How afraid is Rove & Co. of Wesley Clark? Just days after he announces his candidacy, the vast right wing conspiracy has been resurrected. First, there's former Nixon speechwriter, Bill Safire's nonsense that he's just a wedge to kill off the rest of the Democratic candidates to open the field for "Hillary!" In fact, as Timothy Noah points out, the biggest supporters for the "Draft Clinton" movement are Republicans. How seemingly strange.

Not really. Hillary is red meat for the party's wingnuts. She is equal to her husband in getting the party faithful foaming at the mouth. I'll bet she brings in as much money for Republicans as she does so prodigiously for Democrats. And mentioning her diminishes Clark as he looks like a tool for the Clintons machinations.

Next come the attacks on Clark's veracity, a la Al Gore. The thinking in the White House must be that chuckling that your opponent is making things up worked pretty well the last time, why not try it again? And, of course, Fox, the Weekly Standard, Sullivan and the rest lap it up and distribute the bull.

It's going to be a very nasty election, as Republicans themselves see Bush as increasingly vulnerable.

And Calpundit, via Talking Points, asks why the White House is so forthcoming, suddenly, with phone logs. Can we see Cheney's calls around the time he was convening his energy task force?

I guess Max Cleland, who writes a powerful indictment of Bush's war, andwho I believe lost a variety of limbs in Vietnam (and who was successfully labelled unpatriotic by his Rove-supported oponent for his Senate seat), didn't get the memo.