I just finished reading Josh Marshall's interview with Wesley Clark. Why is it that Clark have a reputation for scintillating intelligence? This transcript clearly shows a third-rate intellect coasting on a first-class education. Yet I remember him being clear and lucid on CNN during the war. Presentation really is forty percent of evaluation, isn't it?

I don't read Marshall as much as I should. He is a fine reporter, once you discard his abhorrent personality and partisan bias.

Update: And then I read this and remember why I don't read him that much. Because Marshall is totally blinkered by his own biases, and is one of that common breed, to whom nothing sounds so sweet as their own songs sung back to them in a minor key. He clearly demonstrates that any random string of incoherent rambling will sound brilliant to him if it contains a swipe at the Project for the New Century and neocons in general. It also betrays just how similar Clark and Marshall are in their common inside-the-Beltway biases - that reality doesn't really exist, except as shadows cast upon a cave wall, by which we can discern the struggles of cabals within the blinding corridors of power.