WHEN WESLEY CLARK formally bows out of the race later today, it’s won’t be because, as his son has recently charged, the media did him in. It will be because the man, by some accounts a decent fellow who served his country well, was not ready for prime time.

In truth, journalists were never as hard on Clark as they could have been. Clark’s biggest misstep–his conspiracy theory on Iraq–is relatively famous. Less so are his smaller gaffes, which littered the campaign trail and made it clear to anyone watching that he had virtually no grasp on domestic American political issues.