Jim Webb: Sell Out

I have never been against Jim Webb, per say the way the left is driven by an anti-Allen rage. His supporters have angered me, and I disagree with Webb on much. But I always respected him. But not anymore. He has now beocme a sell out. He wimpered down to McLean today, hat in had, begging Bill Clinton for money. Jim Webb's claim to a United States Senate seat from Virginia, and really the main claim by Democrats across the country, is that Republicans have grown corrupt. He feels that the "right wing" of President Bush have hijaked the party from Reagan's legacy of embracing fiscally conservative Democrats. Webb claimes to be a straigt-shooter, arguing taht he will stand up to everyone. Of Bill Clinton, Webb accused his administration of being "the most corrupt administration in modern memory."

Now Jim Webb needs money. Long gone is Maverick Webb, and all that is left is Sell Out Webb, willing to expel his principles for money and political power. Webb is being unmasked. He is not a politician and he lacks solid principles, clearly. If Webb were really what he claims to be, if he was truly "Born Fighting," he would stand behind his words. Instead, he's hiding behind Kristian Denny Todd's skirt. Aagin.

"I think he has said it was a different time when he made those comments," said Webb communications director Kristian Denny Todd. "It was a very different situation."

Webb has relied this entire campaign on the media doing his dirty work for him. The Washington Post's man-crush on him has exposed the party for the hack rag that it is. Every time Webb has had to finese his old conservative views to match the views of his liberal/blogger masters, he's had someone else do it for him.

Tell me James Webb hasn't, for money and power, completly SOLD OUT. At least you know where George Allen is coming from. He's honest and consistant. And don't get on here and say that Webb has "evolved" because that is bunk. Webb is as much against the Iraq War for principle as becasue nobody listened too him. He was irrelivent. Look at how he left the Navy Department. He wanted one thing, his boss Carlucci overrode him, and instead of being a big boy and accepting it, move on, and advocate his beliefs within the Administration, he threw a hissy fit and ran off to write books and theorize. Webb is your typical academic, and I've known many. They're strength is thinking, theorizing, and making sense with the pen and the paper. When it comes to executing, to legislating, and practicing power and getting things done in the REAL WORLD, Webb is a joke. If elected senator, we would get a Mark Dayton and not a John McCain.

Think about the sight of James Webb buddying up to Bill Clinton for money to full his naked ambition to be relevent. Then read THIS:

It is a pleasurable experience to watch Bill Clinton finally being judged, even by his own party, for the ethical fraudulence that has characterized his entire political career. But allowing Jimmy Carter a free pass on the issue of presidential pardons, as was done in a recent piece by his former chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, on this page, ignores both the evidence of history and the trauma that President Carter visited on this country during his earliest days in office ("The First Grifters," Feb. 20). Indeed, it could be said that the seeds of Bill Clinton's political arrogance were sown by Jimmy Carter's own hand.

While the Carter presidency may have handled cases of individual presidential pardons with great care, Mr. Carter's first official act as president was to pardon, en masse, all those who had been or could be charged with draft evasion during the Vietnam era. Motivated by the ever-present desire of American politicians to "heal the wounds" of the Vietnam War, and beyond doubt manipulated by the army of antiwar McGovernites who had seized control of the Democratic Party, Mr. Carter's gesture had the symbolic effect of elevating everyone who had opposed the Vietnam War to the level of moral purist, and by implication insulting those who often had struggled just as deeply with the moral dimensions of the war and had decided, often at great sacrifice, to honor the laws of their country and serve.

President Carter's all-embracing pardon of Americans who refused to serve in the military was without precedent. After World War II, President Truman had given full amnesty on a case-by-case basis to a limited number of draft evaders, but only after they had actually been convicted of the offense and then appealed to a review board that examined the circumstances of their cases. Following World War I, President Roosevelt had pardoned those who had been convicted of draft violations and had served out their prison terms, but did not extend even this limited pardon to those who had left the country. Much was said about President Lincoln's sweeping pardon of Confederate soldiers after the Civil War, but this gesture was made to those who had indeed served, honoring the judgments of their state governments. Lincoln made this distinction clear in his remarks when issuing the pardons, and by pointedly refusing to extend such amnesty to Confederate officials and men of property.

