Recall my fringe-paranoid worry that Shrub's goons would try to engineer another successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil a month or so before the 2004 election? I still don't put that past them. But now a more satisfactory strategy, because far less hazardous, suggests itself: spring open a cache of WMD in Iraq, with the same timing. The WMD could either be bits and pieces that special units have actually unearthed in Iraq, or, of course, a non-native arsenal planted there. It wouldn't have to be anything big. A few dozen bottles and some incomplete hardware for a nuclear weapon would neatly guarantee Shrub's re-election.

To continue this line of paranoia, the first thing that hit me when I saw a longish article about Wesley Clark a week ago was, "This guy is in danger of assassination, because he is eminently electable and the Republicans know it."

Today a photograph of Dean sent the electric conviction through me that he is NOT electable, in the absence of a very strong public reaction against Bush. I can't explain exactly why I got that feeling. The best I can say is that when I briefly inhabit the public mind and observe Dean through it, something about his chirpy, beaming, healthy, squirrel-toothed face and his bouncy compact body repels "us." The public resents any suggestion that the person running for president is better than they are, which is why they can be said to have chosen well in the last election, in one way. Don't get me wrong. I like Dean best, by far, of all the candidates now. What little I know of Clark (it isn't much) makes me think he's a little dim and also very close to the center, which means he is the equivalent of a moderate Republican 30 years ago. But because I believe that the survival of our government, and possibly of humanity, depends first of all on expelling the roaches who now populate the White House, at this moment I'm hoping Clark quickly overtakes and outstrips Dean in the polls and then manages to survive to November 2004.

I think that Roger's brother is not correct about Clark's intelligence. I haven't read his book Waging Modern War yet, but everything I have read by Clark, and his responses to interviews such as the one Josh Marshall did on Talking Points Memo, indicate that he is really very intelligent, possibly smarter (intellectually) than anyone else in the Democratic field. That's not so surprising, having been a Rhodes Scholar, but it's worth remembering that intelligence alone isn't enough -- Clinton's success, for instance, came more because of his retail political skills than because of his policy-wonk ones, and his obviously superior intelligence was not enough to keep him out of personal trouble which enabled the right-wing to launch an all-out attack and almost drive him out of office.

My concerns about Clark are about his lack of executive experience (yes, running NATO does indeed count, but it's experience of a completely different than being the elected guy in charge) and his possible lack of political skills, but the one is not a devastating problem, and the other we'll see if he develops as the election rolls along. Strangely, I also have concerns about his physical appearance. He's a big guy, at least that's the impression I get, but his face is suprisingly delicate and almost feminine looking, and that could be a problem, as people do indeed (as Roger's brother implies) form their opinions of politicians for a whole slew of reasons that have little or nothing to do with ability or character.

He's also right, I think, that politicians cannot afford to be perceived by the public as feeling that they are superior to the common man. That was one of Al Gore's problems, the inability to project an image as a regular guy, which Bush was able to do in spades. (Of course, Gore could do everything else, while Bush could do nothing else, but that's politics for you.) I haven't been exposed to Dean enough to know if he projects that kind of superiority, but if he does, it could indeed be a problem.