Cover Story – Rangel Carries Clark’s Water for Clinton

The Arkansas Conjure Man with the 125th Street office has sucked every brain cell from Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel’s 73 year-old skull. Rangel, who hopes to follow in the great Adam Clayton Powell’s footsteps as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee should the Democrats prevail in 2004, is betting the whole legacy on a transparent lie – that Wesley Clark is an anti-war candidate. Bill Clinton told him to do it.

Rangel swallowed Bill and Hillary’s potion, gathered up his substantial bulk, and fairly ran through the corridors of the Capitol soliciting endorsements for the Clintons’ designated player. “This general is a protection for America, to challenge this president’s policies without being called unpatriotic,” Rangel told the Associated Press, September 19. “I feel like I’ve gone back to get my big brother who’s a four-star general.”

Rangel’s descent into second childhood is embarrassingly sad. There is nothing to commend the 59 year-old Clark to Black people or to anyone else who opposes U.S. policy in Iraq. Wesley Clark is a kiss-ass to Power, a karaoke performer with no song of his own. “President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt,” wrote Clark on April 10, every bit as drunken and delirious as the rest of the Bush Pirates at the spectacle of Saddam Hussein’s wrecked statue. “Liberation is at hand.” Clark approvingly predicted that the American juggernaut would not – should not – come to a halt in Baghdad:

We will put it more bluntly: Clark is a fraud, a poseur, a wind-up action figure in a suit – who belongs to Bill. The retired general just wants to be important, and will say anything to that end. Most of his handlers wear the Clinton brand. Thanks to the Clinton network, of which Rep. Rangel is the chief Black operative, Clark was able to project the early endorsement of 30 members of Congress. Rep. Marion Berry, working the South for his two fellow Arkansans, predicts 50 congresspersons will soon line up for Clark, including half the good old boys of the “Blue Dog” coalition. That’s Clinton power!

It is pointless to discuss Wesley Clark’s personal “beliefs,” “ideas,” or “strategy.” Clark is a creature of Clinton and the corporate media. (One might even call him a Captive of Babble-on.) The proper question is: What is Bill Clinton up to?

Bill Clinton humiliated, abused, bamboozled and, finally, eviscerated the base of the Democratic Party in the Nineties. His biggest victories were NAFTA and welfare reform, both achieved with overwhelming Republican support. Clinton’s tenure marked the triumph of the Democratic Leadership Council, the southern-born, white male-pandering, union-bashing, corporate wing of the Party. Republicans did a great service to Clinton and his Vice President, Al Gore, by labeling them “liberals” – perversely confirming that the DLC had succeeded in moving the national Democratic Party rightward. Clinton unleashed the dogs of Wall Street to inflate the speculative bubble that obligingly waited for him to leave office before bursting – a legacy of corporate mayhem, a marauding World Trade Organization, massive de-industrialization, merger madness, and obscene growth in CEO compensation that George Bush eagerly builds upon.

As a sop to Blacks, Clinton promised to “mend, not end” affirmative action.

Clinton’s DLC is in trouble. The Black, union and anti-war base of the Democratic Party has tagged the DLC’s candidate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, as the personification of betrayal, and he is finished. Rep. Dick Gephardt pins all his hopes on union endorsements based on his leadership in the losing 1994 battle with Clinton and the GOP over NAFTA. Massachusetts Sen. Jim Kerry is considered too close to Edward Kennedy, who is anathema to DLC leadership. And Senators John Edwards (NC) and Bob Graham (FL) no longer matter.

That leaves Howard Dean, who enthusiastically supported NAFTA as Governor of Vermont but now gets angry when reminded of the fact. “Where did you get this, ‘I was a strong supporter of NAFTA?’ I never did anything about it,” Dean snapped at ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. (MSNBC, September 17.) Dean means that, as a state Governor, he did not have the opportunity to vote for NAFTA. Lucky him, given the present Democratic political climate.

Bill Clinton considers front-runner Dean a captive of the Left – a notion that some lefties also cling to. So Clinton pulls all the switches to light up his hologram, Wesley Clark.