Not Your Sweetie

Matt Benett Correction


This was printed in the Times today:

To the Editor:

"Why Clark's Campaign, Once Full of Hopes, Fell So Short" (news
article,
Feb. 12) correctly quoted me, the Clark campaign's director of
communications, as saying that Gen. Wesley K. Clark, at the start
of his
campaign, was an "empty vessel." This sounds as if I were maligning
General
Clark, but nothing could be further from the truth.

What I meant is that because he was not a politician with a long
line of
compromising in his wake, General Clark began this campaign as a
blank slate
for voters, one that they could fill in as they saw fit.

But once General Clark began to set out his views and his agenda,
he did not
and could not try to be all things to all people.

Wes Clark is a leader. Leaders make hard choices, and they stick by
them.
And General Clark did that every day. I couldn't be prouder to have
been a
part of his team.

MATT BENNETT
Arlington, Va., Feb. 12, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/opinion/L16CLAR.html