It's looking likely that Wesley Clark and his deranged band of has-beens and glory seekers will hit the dustbin of god-awful "entertainment" history after tonight's last episode of NBC's war-is-fun! "reality show," Stars Earn Stripes. Credit weekly protests by a broad spectrum of groups, a RootsAction.org petition signed by 50,000 people, a blast from seven Nobel prize winners, bad press, and few enough viewers to suggest, remarkably, there might yet be a level of tastelessness to which even blood-and-guts-hungry TV viewers will not go.

"The messages from 'Stars Earn Stripes' are all wrong," said Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction.org. "The role of Wesley Clark is a symbol of the warfare state that combines war, politics, media profits and show biz.