After a bit of mingling, Wes and George moved toward the room where the mic was set up, Wes stopping on the way so say hi to Melange and me and introduce us to some folks and then everyone went in to listen.

George introduced Wes, saying how he got to know Wes in the Balkans, how much he likes him, how important he thinks it is for us to win back at the very least one House of Congress so we can start some investigations and oversight of the executive branch, how happy he is to see all of the work Wes is doing for the '06 candidates, etc, etc....Did I mention he’s a very gracious man?

Money - "As little as necessary"

Then Wes spoke. He said it was very gratifying for him to have George’s support especially when the Pentagon didn’t support what he wanted to do. He brought up the fact that the event was a fundraiser and said that someone (I can’t remember who) asked him sometime (I can’t remember when) how much money he (WesPAC) had. His answer was “as little as necessary” because he didn’t want to take money away from the folks who are running in the ‘06 elections. He just wants to have enough to continue WesPAC’s work and no more than that....He emphasized strongly the need to give to the folks running campaigns now.

Winning Back Congress This Year

Then he spoke of a few of the candidates he was supporting. He spoke of Eric first, saying that he met Eric when Eric, the Navy guy, was given “punishment” by being made to work for the Army. Wes said he was the perfect guy to work for him. He talked of how when Eric was stricken with cancer, he thought he was releasing him to go home and die, how sad it was when they all said goodbye to him and how extraordinary it is that he’s still with us and fighting for us.

He spoke of Mike Weaver in Kentucky and what a great guy he is, of Steve Filson in California, of Russ Warner, also in California, and how when his son came back from Iraq he told his dad that he had to do something about what was going on and so his father Russ is running for Congress.

He spoke of Patricia Madrid in New Mexico. He said she apparently is older than she looks because he thought she was only about 35 but she had planned on retiring to a ranch somewhere I think. He’d met her in NM while campaigning for Kerry, I think he said...or at least she was at some event when he was there for Kerry. He said how great and how funny she is. She can disarm any situation with her humor. I think it was Rahm Emmanuel who he said told him they had to get her to run...So Wes called her at her ranch, where she was hoping to retire, and told her she had to run, her country needed her...and she’s running now. You know how persuasive Wes can be.....

Contest Every District

He spoke of how important it is to contest ALL districts in ‘06. We can’t just say, well, we need this many seats, so let’s target this many districts. It’s more than about even just winning seats. We have to get our message out there, everywhere, every state, every district, all over the country...He came back to this a couple of times during the event, the need to go into every single district and contest it.

Money (2) - New Yorkers can lead

He spoke of how a Democrat in certain areas of the middle of the country will be different than a Democrat on one of the coasts but there are good Democrats who can be representative of people from each part of the country. We have to make sure they are running and that they have support.

He also said he wants to get these folks from other states to come to NYC for some fundraisers because the people in NY have got the big bucks...Well, he didn’t say it like that but basically he said that some of these races can be decided by a relatively small amount of money compared to races in other places like NY but that the people in these states really can’t afford to donate as much....If these folks can just raise the money, they’d be in good shape. He thinks NYers can help do that for them.

Gert's Watching The Media

He said that Gert couldn’t make it tonight but that she was still on duty. She keeps an eye on Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough and the rest...and I believe he said she talks to them too....to see what they are saying. She says that the way they are going to go after the Democrats in the ‘06 elections is by saying, don’t vote for them because if the Dems win, they will go after investigations and indictments. I guess this is a bad thing to some...the investigations, etc....

Been to the Middle East

He talked about Iraq, said he’d been in the region recently, talking one on one to a commander there for an hour and a half about things he couldn’t disclose and then reiterated his non-support for any kind of a timeline. He also reiterated how he thought it was so wrong to go into Iraq in the first place. He said you never want to start a war because, once you do, you never know how it will end. Force must always, always, always, always (don’t know how many but he threw a bunch of them in there tonight) be a last resort.

He said they got out of Kosovo in as good shape as they did because of a combination of diplomacy and luck. He talked of how they had prepared for the ground forces, 70% of which would have been US, and how it would have been a bad thing if it came to that because many would have died....and you could see how the thought of that upset him even now. Thank goodness that it didn’t come to that. I hate to think of what the thought of those young men’s lives and deaths under his command would have done to this good man’s soul.

He said none of those in the White House....not Bush, Rumsfeld, the rest of them, have ever looked a dictator in the eye, like he did, and told him they were going to bomb him if he didn’t do the right thing...”They won’t even talk to anyone they don’t agree with!”

Investigations

He talked of how we really have to get hold of the Congress so we can have investigations. He especially emphasized the NSA wiretapping thing, supposing that it’s more than likely that his phone is tapped and his calls recorded because he has so many dealings with folks in the Middle East. He said we need Congress because we’re not going to get any of the guys in the White House to change....Not Bush, not Cheney, not Rumsfeld, not any of them...He said, “You know Bush, he’s the decider”, which got a chuckle from the crowd. But he emphasized that the only way we’re going to effect any change at all in policy is by getting some control over the legislative branch.

Back to the wiretapping...He said that he’s from Arkansas, and the people there say “Well, if the President want to listen in on my phone conversations to keep us safe, fine by me.” But Wes pointed out that it means so much more than that. He said that this was being heard in front of the courts and that if it goes to the Supreme Court, well, we know who owns the Supreme Court...and once they rule in his favor, that he can do this thing because of national security reasons, than that’s it, he’s Supreme, because he can just say that something is related to national security and then he can do whatever he wants...a really really slippery slope and he seems quite concerned about it happening. This is still supposed to be a Democracy, he said...

