"I'm running for president because I could not stand by and watch everything that we fought for, everything that our nation had accomplished and become, unravel before our eyes," Clark says. He then talks about something I haven't heard before, something I expect to become the theme of his campaign: a "new patriotism" (though there's a chance it could disappear as quickly as Bill Clinton's "new covenant").

Clark's twin campaign themes are patriotism and public service, and he has to find a way to resolve those themes with his frontal assault on a sitting president during a time of war. He does it by appropriating the word "patriotism" and redefining it for himself. On a campus where students march and chant in lines, not in puppet-brandishing crowds, Clark declares that dissenters are the true patriots: "Patriotism doesn't consist of following orders—not when you're not in the chain of command. For the American people, for citizens in a democracy, patriotism's highest calling isn't simply following what the administration says. It's not blind obedience. It's not unquestioned adherence. The highest form of patriotism is asking questions. Because democracies run on dialogue. Democracies run on discussion. No administration has the right to tell Americans that to dissent is disloyal, and to disagree is unpatriotic. …

"We need a new spirit, a new kind of, a new American patriotism in this country. … [T]his new spirit of patriotism should be dedicated to the protection of our rights and liberties. … In times of war or peace, democracy requires dialogue, disagreement, and the courage to speak out. And those who do it should not be condemned but be praised."

No other Democratic candidate, not even John Kerry, could stand in front of two 75 mm howitzers on the quad of a nearly all-male military college and defend the antiwar left without looking faintly ridiculous. Wesley Clark is Howard Dean with flags. [link]