SONICFROG DOT NET

Maverick v. Maverick?

    

Would you consider Wesley Clark to be a Maverick? Consider this from a Newsweek article about Clark and his relief of NATO command in 1999:

Since his days at West Point, Clark has been something of a loner…. Clark gloried in being the lone warrior, the take-no-prisoners intellectual. “It’s very difficult to stop this ambitious man,” said one of his European peers during the war. His colleagues might admire and envy Clark, but few actually liked him.

and this:

Clark’s fights with other NATO commanders were legendary. Early in the conflict, he ordered up a task force of Apache tank-busting helicopter gunships, after going to the White House over the protests of the U.S. Army chief of staff, Gen. Dennis Reimer. The Army dragged its feet and took nearly a month just to reach the theater–and never did fire a missile in anger. At the end of the war, Clark was so anxious to stop the Russians from stealing a march to Pristina airport that he ordered an airborne assault to take the field before them. But Gen. Mike Jackson, the British commander on the ground in Kosovo, wouldn’t carry out Clark’s orders. Subsequently, a frustrated Clark asked Adm. James Ellis Jr., the American officer in charge of NATO’s Southern Command, to order helicopters to land on the runways so big Russian Ilyushin transports couldn’t use them. Ellis balked, saying Jackson wouldn’t like it. “I’m not going to start World War III for you,” Jackson later told Clark. Both Jackson and Clark appealed to their political leadership back home for support. Jackson got all the help he needed; Clark didn’t. Effectively, his orders as Supreme Commander were overruled.

Sounds pretty Maverickey to me.

You know how “Conventional Wisdom” says that people who are a lot alike often don’t get along. Concerning failed presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark’s recent statements about McCain; I wonder if there might be just a little bit of jealousy of the fellow Maverick’s political success??? Is the unlikeable maverick jealous of the likeable one???

PS. Thanks to Derek for leading me to the article that inspired the post.