While flacking for President Obama’s foreign policy in the spin room of CNN’s GOP presidential debate on Tuesday, retired Gen. Wesley Clark refused multiple times to point out a single Obama foreign policy initiative he disagrees with the president over.
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Clark’s response is reminiscent of that of a Cuban official I interviewed in 2009 at the absurdly named United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Geneva, Switzerland. When asked whether there was a single policy the representative disagreed with Fidel Castro over in more than 50 years, he was stumped, saying he couldn’t think of a thing because Fidel was just that good.
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The comparison between Clark and the Cuban representative is somewhat — if not extremely — unfair. But it is illustrative of the loss of intellectual honesty and discernment that occurs when an intelligent individual pledges fealty to a president or a presidential candidate. And in truth, such flacking would be more convincing if the person could admit that there are some things over which they disagree with whatever given candidate they are pushing, before moving on to explain why the candidate is the best overall.