James Webb, U.S. Senator-elect

I supported the candidacy of James Webb for United States Senator from Virginia. I worked for his election, harder than some but not nearly as diligently as others. I’m happy that he won. But something happened this week that is very bothersome.

Jim Webb was invited to the White House for a reception for incoming members of congress. As a newly elected senator to be, Mr. Webb would be one of the stars of the show. Reports of the event indicate that Jim appeared to make a point of avoiding the host, the President of the United States.

During the course of the reception, it is reported that the president made a point of finding and engaging Mr. Webb and that Mr. Webb reacted in a manner that was reported to be unusual, if not confrontational. Mr. Webb is reported to have avoided having his picture taken with his host and in making smart remarks about that.

The president asked about Mr. Webb’s son who is serving in Iraq, and Webb is reported to have responded with something akin to, “That’s between my son and me.”

Naturally, a food fight of that nature was reported in the press, and I among many was shocked by Mr. Webb’s performance. George Will opined that the senator-elect’s performance was boorish, and I – again among many – agreed.

Many of Webb’s supporters rushed to his defense with such arguments as that it was about time someone shook the hypocrisy out of politics and told the emperor that his fig leaf had been dropped or that Webb’s campaign was based on straight talk and that anything else would have been phony.

Mr. Webb, in my view, was right on target during his campaign when he denounced the Iraq War. His views and mine were almost exactly the same on the most important issue – and as far as I can see on many others that were addressed in the election. Despite having been a long time Republican, Mr. Webb made himself available to the Democrats to run against George Allen, primarily because of his rejection of the invasion of Iraq and the new course of the larger war on terror being pursued by George Bush.

I was a registered Republican in 2000 and voted for Bush. Like Webb, I broke with Mr. Bush and the Republicans when the war on terror lost its focus by shifting away from Afghanistan, its Taliban rulers who were harboring al Qaeda, and the terrorists themselves who were planning and training in that country.

My disgust with the president and his congressional enablers was as palpable as that of Jim Webb, and I became an avowed critic of the president and his war. While having zero knowledge of Webb’s evolution, when I found out he was running and his policy positions, I was very pleased since I had trod virtually the same path.

My break with Bush and the Republicans was eased by my view that in the president I had voted for a `uniter not a divider’ but had been sorely disappointed to learn that I was just plain wrong in this. Mr. Bush had turned out to be the worst kind of partisan, and I was going to look for candidates who would restore some sense of civility to government. During the campaign I came to believe that Jim Webb was such a person. While he pulled no punches in his opposition to the war, his interaction with his opponent, Senator Allen, was always civil, far more honest, and almost devoid of the mud being thrown at him.

Many of the people defending Mr. Webb for his alleged faux pas are those from the liberal part of the coalition that elected him. Many of these same people were angered by the heat of the charges by Senator Allen, and they were the ones calling for civility.

Mr. Webb is obviously far more conservative than the left wing of the Democratic Party. He and many others recruited to be candidates by the Democrats were far more centrist than the hard core, and this was acknowledged by virtually everyone associated with the campaign.

I am a Democrat – now – and far more centrist than the vast majority of his Northern Virginia supporters. Almost every analysis that I have perused since the election leads me to conclude that Mr. Webb’s narrow victory was based on votes garnered from Democrat centrists, moderate Republicans, and independents.

I am convinced that Mr. Webb made gross mistake in attending the function at the White House with the intent of avoiding the host and in responding badly to a very civil question concerning the well being of his son. Obviously, it is acceptable to say things in the course of a campaign that are not appropriate in the home of a political opponent. If Mr. Webb cannot abide the person of George Bush, he should not have attended the reception. His absence would not have created nearly the stir as his performance.

I continue to support Senator elect Webb and wish him well. He is a man of significant intellect and is far more honest in thought than most people in public life. But if there are many more repeats of the performance at his first White House reception, the narrow victory that came with the building of a coalition built on civility as well as policy positions will quickly erode.

I am angrier with Webb’s overzealous supporters who have the gall to encourage such behavior than with the senator elect who should be given room to back down gracefully. Their partisanship is showing, and they ought to realize that the great victory by their candidate – and mine – was built on far more than bad manners and incivility.

There, I feel better. I hope we can move on.

Blog on!

Wild Bill