The historian Thomas Fleming is very critical of General Clarks character. He makes a quick examination of other generals who wanted to be president, including John J. Pershing, and concludes: "The bottom line of this rapid survey would seem to be fatal to General Wesley Clark. Like MacArthur and Pershing, he was a star at West Point, graduating first in his class. (Grant was in the lower middle of his class, Eisenhower likewise. Taylor skipped the whole thing.) During Clarks war in Kosovo, he was extraordinarily fond of getting his picture in the papers and on TV in his well tailored uniform. To the enlisted men this spells a damning phrase: glory hound. Moreover his war was an elitist operation in which all the fighting was done by a handful of pilots and techies in charge of cruise missiles. No large numbers of enlisted men served under Clark and learned to like his ways. Add it all up and Wesleys appeal to the American voters, outside the corps of desperate Democrats searching for someone to beat George Bush, is close to zero."
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