So let’s assume -- for the sake of argument -- that Wesley Clark really was dead serious when he said he would have been a Republican if Karl Rove had returned his calls. Let’s take his pre-9/11, pre-Iraq quagmire praise of the Bush foreign-policy team seriously. And, while we’re at it, let’s accept Hugh Shelton’s characterization of Clark as a “nut.”

Hmm...a would-be Republican, said by some to be a bit odd, who’s now deeply, perhaps bitterly, disillusioned by a Bush administration. You know who that reminds me of?

Ross Perot.

I don’t know yet what to believe about Wesley Clark. But maybe the only way to beat one of the George Bushes is to have someone like Perot soften him up -- someone who’s out for payback and who can live with not being liked. Someone, in other words, who’s as spiteful, vindictive, and obsessively competitive with regard to Bush as both of the Bushes are with regard to everyone they run against.