Thursday, November 30, 2006

Jim Webb?

Democrat Jim Webb sounds like my kind of politician:
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_12_04/mcconnell.html
Anyone know anything about him?
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13 comments:

Vol-in-Law said...

Webb's website has an interesting article about us Scots-Irish.
http://www.jameswebb.com/articles/wallstjrnl/scotsirishvote.htm

"In fact, the greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African Americans to the same table, and so to redefine a formula that has consciously set them apart for the past two centuries."

This reminded me of watching Gone With the Wind, and thinking how the Southern plantation-owning class so clearly despised the Scots-Irish 'white trash' who were the ones actually fighting their battles. In that respect Scarlett O'Hara doesn't seem much different from her Yankee opposites.

I think Webb explains why Democrats like Bill Clinton and John Edwards, and possibly Webb, can win the South, and thus the Presidency, while John Kerry couldn't.

30 November, 2006 13:52
girl from the south said...

Webb and Allen just ran one of the dirtiest, below-the-belt campaigns in Senate history. Even if you like his politics, the guy is a creep. I work with several people who know him, and he's been described as a pig. Go to YouTube and search for the Webb/Allen commericals. I hope that he doesn't run so that the nation can be spared what Virginia went though during the election. You had to take a shower after every commerical break to get rid of all the mud.

30 November, 2006 14:19
Vol-in-Law said...

Thanks gfts, I currently know nothing about him other than his website and that TAC article, so all info is good. :)

30 November, 2006 14:32
Vol-in-Law said...

Found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSgIAdGKsXA

30 November, 2006 14:35
Anonymous said...

While he seemed much better than Allen, everything I've seen/read about/by him makes me cringe. Yes, he is "independent", but he seems to style himself a 2P politician -- populism and protectionism. His stance on trade issues scares me most.

St. Caffeine

30 November, 2006 20:09
Vol Abroad said...

Ahh - if he's a protectionist that may be why he's finding relative favor with the Pat Buchanan crowd.

30 November, 2006 23:10
Anonymous said...

I'm proud to say I worked on Jim Webb's campaign. You've asked for information. Here it is:

Webb graduated from the US Naval Academy in 68 and was the first in his class in Marine Combat training. He commanded a platoon in Vietnam, where he earned a Navy Cross (a step below a Medal of Honor) for his actions in clearing three enemy grenade bunkers and throwing himself between his Marines and a live grenade while shooting the grenade thrower. Awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, and 2 Purple Hearts, he's a Marine legend. Upon his return to the States he became an aide to then Navy Secretary John Warner, who is currently Virginia's senior senator. Mustered out as a captain due to his war wounds he attended Georgetown Law School and took on pro bono cases for Vietnam vets. He was a legislative counsel for the Congress for four years until selected by Ronald Reagan for the post of Navy Secretary. He resigned that post after 10 months over the Administration's decision to reduce the naval fleet. In the meantime, he'd started writing books. His first book was a strategic analysis of Micronesia, but then he wrote his classic "Fields of Fire", followed by books such as "The Emperor's General". More books followed after his resignation from the cabinet; he became a journalist and contributing editor of Parade Magazine, and also contributed articles on everything from combat strategy to foreign policy to veterans' issues to various publications. In the early 80s he received an Emmy for his PBS documentary on the Marines in Beirut during the Israel/Lebanon conflict. He later wrote and co-produced Rules of Engagement, leading to Allen's scurrilous attack on him as a "Hollywood movie mogul". During this time he also started returning to Vietnam, reconnecting with the village he protected as a Marine. He speaks Vietnamese fluently and is married to a Vietnamese boat person who is now an American securities lawyer.

In the 2000 Senate election he turned down a request by John Warner that he run for the Senate, and endorsed Allen. Although he had been a Republican since the Carter administration he was growing increasingly disenchanted by the Republican party due to its economic policies. After 9/11 he supported the invasion of Afghanistan, but was vehemently opposed to the Iraq War. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post before the war and personally visited Allen to ask him to vote against it. Allen refused, saying it would be disloyal to the President. Webb was also shocked at the government's extraordinary incompetence during Katrina, and finally decided to leave the Republican party and return to his Democratic roots. In the meantime, he had completed his ethnography, Born Fighting, in 2004. The book was extremely well-received to jacket blurbs from people like Tom Wolfe, and celebrates the culture of the Scots-Irish in America, sometimes called rednecks. Webb is proud of this culture and feels it has gotten a bad rap.

