Clark tries to ride above criticism
'Keeping my eye on what's good for America'
 |
Wesley Clark speaks with students during a campaign stop at the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, on Friday.
Story Tools
VIDEO
|
CNN's Jeff Greenfield on how the caucus process works.
CNN's Bill Schneider on the ongoing partisan divide in the electorate.
|
SPECIAL REPORT
|
|
|
CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) -- Increasingly under attack by his Democratic rivals, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark is holding his fire, for now.
"I don't want to get into the conventional politics mode," he said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. "There may come a time when I'm going to have to talk about other people. I'm not going to say I never will ... (but) I'm keeping my eye on what's good for America."
Attacks by some of Clark's eight rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have intensified as he rises in New Hampshire and national polls. A tracking poll released Thursday showed Clark in second place in New Hampshire, trailing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. (CNN.com's interactive Election Calendar)
The fresh round of attacks include Dean fliers headlined, "Wesley Clark: Real Democrat?" and Sen. Joe Lieberman's criticism this week both of Clark's new tax plan and his old statements on the war in Iraq.
Clark now says he would not have voted for the congressional resolution that authorized President Bush to launch military strikes against Iraq.
But during a New Hampshire visit in October 2002 for congressional candidate Katrina Swett, Clark said he supported the resolution and would advise Swett to vote for it if she were in Congress.
"I just had lost track of where the resolution was," Clark said, explaining that he favored a version of the resolution that would have required Bush to return to Congress before going to war.
"I wasn't a candidate, I wasn't in the military, I didn't have a staff, I didn't have a briefer, I was in a business, and I was up here to do her a personal favor," he said.
Although he isn't responding to specific attacks, Clark made subtle comparisons to his rivals, counting among his advantages the places where he grew up and lived during his military career.
"I did grow up in the South and I think if you grow up in the South there are things you understand," he said.
"I don't support cultural stereotyping, but there are things that you take in from your environment, wherever you live."
On judicial appointments, Clark said he would nominate judges who respect precedent, including the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Judges who reach beyond precedent in either direction overstep their duties, Clark said.
"You don't suddenly reach over here and say, 'Hey, we're going to pull this in.' That's for the legislative branch to do."
Clark, who has said he opposes the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for homosexuals, also said he was unaware of the military's policy against gays until he was confronted with a case as a commander.
"It had just never come up to me," he said. "I'd been in the Army almost 15 years, never seen this, it wasn't an issue as far as I was concerned."
At the time, the military regularly dismissed all homosexuals.
Now, it dismisses soldiers only if they volunteer that they are gay. Clark said the policy isn't working and he would ask military leaders to come up with a replacement.
One possibility might be something similar to British policy, which he summed up as "don't ask, don't misbehave."
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
