Steve Chapman does an admirable job of deconstructing Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark in today’s column. First he hits Clark on the general’s seeming confusion about his own position on the Iraq war:

For those of us who are generally skeptical about plunging into optional wars, that’s not the only reason to wonder if Clark offers a real alternative to the incumbent.

His pratfall came in an interview with The New York Times, when he was asked how he would have voted on the congressional resolution giving President Bush authority to invade Iraq. Clark hemmed and hawed, but finally ended up saying, twice, “I probably would have voted for it.”

This was not a question out of left field, on the order of asking him to name the president of Uzbekistan. In the months leading up to the war, Clark was a tireless presence on CNN, analyzing and criticizing the administration’s policy. He wrote several articles arguing that the president should use force only as a last resort and warning of the dangers of occupying postwar Iraq.

Given his expertise on the subject, Clark should have handled the question like Barry Bonds turning on a fastball down the middle. Instead, he finally had to call on his press secretary to explain his position. The following day, he announced, “I would never have voted for war.” Well, of course not, general. Who said you would have?

And then he cracks the real nut, which is that Clark holds nothing like a principled stand against unending foreign wars, only to ones he’s not in charge of:

But George W. Bush still fervently believes the United States should use its pre-eminent military power to reshape the world in our image. Wesley Clark shares that faith, and differs only in where and how he would pursue it.

That gives us a choice between conservative imperialism and liberal imperialism. How about a candidate who offers an end to imperialism?

Good luck!

P.S. Perhaps I should rename this The Pro-Cubs, Anti-Clark Blog.