Capital Letters Asking and telling about Wesley Clark Hastings Wyman | July 30, 2003 There's lots of buzz in Washington about Wesley Clark - a retired four-star general of the Army, former NATO commander, and Arkansas native - and whether he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination. (Note that Gen. Wesley Clark is not the same person as Maj. Gen. Robert Clark, who was the commanding officer at Fort Campbell when Barry Winchell was murdered.) Like other military politicians of the past - Eisenhower comes to mind - Wesley Clark has no definite party affiliation and no record on a wide range of issues, including many that concern today's Democratic constituencies. Clark recently visited with Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager, Donna Brazile. She says Clark did not indicate whether he will run, but did note that in a recent trip to New Hampshire, he was pressed on a wide range of issues - abortion, gay rights - that, for the most part, have not been part of his work experience. One issue, however, that has been within his purview is that of gays in the military, and Clark has recently spoken out twice on this subject - in a seemingly contradictory fashion. On June 16, in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Clark told moderator Tim Russert that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy currently in force "absolutely" should be changed. "I don't think it works," he said. "Essentially, we've got a lot of gay people in the armed forces, we always have had, always will. And I think that ... we should welcome people that want to serve." He added that the military's gay policy is "an issue that the leaders in the armed forces are going to have to work with and resolve." As a result of these comments, C. Dixon Osborne, who heads the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) that works on issues involving gay men and women in the armed forces, made positive remarks about Clark, noting that "Gen. Clark's call to welcome every American, regardless of sexual orientation, to our armed forces" should be heeded by the nation's military establishment. Only nine days later, however, in a Crossfire interview with Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on CNN, Clark repeated only part of his earlier statement, leaving a different impression. When asked by Begala, "Should gays be able to serve openly in the military?" Clark answered, "I think the military and the chain of command have to decide that" - essentially dodging the question. (In fact, the Pentagon and the White House can influence a change in current policy, but Congress must legislate any actual change.) Whether Clark's differing statements represent a lack of experience in dealing with the media and in making sure that he is consistent from one interview to the next, whether he just didn't think to give his opinion about what the military should decide - as he had on "Meet the Press" - or whether he got cold feet on the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy is not clear. What is clear is that if Clark runs for president, he's going to have to bone up on the issues, figure out where he stands, and stick to his guns. (By contrast, he has come out as definitely pro-choice on abortion.) Moreover, if he's to have any chance of winning broad support among the left-of-center Democrats who participate in presidential primaries and caucuses, he's going to have to make clear his opposition to the current military policy on gays. That Clark believes the military hierarchy should have a role in developing a new policy is not necessarily bad. After all, we've had one unsuccessful experience with a committed civilian president who was unable to change the Pentagon policy by fiat. But involving the military chain of command will entail not just turning the problem over to the top brass, as Clark indicated on CNN, but providing leadership to win a more just policy, as he indicated on NBC. Let's hope he gets his story straight - and his position gay. Hastings Wyman publishes Southern Political Report, a nonpartisan biweekly political newsletter.