"The Webb Paradox"

John Podhoretz has a great blurb over at NRO's The Corner:

Webb is a brilliant and unclassifiable guy — I'd say he's very close to being a paleocon with socially liberal attitudes. But if he is anything, he's politically incorrect. How ironic, therefore, that his campaign has now staked itself on the incredibly dreary politically correct issue of "offensive language" dating back decades. Instead of being the philosopher-novelist candidate, Webb is instead on the line in the most dispiriting and unintelligent political contest the United States has seen in years.

I'd say that pretty much says it right.

Comments

[Juno TJ]

I'd say that pretty much says it WRONG.

Why is it that our politicians must DENY the racism that exists in ALL of us?

The concession that we all have this wired into our lizard brains would, for once, lead to an intelligent debate.

I do not blame Jim Webb for using that word in his novels.

I do not blame George Allen for using that word on his high school rugby team or even at UVA.

I do blame politicians who LIE about what they have done and felt and thought because they fear that they cannot get elected if they admit what is natural in all of us: prejudice, jingoism, and, yes, racism: if they never deal with it in themselves, how can they be trusted to deal with race issues as lawmakers?

Allen needs to throw his campaign team into garbage. They have been the ones who have been pumping up this silly story about Webb's 1979 article on women in the military, and beating the bushes for someone who might be willing to do a "gotcha" on Webb on the N Word. They are the ones who so miserably advised their boss that he should say that the word wasn't in his vocabulary.

Talk about asking for it . . .

Webb's campaign hasn't been creating these stories. . . . unless we are prepared to claim that Salon, Sabato, Mathews, and and the entire MSM are "Minions," "Lackeys," and "Webbies." Webb hasn't been pushing these folks who have bad things to say about Allen's vocabulary in front of the camera.

Stupid. STUPID. Our sides' so called political professionals are STUPID. Why didn't Allen see that he had hired a bunch of hacks who had made their reps being nasty, not smart?

McCain's people had it right when they realized that what people crave in this Country is straight talk: that means straight talk on race, like everything else.