Nor did President Carter's abuse of power end with the pardoning of draft evaders. Some had criticized this blanket amnesty as having made class distinctions between college boys who were "enlightened" enough to oppose the draft and blue-collar boys who had gone into the military and then either seen the light regarding the war or suffered the supposed abuses of the military system. Liberal groups and antiwar politicians assailed the "inequities" of military justice and the "randomness" of its characterization of service when one left the military, despite the fact that 97% of those who served during Vietnam had been discharged under honorable circumstances. Within weeks of pardoning all the draft evaders, Mr. Carter invoked his powers as commander in chief and ordered that the "bad paper" military discharges of hundreds of thousands of deserters, malcontents and nonperformers be mandatorily upgraded, so long as they met one of six easily attained criteria.

Again President Carter had upset a delicately balanced apple cart among the Vietnam generation. By wiping the slate clean for those who had dodged the draft or created problems while in the military, he signaled to those who had served honorably during a horribly emotional period that their self-discipline, loyalty, wounds and even deaths did not matter. The Congress, and particularly the Committees on Veterans Affairs, where I then served as a House counsel, spent the next six months in emotional argument and negotiation. The House and Senate at times engaged in heated floor debates and recriminations before some measure of historical standards were mandated to accompany any veterans benefits awarded to recipients of Mr. Carter's falsely upgraded discharges.

These acts resonate when one evaluates Bill Clinton's incessantly arrogant presidency, from the endless string of conscious and serious abuses of power to the "conversion" of White House furniture and china on his way out the door. For what we are seeing are the echoes of a pervasive elitism, from people who were taught when young that the laws that applied to their countrymen did not necessarily apply to them.

As one who shares Mr. Clinton's ethnic background, and whose family was not afforded the opportunity for higher education until this generation, it is irritating beyond words to see commentators repeatedly refer to his actions as "redneck" or typical of "white trash" behavior. Rednecks might hang a velvet picture of Elvis on their living room wall, but precious few would tolerate any sort of conduct that might demean the greatness of their country, much less take part in it. Check the casualty lists in any war. See who stands tall and salutes when the flag passes by. Note who wasn't sleeping in Lincoln's bedroom when Bill Clinton occupied the White House.

Instead, Bill and Hillary's misadventures provide an echo of a different time and place, another set of values. Of bright students brought to good schools and becoming convinced, as Ben Stein wrote of his years at Yale Law School with the Clintons, "that we were supermen, floating above history and precedent, the natural rulers of the universe. . . . The law did not apply to us." Of young men who not only avoided service when 58,000 of their peers were dying, but who persuaded a softie like Jimmy Carter to say that they were right, all of them, without distinction. The law? The law was what you made it.

Americans, bred on fairness and passionate about equality, have a way of collectively summing things up as time goes by. It is accurate to say that Jimmy Carter's presidency never fully recovered from his naive but well-intentioned opening moments. And one can predict that Bill Clinton will never live down the arrogance of his final departure.

James Webb
Arlington, Va.

After all that, Webb's naked ambition has led him to know crawl at the feet of this "arrogant" president who has "the ethical fraudulence that has characterized his entire political career," Bill Clinton, for what? For money.

Sell Out: To betray one's cause or associates especially for personal gain.

Pretty much.

Comments

[brimur]

Yawn. Webb's answered this crap before. As Bush is so fond of saying, 9/11 changed everything. Suddenly all the petty issues with Clinton seem far less important.

Go back to the drawing board.

[Mason Conservative]

Wait a minute. Webb explicitly attacked Clinton over and over for his conduct as president. Its not petty. It speaks to Webb's character, or lack thereof, that he would humble himself to have Clinton come speak for him. I mean, he BLASTED Clinton, and if Webb really was a maverick and his own man, he would not bring in the support of a man he clearly did not respect.

[Rob]

What does 9/11 have to do with personal integrity?

(crickets)

That's what I thought.

