Obama-Richardson or Obama-Clark?

Some political observers started floating the idea of an Obama-Richardson ticket well before Barack Obama announced his run for the White House. Indeed, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson would be a potent vice-presidential candiate, because he has Washington insider experience and a wide-ranging international resume. He is a former U.S. Energy Secretary and U.N. Ambassador who also has been a capable U.S. negotiator during difficult and sometimes dangerous situations involving North Korea, Iraq and Cuba.

At least one other former Presidential candidate may also get a hyphenated shot at the White House, however. Retired four-star Gen. Wesley K. Clark was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 1997 to 2000 and a Democratic candidate for President in 2004. He has extensive combat experience and has held numerous command posts during his 34-year Army career. His civilian-life credentials now range from investment banker to book author, as well as tireless fundraiser and promoter for Democratic candidates and causes. Gen. Clark has endorsed an old friend, Hillary Clinton, and has worked hard to help get her elected. But if her campaign falters in the next primaries, he may be free to entertain offers from the Obama camp.

The next President, whether Obama or Clinton, likely will need Clark's unique background to help oversee the complex process of getting the U.S. out of Iraq. Indeed, Clark and Richardson both might play major roles in the next Administration, even if neither gets a vice presidential offer and John McCain unexpectedly wins the presidency.

Gov. Richardson might not want to be Energy Secretary again, but the nation now faces enormous challenges in its energy future. It would be a bigger and more crucial job this time.

Gen. Clark might not want to be Secretary of Defense, but America's military is exhausted and short-handed at a time when other international powers, such as China and Russia, are rising again. Someone who knows how to regroup, reorganize, re-equip and re-energize fighting forces will need to have the next President's trust and attention.

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Has the Clinton Campaign Now Become Bosnian Toast? If Memory Serves Me…

By Si Dunn

Can you accurately remember what you did 12 years ago or longer? How about things you did last week? Or last night?

CBS News recently has been pounding on Hillary Clinton for claiming to have been under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996, when their old videos seem to show her mainly receiving incoming flowers and handshakes after arriving in a very dangerous area.

Memories can, as the old saying goes, play unfortunate tricks on you. One case in point: A close Hillary Clinton ally, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, and I were friends in junior high school. (I am briefly mentioned in one of his books.) For years after he became a famous military leader and presidential candidate, I enjoyed telling people how he and I also had been close friends in elementary school and how he, on more than one occasion, interceded with the principal and saved me from being paddled for misbehaving.

The only problem is, when I met up with Gen. Clark again last year at a Dallas political fundraiser and brought this memory up, he assured me that he and I had attended different elementary schools and didn’t even know each other until the 7th grade. (I have to believe Wesley on this, because 50 years after he edited the school newspaper at Pulaski Heights Junior High School, he still can recite my best times in the 440-yard dash.)

Somebody helped me get off that hook with my elementary school principal, and, obviously, I can’t recall who did it. But it was easy, years later, to conveniently insert Wesley Clark into that scenario, then let the combination meld into a warm memory that I honestly came to believe.

I think Hillary Clinton fell into a similar memory trap, one that snares us all at times. To her credit, she now has admitted that she “made a mistake" and added: "That happens. It proves I'm human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation."

If CBS News and other media outlets tried hard enough, they could search back through past videos of all candidates and come up with numerous snippets where memories or claims do not mesh with reality.

Meanwhile, if you asked me at this moment to tell you something I did 12 years ago, I could state with complete accuracy that I had some meals and brushed my teeth. And I probably did not do these things while under sniper fire. But who knows? Maybe a celery stick or my toothbrush was blown out of my hand, and I simply forgot?

I really was in some combat during the Vietnam War. But I didn’t shoot anybody, and only one bullet (sniper fire!) came within 50 feet of me. Still, if I were running for high (or low) office, my campaign staff could intone with complete accuracy: “He saw combat in Vietnam.” My eager supporters then might imagine me dashing into a Viet Cong stronghold with automatic weapons blazing in each hand.

Yet the truth would be this: I watched planes drop bombs nearby. I saw ships fire their guns. I observed Marines hitting the beach. And I was scrutinzing a nearby hillside--gawking like a tourist, actually--when the sniper’s bullet thudded into a metal armor plate.

I did fire some weapons a couple of times during the Vietnam War. My booming bullets made puny little splashes in the Tonkin Gulf and hit absolutely nothing except maybe a poor fish or two. Yet it’s possible two evil North Vietnamese frogmen might have been right under the waves and I got them both with my shots.

I think a heroic new memory may be taking shape.

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