If you read Newsweek's story this week on retired General Wesley Clark, Clark comes across as the office brown-noser, suck-up and weasly backstabber:

The problem may have been partly a matter of Clark's tone and manner. As an ambitious officer, Clark gained a reputation among his peers for telling different people what they wanted to hear, without seeming to realize that his listeners might later compare notes and accuse Clark of being two-faced. Clark might have done better if he had adopted a more straightforward manner, perhaps leavened with a spot of humor.

Clark's supporters note that one of their candidates' detractors, retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who first starting raising the "character issues" about Clark, is now a consultant to the rival Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Edwards.

Still, anyone who has ever been stabbed in the back at their job can look at Clark's record and wince.