PEOPLE KEEP ASKING WHAT I THINK OF WESLEY CLARK: I don’t know. People I know who were associated with operations in Bosnia tend not to like him, for reasons expressed rather pungently here. On the other hand, his aggressive response to the Russians — which some characterize, unfairly, as “nearly starting World War III” — at least bespeaks a degree of, well, aggressiveness otherwise lacking in the Democratic field.

John Ellis states the general view that Clark’s candidacy is just an effort by the Clinton/McAuliffe forces to stop the Dean insurgency. Noah Shachtman, on the other hand, says that Clark is responsible for much of today’s high-tech approach to combat.

I find myself actually sort of liking Dean, though at lunch with a (way to the left of me) colleague earlier this week we found ourselves agreeing that it’s surprising that John Edwards hasn’t gotten much traction. We both had heard him on NPR, and thought he sounded like a guy who ought to be doing better. And, of course, anything could happen between now and next summer — I don’t think Clinton had even announced his candidacy at this point in the 1992 election cycle.