An op-research field day: The Wall Street Journal has posted Clark’s statement at the Lincoln Day dinner, “a fund-raiser for the Pulaski County Republican Party, in Little Rock, Ark., May 11, 2001.” Key quote:

And I’m very glad we’ve got the great team in office: men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condolzeezza Rice, Paul O’Neill–people I know very well–our president, George W. Bush. We need them there, because we’ve got some tough challenges ahead in Europe.

This worries me, and the fact that I still don’t understand Clark’s actual position on the war doesn’t help. Even if Clark wants to claim that he made an “incredible journey” and spoke out once he saw the country moving in the wrong direction, this should have been apparent to a Democratic candidate well before 9/11. If I remember right, most of Bush’s domestic policy was already under way by May 2001, and the first round of tax cuts was enacted in early June. If Clark thinks that “massive tax cuts for the rich” are a bad thing in principle–and not just that these particular tax cuts didn’t happen to work–wouldn’t he have had enough information to say so in May? (And to ask an obvious question, what was he doing at a GOP fundraiser anyway?)

According to the Drudge Report (link thanks to Ross), “A video of Clark making the comments has surfaced.” If I were Karl Rove, should Clark be nominated, I’d air that video twice a day until the election. (Then again, if I were the DNC, I would have done the same with pictures of George W. Bush as head cheerleader for Andover.)