Kleiman Defends Clark

Mark Kleiman is defending (with uncharacteristically knee-jerk approval from Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum) the remarks made by General Clark about Senator Kerry's war records, which I criticized here.

I'm trying not to assume that Kleiman did not actually see the interview, but the fact that he only quotes a New York Times article and discusses nothing but the words themselves suggests he did not. I can agree that the words are sufficiently vague that it is not clear whether Clark's comments should be criticized or defended. But, as one of John Cole's commenters hits on the head with this comment, Clark's demeanor in uttering the words is less defensible:

Despite his 'I respect that', the tone of his words (if not his voice, heck if I know on that) imply that he does NOT respect that from 'mere' (that's the implication) Junior Officers. An insult to every Junior Officer.

One of Kevin Drum's commenters agrees:

Clark has been my first choice since before he entered the race, but I was a little taken aback by his exchange with Bob Dole on CNN. I was watching it live, and it came across as him belittling Kerry as a junior officer.

This happens quite a lot with bloggers. Since we are almost entirely a text-based medium, too often we rely on text-based accounts of things that were actually viewed by many people. I'd suggest that those who actually saw and heard Clark's remarks might have an edge on interpreting them versus someone who just has a transcript in front of him.