In Following His Own Script, Webb May Test Senate’s Limits
If I ever meet Senator-elect Jim Webb (D-VA), I’m going to buy the man a Shiner Bock. After all, he deserves it for his “Paul Wellstone moment”. It’s only too bad that more Democratic office-holders in political Washington can’t (or won’t) follow Webb’s lead.
(Editor’s note: When new Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone met the first President Bush, he launched into one of his trademark harangues. Wellstone never was much for small talk. The exchange prompted Bush to ask, “Who was that chickenshit?”)
Of course, as a Liberal, take-no-prisoners-show-no-mercy Democrat, I just have to love a Democrat who will go toe-to-toe with the smirking murderer who occupies the Oval Office. Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader knew full well that Webb’s son is serving in Iraq…yet he was willing to use that fact as the basis for so much small talk. Webb was in no mood to brook the use of his son for such an insipid purpose, and while some might find his confrontational behavior disrespectful, I applaud him heartily. He who deserves respect gets respect, and Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader has long since lost whatever credibility he may have once possessed.
And before you even think about attacking Webb’s patriotism, keep in mind that he’s and ex-Marine and a combat veteran…which is more than you can say for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader.
You don’t use a man’s concern for his son’s safety as the basis for meaningless small talk. Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader no more cares about Webb’s son than he does what happens to Nancy Pelosi. Webb simply refused to play the game, to play nice and treat Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader as someone worthy of respect.
I wish Jim Webb was my senator….
At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia’s newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn’t long before Bush found him.
“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.
“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.
“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”
“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House….
…If the exchange with Bush two weeks ago is any indication, Webb won’t be a wallflower, especially when it comes to the war in Iraq. And he won’t stick to a script drafted by top Democrats.
“I’m not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall,” Webb said in an interview yesterday in which he confirmed the exchange between him and Bush. “No offense to the institution of the presidency, and I’m certainly looking forward to working with him and his administration. [But] leaders do some symbolic things to try to convey who they are and what the message is.”
Someone buy that man a beer, willya??
Too often, political Washington is absorbed in the “go along to get along” philosophy that occasionally renders the parties indistinguishable. Politicians are expected to defer and kowtow to the President because of the perceived dignity of the highest office in the land. But what happens when the President is a jackass? What happens when the President himself is the one who demeans the very office he occupies through his lies, his deception, and his pronounced, undeniable incompetence? What then?
Would that more politicians in Washington were like Jim Webb. Congress is not a country club; it’s supposed to be a deliberative body constituted to attend to the People’s business. When the person occupying the White House IS the problem, someone needs to have the balls to call him on it. It’s just too bad that Webb is conspicuous by his being the only one of 535 members of Congress with a functional conscience and a working set of cojones.
