Like Martin Devon of Patio Pundit, I just wasted half an hour of my life in a hotel room watching Wesley Clark on MSNBC’s Hardball. Martin writes:

I’m listening to Wes Clark on Hardball… and he makes Howard Dean look good. Say what you will about but Dean but he says what he means and he means what he says. With Wes Clark you get the sense that he’s just making shit up. Right now he’s talking about how he would have caught Osama by now, and how he wouldn’t have gone into Iraq. As most of you know, Clark’s early pronouncements weren’t nearly so clear. I’m sorry—he just sounds like an opportunist.

I’ve never been a big Wes Clark fan, even back when I thought that he was a Republican. You know how Dems knock Joe Lieberman as “Bush-lite“? Clark is “Dean-lite.” I don’t see why Clark as any more electable than Dean. Clark has military experience, but that isn’t as good as Dean’s experience as a governor. And Clark is so darn whiny—fingernails on chalkboard.

I particularly enjoyed the moment where Clark, in response to a question from Matthews about what sanction would have been appropriate for Bill Clinton (who quite clearly committed perjury, even if there’s a legitimate argument, that I’m not unsympathetic to, that he never should have been in a situation where he would commit it), launched into a two-minute stump speech that was completely nonresponsive to the question.

Also amusing was Clark’s analysis of the policy formation process of the Bush administration, which seemed to be cribbed directly from a Paul Krugman column (although spiced up with numerous references to nebulous “sources” that Clark is apparently privy to). And I’d love to hear how Clark would have caught Osama bin Laden by now; something tells me he wouldn’t have been hanging out with the Special Ops guys doing the dirty work in the theatre, and the 4th Infantry isn’t interchangeable with the Green Berets—so even if most of the army were stateside instead of patrolling Iraq, I doubt it would make much difference.

Clark also kept going on about his foreign policy gravitas relative to that of George W. Bush; said gravitas was apparently based on (a) being in Europe when the Europeans were rolling their eyes at the Lewinsky scandal and (b) obeying the orders of his civilian masters who had gravitas of their own. I say “apparently,” because he assumed the audience would believe he had foreign policy gravitas on the basis of alleging it alone.

I have to agree with Martin—Clark is “Dean Lite.” Crank up the toaster oven on this guy…