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Clark's Character Reference; Sizing Up the Presidential Candidates

Insight on the News, Jan 19, 2004

Byline: INSIGHT

Insiders are congratulating Insight contributing writer Sheila R. Cherry upon her election as president of the National Press Club.

* After falling behind Al Sharpton in the polls, what can be keeping John Kerry in the Democratic presidential race? Speculation among insiders is that his popularity in Massachusetts has fallen so low that he needs to negotiate for strutting space at the 2004 nominating convention in Boston.

* Here's Tina Brown's assessment of the Democratic presidential pack: "Lieberman, he of the censorious smile and Jungle Book voice. Kerry, the talking tree with '70s hair. Edwards, hopelessly puppyish at 50. Clark, cyborg hero of places no one can spell. Dean, ... a pisher with no past and no neck, poised to lead his party to angry defeat." And Gephardt? Brown says, "the nation wants swords, not plowshares Top Gun, not It's a Wonderful Life."

* Former Georgetown University basketball coach John Thompson asks: "Why do we need to prove Saddam had weapons of mass destruction? We've already found the bodies!"

* The holiday party in Sen. Edward Kennedy's office produced some bad taste, reports insider Betsy Rothstein, "but it was the food." Kennedy did not dress up this year as Barney the purple dinosaur as in the past.

* Does former secretary of state Madeleine Albright really think she can get by with claiming she was joking when she joined her fellow Democrats in endorsing the febrile conspiracy theory that President Bush captured Osama bin Laden long ago and is hiding him to announce the capture as an October surprise just before the election? As everyone who has covered Foggy Bottom knows, Mrs. Albright does not joke. On purpose.

* So, with the population of the U.S. at 290,809,777, the fastest-growing states are, in order: Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Idaho.

* In testimony at the war crimes trial in The Hague, the issue of Gen. Wesley Clark's character was raised and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, was quoted as saying he fired Clark as NATO commander because of "integrity and character issues." Asked about this, Clark claimed he was booted by Shelton for trying to prevent genocide, which the court was left to believe Shelton favors.

* To assure the war-crimes court of his good character, Gen. Clark adapted the strategy proposed for the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz and submitted testimonials. Incredibly, one of them was from ... Bill Clinton.

* The Kennedy-Kerry boondoggle known in Boston as the Big Dig reportedly is finished. Don't you believe it! In adjusted dollars it already is twice as expensive as the Panama Canal. Originally to cost $4 billion (again, adjusted dollars), the tab has skyrocketed to $14.6 billion and, thanks to Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, you paid for it. Can't you just hear the demonstrators gathering outside the Democratic National Convention in Boston this summer chanting: "Hey, Ted. Hey, John. Where's our $15 billion gone?"

* The U.S. Army has confirmed the insider story that by October there were more murders per 100,000 population in major U.S. cities than in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. That's five for Baghdad and seven for New York City, 10 in staid Boston, 17 for Los Angeles, 19 in Philadelphia's City of Brotherly Love, 22 for Al Capone's toddling Chicago and 46 in the federally protected city of Washington.

* The U.S. Postal Service will release a "Black Heritage" postage stamp on Jan. 20 honoring Paul Robeson, a prominent entertainer and athlete who nonetheless was a longtime member of the Communist Party. He also was an unrepentant Stalinist and was married to another Communist Party activist with whom he had a son and namesake educated in the Soviet Union and in London by the Soviet Embassy. Next time, no doubt, the postal bureaucrats will be honoring Ezra Pound and Leni Riefenstahl.

* Mafiosi, gunsels, politicians, cops and theatrical celebrities rub shoulders at Rao's Italian Restaurant in New York City where there are just 10 tables and the cookery is among the best west of East River Drive. (That's FDR Drive to you liberals.) Just before Christmas a reputed Genovese mobster called Louie Lump Lump gunned down a mob-connected "exterminator" named Al Circelli at Rao's for using bad language about a Broadway songbird named Rena Strober. Acceptable behavior toward a lady is important here. The restaurant is so particular about such things that it refused service to Bill Clinton until two years after his presidency.

* And, finally, ever wonder as you watch them on television which of the presidential candidates is sitting on a telephone book or standing on a box? The height of each, in descending order, is John Kerry, 6'4"; Dick Gephardt, 6'1"; George W. Bush, 5'11"; John Edwards, 5'11"; Wesley Clark, 5'10"; Al Sharpton, 5'10"; Joe Lieberman, 5'9"; Howard Dean, 5'83/4"; Dennis Kucinich, 5'7"; Carol Moseley Braun, 5'4". The shortest president of the modern era was Teddy Roosevelt at 5'8" and, well, maybe 3/4.