration's governing philosophy of saying one thing but doing another.

Ask the former Air Force Secretary, the former Air Force Chief of Staff, the former Army Secretary, the former head of U.S. Central Command, and the former chief Army surgeon if he followed through on his promises to hold people accountable.  They all got fired for poor performance.

The problem in Iraq is that there are no diplomatic efforts to create a long term political solution.  Gates doesn't run the State Dept.

The headline today at the NYTs is "Obama's Southern Strategy Leaves out Arkansas, so Far." It makes the point that Arkansas has Dem Governor, Dem reps, Dem Senators. But why waste cash in Arkansas if they are going to put in Wes as VP in August? He will bring them in automatically.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Thanks.

Over at Kos, Wes Jr. made the following comments last night about his Dad and any chances that he's under consideration:

my father hasn't even been asked to speak at the convention, let alone had any conversations with the Obama campaign regarding the VP slot.  He is simply not being considered.  

http://www.dailykos.com/commen...

Half of the military would quit if Clark gets SECDEF.

Since he's not eligible per the 10 year civilian rule.
BTW, which half would quit?

prides itself on tradition. It doesn't like it when people move up the ladder too fast without getting their due. Some people are genuinely smart and others know how to work the politics of the job. I don't see that as negative even if some in the military do. If they want to quit, they are quite capable of doing that as it is still a volunteer military. But how do you think the business world will look at this that all these people quit because they didn't like their boss. Executives would say "suck it up and deal with it."

Maybe the half that loves and emulates Petreus? It might not be fifty percent.

So I don't understand this comment.  He has never failed to give Petreus his highest due and credit and, in fact, Clark spoke to him frequently by cell phone while Petreus was in-theatre.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

they'll be feeling the effects of this decision. I won't vote Republican but it doesn't say anywhere that I have to vote at all. Barack Obama has to measure carefully his decisions and not including, even in some small way, those who could be potential and valuable allies is incredibly foolish. I don't know how enthusiastic I am supposed to be for change when we aren't utilizing our full resources.