[Catzmaw]

Oh my gosh, if only Webb could be pure like George Allen, who suddenly realizes that there might be a problem in Iraq, only weeks after giving it his official high-five and okey-dokey. Allen, who is in photos with the Counsel of Conservative Citizens (white supremicists), who is quoted as saying that he had no IDEA that the confederate flag meant bad things to black people, who claims that he had no IDEA he was supposed to report all of his stock options, who ignores the valid legal criticisms of the proposed constitutional amendment and as an attorney should recognize its potential for harm, but who fervently supports it because he is SO about values. What a panderer.

So Webb turned to the leadership of the party for funding. It's the real world, folks. He can either refuse to talk to people in the party (oh, by the way, has Allen sent Foley his money back, yet?) or he can accept their assistance. What harm does it do? We don't have a Clinton administration in office right now. We have a Bush administration. And Webb's judgments on Clinton came BEFORE he saw what a mess Bush and company could make of things. They came before an unlawful invasion, the awarding of no-bid contracts and blank checks to war profiteers, secret energy policy meetings in the White House with big oil, outright lies and manipulation of intelligence, looting of the federal treasury to pay for it all after providing billions in unnecessary tax relief for the richest among us, establishment of secret prisons, suspension of all rights of review for alleged enemy combatants, rendition, warrantless surveillance, and deliberate slander of any who would question this government's policies.

How about looking at the Republican controlled Congress? Let's see, we have DeLay, Ney, Abramoff, Foley, and all the cast of characters who are currently under investigation, especially from the House Appropriations Committee.

Tell me, has George Allen expressed any outrage or asked any questions of this corruption? What exactly has George said? (crickets). Uh huh.

Webb didn't know it at the time, but any corruption in the Clinton administration at the time would be eclipsed by and look like amateur hour (purloined china versus billions in overseas contracts) when compared to the Bush administration.

[Scrapiron]

Catzmaw: You need to get up to date on the 'overseas' contracts. The fact is you are hung up on Haliburton like a spoiled child that didn't get the bicycle they wanted. Fact are that 'the hated contractor' won over 90% of their contracts in 'open' (if you know what that means) bids and are rated as the best currrent defense contractor, which means they do the job they get paid for. Do a little research, quit lying for political purposes (a lie is still a lie and not good for your rep) and get back to us when you have the facts.

The facts in this post has proven why Webb can't be trusted. The only resort the dim's have is, Allen didn't do his job. Either give facts to prove anything Allen has did wrong or crawl back under your rock.

You could change my vote if you can find anything political or otherwise that you can tell the truth about. If you're in business please let me know what it is so I can stay away from it. Guess i'll still be voting for Allen because there's no truth, only violence and lies in the dim party.

How many leading democrats were involved with 'planning' a coup with the retired generals last month? Guess the plan got dropped when they figured out the retired generals were at best 'losers' and no one in the military would follow them.

[thegools]

When we join together with our enemies to solve common problems, we destroy our enemies.

Lincoln invited his fierstest rivals & critics onto his cabinet, and he once said to a woman who thought the southern enemies should be destoyed: "Madame, do not I destroy my enemies by making them my friends?"

I would propose that some of that philosophy is at work in Virginia this year.

Webb is reported to have vowed not to shake John Kerry's hand for a period of 20 years following Vietnam. (It is not clear if they met during those years.) Then this past spring they appeared together on stage days before the primary election. On the surface it appeared like a great turn-around for Webb, however, what is not well known is that several Webb staffers reported that Webb and Kerry met privately several times, once for something like 5 hours. No one else was party to what was said, but it was clear that they were going over a lot of territory. I would presume a lot of soul searching and burying-of-hatchets occurred.

Webb publically blasted the Clinton Presidency and yet now Clinton and Webb have appeared together in public. I can not imagine this was easy for the former critic nor for the former target of critique.

I cannot help but wonder what sort of things were covered in their private meetings before the recent appearances. I have no doubt that many in the Webb and Allen campaigns would have enjoyed being a fly-on-the-wall during such heavy meetings. Perhaps the bad blood was purged and made clean between these two men, or perhaps it was the common "enemy" that made them "strange bed-fellows." I know a bit about Webb and his history, and I have no doubt it was the former. The bad blood was made clean.

In the end, I am reminded that true forgiveness is devine, and that we destroy our enemies when we make them our friends.