The campaign was indeed filthy, but it was not so at Webb's behest. Of his 9 commercials you will find no reference to macaca or racism against Allen. Unfortunately, Allen's terminal case of "hoof in mouth" disease made him the object of relentless media coverage and blogging. Webb also resisted any references to his war service, ending up with only one commercial (the Gipper) which referred to his military decorations. He refused to discuss his son's military service, telling journalists repeatedly that he was just one of thousands of military parents who were all going through the same thing. Allen, on the other hand, gleefully went on the attack, accusing Webb of anti-female attitudes for a 29 year old article he'd written opposing women at the Naval Academy. In the latter days of the campaign a special committee of Allen staffers culled through every one of the approximately 2 million words Webb had written, and came up with about 10 paragraphs of lurid scenes from his novels. Rejected by MSM organizations for publication, eventually the Allen camp went to Drudge, who posted the excerpts. The excerpts were used to attack Webb's character and call him a pervert and a pedophile. The events they recounted were those things he knew from the war or witnessed during his many trips overseas. The smear campaign backfired, and all of a sudden Virginia had a new Senator.

The thing to understand about Webb is that he is a deeply private individual who loves the Armed Forces, and is extremely close to his children. Here is the advice he had for our leaders in 1990:

You hold our soldiers' lives in sacred trust. When a citizen has sworn to obey you, and follow your judgment, and walk onto a battlefield to defend the interests you define as worthy of his blood, do not abuse that awesome power through careless policy, unclear objectives, or inflexible leadership.

As far as I can tell, the man only says what he believes and believes what he says. It will be interesting to see if he can work with all the empty suits in Washington.

03 December, 2006 04:09
Anonymous said...

Thanks catzmaw.

"You hold our soldiers' lives in sacred trust."

This is something I feel strongly about also. When a soldier takes their oath of allegiance they take on a duty, but it is not a one-way street. Those who send soldiers into battle owe an equal duty not to abuse that allegiance through wasting their lives on false or unachievable ends. In Britain we have a particular problem that our military, which is not big or well funded, is often called on to be sent on 'humanitarian' missions that make the political class feel morally virtuous but that are not in our national interest and in many cases involve arbitrarily siding with one gang of foreign thugs against another gang of thugs.

03 December, 2006 10:00
Anonymous said...

Vol-in-Law

I just read the "about us" blurb and realized you are an actual born and bred Scots-Irishman. I'm Irish Catholic on Dad's side so I approached Webb's book, Born Fighting, with the natural hostility of a granddaughter of the potato famine. The book was probably the first decent explanation I've seen of just how tangled the allegiances of the Irish, the Scottish, and the English were during the period leading up and after the Battle of the Boyne, and the best explanation I've ever seen of why there were so many people happy to sign on to the American Revolution.

He also finally explained to me why the Scots-Irish of the southern and border states fought so valiantly for the South during the Civil War when almost none of them were slaveholders.

Your Vol Abroad may also enjoy the book, as it speaks quite a bit about the mountain culture of Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas.

Your point of soldiers lives wasted by policy moralists is well-taken, although I have noticed that at least it is still the practice of British royals to go to Sandhurst. Seems to me the British elites are not as hostile toward or dismissive of the armed forces as the elites here are. A tiny fraction of this country of 300 million is doing all the fighting and dying as the rest of the country obsesses about whether K-Fed cheated on Britney. The biggest boosters of the war evaded military service themselves and their children do not enlist. Webb's son grew up fairly well off, but his father sent him to a local public high school that was only 20% white and has a tough reputation (JEB Stuart High School in Falls Church, VA). He taught him the family ethic of duty and supported his decision to enlist in spite of his opposition to the war. I have to like and admire the man.

04 December, 2006 20:22
Vol-in-Law said...

catzmaw:
"although I have noticed that at least it is still the practice of British royals to go to Sandhurst. Seems to me the British elites are not as hostile toward or dismissive of the armed forces as the elites here are"

Well the Royals aren't part of the ruling elite anymore; our governing class are mostly lawyers, as in the USA, and professional politicians. They're just as un-military as the US version.

05 December, 2006 08:51
Vol-in-Law said...

"just read the "about us" blurb and realized you are an actual born and bred Scots-Irishman"

Yeah, I was even born in Edinburgh, Scotland but grew up near Belfast, Northern Ireland - my mother's from Londonderry, my father was born in Edinburgh but is of English descent. I have asked for 'Born Fighting' for birthday (21st Dec) or Christmas. :)

05 December, 2006 08:56
Anonymous said...

Disdain for the military is nothing new among the ruling class, I guess. You've probably read Kipling:

"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot"

Hope you have a nice birthday and get your book.

I was only in Ireland once, during the early 80s, and we drove up to Donegal where my father's people are from, but I wouldn't mind spending a few weeks just driving around and exploring the whole place, Northern and Republic.

05 December, 2006 14:41
Anonymous said...

"I was only in Ireland once, during the early 80s, and we drove up to Donegal where my father's people are from"

My mothers' folks are also from Donegal! :) It's all very pretty, the west coast of Ireland down to Galway is beautiful and quite wild & empty.

05 December, 2006 22:56

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