Formative years are hard to shake. Distrust of the military, both because of the dissembling during the Vietnam war and because it is half of what Eisenhower identified as the greatest threat to democracy, runs deep. Enter, then, Gen. Clark, a voice I clung to in the general insanity leading up to the invasion of Iraq and the evasion afterwards. Reasonable and humane. Knowledgeable, critical, and patriotic.

I keep thinking about Caesar "saving" the Republic. Is that where we are going? China is aligning South America, saying no to enlightenment politics, saying no to American hegemony, and saying no to American technology. Islam is saying no to secularism, saying no to expansionism, and no to usury. It seems our growth markets are hitting a wall and feeding back on themselves into material obesity. The apparent intractability of problems, like the Middle East, and the murky trade-offs of resource depletion, environmental degradation, and engineered nutrition cloud the intoxicating vision of a manifest destiny. Has the ordered chaos of free voices and votes degenerated to a level of randomness where only authoritarian will can provide direction?

Or is the General a man of his nation, a man who spent a career defending its principles and rights upon which its polity is built? Is this a man who is a citizen first, who can turn his back on the baton and pick up the gavel and weild it properly with incisive thinking, persuasive judgement, and straight talking? Is this a man who, perhaps, is tired of seeing his military turned into the goons of economic greed?

Clearly, he is a man competent in the business of political administration. Clearly he is a man to take very seriously. Less clearly, perhaps the lessons of the formative years need to be reassessed.