John Kerry + Wesley Clark?

While I lean more toward Rep. Dennis Kucinich's unabashed liberalism or Gov. Howard Dean's chutzpah, I'm intrigued by Joe Conason's Democratic dream ticket: John Kerry and Wesley Clark. To counter Karl Rove's campaign strategy of casting Bush as a strong "wartime" president, this ticket would pair two progressives who are also highly decorated veterans. Kerry won five Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star, then went on to join Vietnam Veterans for Peace; Clark graduated first in his class at West Point, was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and ended his military career as the four-star supreme allied commander of NATO. Bush, as you might recall, decided not to complete his Vietnam-era tour with the Texas Air National Guard. While Kerry is a bit difficult to pin down (see the Boston Globe's excellent series on the Massachusetts senator), Clark seems to make good sense:

In an interview with The American Prospect magazine last March, he articulated an outlook that would serve the Democrats well. "Terrorism is a multilateral problem," he told Michael Tomasky. "You cannot defeat it in one nation. You need international police work, teamwork, international harmonization of laws against terror. You act unilaterally, you lose the commitment of your allies to make it work. That’s the one thing that will kill you in the war on terrorism." To him, America represents "the embodiment of the Enlightenment," which calls for "a foreign policy of generosity, humility, engagement, and of course force where it is needed. But as a last resort."

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