Baggage Claim

There's been some fretting about whether John Kerry is vulnerable to attack over some of his anti-war activism in the seventies, but I think he settled that question last night. When a question came up about the infamous medal-throwing incident way back when, Kerry handled it like, well, like a guy who's been in the public eye for decades. He's been attacked before, on just about everything he's ever said or done. He knows what's coming, because all the attacks are re-runs at this point.

That's the great advantage of an experienced candidate who's been vetted by years of press inquiries and opposition research. On the other hand, the greatest danger presented by fresh faces is the wealth of unexplored incidents and unanswered questions they bring with them.

A good example is Wes Clark. Geov Parrish offers a potentially destructive list of issues that Clark has yet to deal with in the political arena. Are they all valid? Will any of them stick? I really don't know. But the questions are being asked, and the answers will have to come. Do we really want to nominate the proverbial 'pig in a poke'?

So what does Geov have on his mind?

"In the 1980s, Clark presided over the incarceration in Miami of Haitian refugees fleeing the odious, U.S.-supported dictatorship of "Baby Doc" Duvalier. That period includes numerous allegations of cruelty and mistreatment of prisoners.

Clark went from there to Guantánamo Bay, where he was chief of operations of the U.S. Navy's internment camps and where allegations of mistreatment and abuse grew, including physical abuse and malnourishment.

In 1993, Clark commanded the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, near Waco. His tanks were used in the government's fatal assault on the Branch Davidian compound. Senior Army officials were part of the planning for that raid, and Clark aides met before the assault with the Texas governor and National Guard head to brief them on possible plans.

Next stop: head of the U.S. Southern Command, where by 1996-97 Clark was instrumental in implementing U.S. military assistance to Colombia. Paramilitary death squads closely linked with Colombia's military soon began rampaging through Colombia's countryside, compiling the worst record of human-rights atrocities in the Western Hemisphere.

And, of course, there's Yugoslavia. Under Clinton, Clark became NATO's supreme allied commander in time to coordinate the bombing of Serbia during NATO's mission in Kosovo. Serbian officials estimated that more than 1,000 civilians died in a bombing campaign based on dubious claims and which left that year's designated paragon of evil, Slobodan Milosevic, more firmly in power than ever. His diplomatic performance during his bombing— touting KLA opposition figures with dubious human-rights records of their own and sneering at European military, political, and civilian critics—were remarkably Dubya-esque. "

Not so pretty, is it?