Democratic Message Hidden From The Public

He talked about the Real Security rollout thing and how extraordinary it was that they’d gotten all of these people together, on the same page, at the same event, to come up with a unified voice, a unified message and nobody heard it because they’d scheduled it five days in advance and the day before, Bush decides he must schedule this speech or whatever it was to start 10 minutes before the Dems’ event and then spent a good amount of time lounging around on the podium (and Wes did a fabulous impression of Bush leaning on the podium like a doofus...I mean he had him down pat, perfect imitation, perfect) taking question after leisurely question so he could drag the thing out until 2:30, after the Dems had finished at 2. Bush had the national stage and the Dems got hardly a mention...I think he said nothing at all in the LA or NY Times...I think back page in the Washington Post. You could hear his frustration at how hard it is to get the Dem message out in this kind of climate....

He said it’s so aggravating when people keep coming up to him around the country saying they have no idea where the Democrats stand on anything....because they never hear our message...That’s why trying to take some control of the media is important...He mentioned what George Soros is doing, what Al Franken is doing, Air America and the bloggers...He talked of what an important job the bloggers are doing...He does love the bloggers....But it’s also important to have our people out there running and getting the message out to people who aren’t otherwise hearing it.

And he said we’ve got to have credible folks out there talking about national security. We have to give people a sense that we, the Democrats, can be strong on this issue. He said that if we drop the focus on national security and just talk about other issues then, when Iran comes to a head...and you know it will...then we will be swept away and no one will hear anything we have to say. (I SO agree with him on this point. I don’t understand the people who say if we focus on national security, we’re playing into the Republicans’ hands because that’s what they want to talk about. Like it or not, it is an issue and a big one and we’ve got to grab it and take control of it or we’re sunk.)

Iran and Nukes

Iran...He talked quite a bit about Iran.

He said we’ve got three choices...

1) We can negotiate with them
2) We can bomb them and try to take out their nuclear facilities
3) We can live with them having a nuclear weapon

He said right now, they are, at some level, negotiating, although the US refuses to negotiate directly. He doesn’t think that bombing them would solve anything and help the situation at all. He said he sees no end game if we choose to bomb....no way out once we start it.

Someone brought up the possibility of the US using nuclear weapons on Iran and both Wes and George seemed to think that was highly unlikely. George interjected to point out the absurdity of the US using nuclear weapons to take out the Iranian nuclear capabilities....He said we certainly couldn’t do that with much conviction.....And Wes said that if the US uses nuclear weapons, the world will never be the same and the US’ place in the world will never be the same. If was a very dire moment in the conversation....scary to think about.

Wes also said that if it was any other president in the White House, he would think that we wouldn’t attack Iran but, with Bush in there, you never know. He said that spokesmen have said that Bush will take care of the Iranian situation before he leaves office...You can just imagine how he will “take care” of it.

The whole Iranian thing just sounds really scary. Wes said (as I’ve heard him say before) that extremism begets extremism. Our tough talk and threats against Iran just strengthen their position in the Middle East and the Muslim world as a country that will stand up to the US. The tougher we talk, the stronger we make the extremists in Iran’s position.

And George said something about the window in which anything at all can be accomplished as far as taking out Iran’s nuclear capabilities by attacking being much smaller than people realize because of something or other the Iranians are doing that will be completed by September. If anyone plans to attack Iran, be it Israel or the US, they are looking to do it before this thing is complete...I wish I knew better what he said...I was drifting for just a moment and lost a little bit of the discussion there...George also said something about the Russians wanting to provoke an attack so that Iran would have to depend more on them for the nuclear power....Both Wes and George said they were worried about the situation and they looked it...Scary stuff.....

Lewis Cohen asked Wes about Bush politicizing the Iranian situation and Wes said of course they would. He said he knew they would when at the beginning of the year...he might have said January 1st...he was out on the golf course when he got this urgent call from Fox News to get to the Little Rock studios to do a piece on the Iranian threat....He said they’ve been given the memo at Fox to ramp up the Iran talk....He also said, with a bit of a laugh, that one of the things he likes about working for Fox is that once a week he’s given the White House talking points...and he likes to know what the enemy is saying.....

Unifying The Country

Oh, also, at one point he was saying something about us Democrats...and then he caught himself and said if you’re Republicans, too, you want to help fix this country...So I guess this wasn’t an exclusively Dem event...which I think is nice....Wes really can bring folks from all sides together...In fact, one of the guys I was talking to at the beginning of the night was a Republican who would support Wes if he ran in ‘08.

Money (3) - Not a candidate "yet"

Also, when George asked about donating to WesPAC (and apparently there are two different funds or something that can be donated to, in case you’re coming up against the ceiling in donations, a state and a national, or something like that...I mean some of the people there have to worry about these things, I guess....Wes has some pretty fancy friends) he said something about...ah, I can’t remember it...but he finished with “because I’m not a candidate”......and then added, after a pause, “yet.” I loved that..so did those in attendance.

Clark Community Book Club

Finally, I did get a chance to ask him, after the questions, when everyone was milling around in small groups and there was like a line of people waiting to talk to the General, what book he recommend we read for the book club...He said, while holding onto one of my hands and one finger of the other, The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery....”It’s about global warming.”

Note by awcd: The Clark Community Network introduces today "Series Blogs" which focus on specific topics. The first in the Science Series is "Global Warming=Climate Crisis" and written by scientist Clark supporters. Check it out.