In the current New York Review of books, Elizabeth Drew has an article about Wesley Clark. It's quite favorable (fine by me; I'm an Anybody But Bush guy, and that even includes Lieberman -- I don't have a candidate yet) -- but what's most striking is the number of times Clinton appears in the article as, well, spineless:

* Clark's view on Kosovo, shared by Tony Blair and other European leaders, was that Clinton, by stating that ground troops would not be used there —a position Clinton took for domestic political reasons—gave the Serbs a military advantage.

*According to three former Clinton aides, when Clinton approved the list of appointments submitted to him by Cohen, including the selection of General Joseph W. Ralston as the new commander of the NATO forces, it wasn't made clear to the President that this would cut Clark's term as the supreme commander by nearly three months.... Clinton was reportedly furious when he realized the mistake that had been made, but he didn't want to go back on it lest he look indecisive, or further alienate military officials, with whom he had been on bad terms since the beginning of his presidency.

* Clark [tried] to prevent the Russians, who rushed a small troop unit to the Pristina airport after hostilities had supposedly ended, from establishing their own sector in Kosovo, completely independent of NATO.... Clark devoted an entire chapter to the airport incident in his first book, and his account has been confirmed by others. He explains that at first he had the support of the Clinton White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretary-general of NATO, Javier Solana. But when the British refused to support him, ... Washington backed down.

(Emphasis mine in each case.)

Look, I miss the Clinton years, and I think his most fervid haters suffer from something clinically pathological. But his fear of giving offense was one of his worst traits -- and it's a trait far too many Democrats seem to emulate.