Thirteen years ago, Wesley Clark won a war. It’s been all downhill since — from demeaning rank-and-file troops to shilling for shady data-brokers to blowing a presidential campaign. But tonight at 8 on NBC, Clark may have hit rock bottom: He’s hosting a reality TV show.
Clark, a retired four-star Army general, will be the military representative on Stars Earn Stripes, a Survivor-style show that puts celebrities through the rigor of (fake) combat. Clark will judge the physical prowess of celebrities like boy-band also-ran Nick Lachey; action-movie C-lister Terry Crews; and Sarah Palin’s husband Todd. The show is treacly, exploitative military porn, according to the early reviews. And Clark is like a martial Simon Cowell, only less frightening: “He has an easy manner on camera,” judged The New York Times, and, as you’d expect, plenty of real-world knowledge to bring to these fake soldier games.”
This seems like a bewildering career decision from a man who finished first in his West Point class and became a Rhodes scholar. But ever since retiring, Clark’s made a second career out of pimping his first. He shilled for dubious tech products before turning himself into a product — that is, attempting to become president of the United States within three years of getting fired from his job running NATO’s Kosovo war. Along the way, he inadvertently bolstered the case of his many, many military critics, who considered him a clown. Oh, and according to one of his subordinates, he came close to starting World War III.read on...
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