Gene Lyons

seems to like Wesley Clark and thinks he can win if he runs for the presidency.

"Bush's sheer incompetence is impossible to overstate. The bad news and the lies just keep on coming. Yesterday, we learned that the U.S. budget deficit will reach a record $480 billion for this fiscal year. 2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerloff told the German magazine Der Spiegel 'this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history.' He described Bush's save-the-rich tax cuts as 'a form of looting' that will bankrupt the treasury. It was also recently revealed that the White House pressured the Environmental Protection Agency to suppress findings of deadly toxins in the atmosphere in lower Manhattan after 9/11 for fear public warnings would damage the economy. Between dollars and lives, Bush chose the bottom line...

"Determination aside, however, so far Democrats appear to lack a candidate who seems a good bet to win...

"Maybe that's why, as Amy Sullivan points out in the September Washington Monthly...the number of undecided voters has actually been rising in recent months, and why, as she argues persuasively, there's still time for Gen. Wesley Clark to win the nomination."

But the whole idea of running somebody with absolutely no elected experience is ridiculous on its face. Rove will be able to beat him down to a pulp because the notion of Clark running for the presidency would be a brazen admission by the Democrats they are weak on foreign policy and national security.

I'm sorry, Gene, but this dog won't hunt.