WELL, THIS SURE MAKES SOMEBODY LOOK BAD:

Some top Clinton administration officials wanted to end the Kosovo war abruptly in the summer of 1999, at almost any cost, because the presidential campaign of then-Vice President Al Gore was about to begin, former NATO commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark says in his official papers.

“There were those in the White House who said, ‘Hey, look, you gotta finish the bombing before the Fourth of July weekend. That’s the start of the next presidential campaign season, so stop it. It doesn’t matter what you do, just turn it off. You don’t have to win this thing, let it lie,’ ” Clark said in a January 2000 interview with NATO’s official historian, four months before leaving the post of supreme allied commander Europe.

Andrew Sullivan, defending Al Gore, doesn’t believe Clark. I’m not sure I do, either.