One of the big shake ups of the recent election is the unseating of George Allen and the election of James Webb to represent the state of Virginia as their newest U.S. Senator. I didn't follow that race very closely, although with the number of times the WaPo wrote articles trashing Allen, it was hard to avoid at least an overview of the race. What surprised me when I first became aware that Webb was challenging was that Webb was challenging. I remember James Webb as being a very outspoken former military guy who used to show up as a pundit on early cable TV as a representative of the Reagan Administration and the "architect" of the smaller, faster, more easily mobilized forces made up of specially trained units. The idea that he would be running as a Dhimmicrat floored me. It still does. This is a man who heads his web page with:
Born Fighting does not seem like a slogan that applies to anyone with a (D) after his name. And, if my memory serves, Jim Webb is a fighter and a man who stands up for his principles. This is a man who resigned after only 10 months as Secretary of the Navy because Ronald Reagan didn't give him the expansion mandate Webb believed he needed to do his job at that position.
Over the weekend, I've read several comments about how Webb will have to learn to be a backbencher, that his "betters" or "senior members" will sit on him or keep him under their thumb and under control. I don't think soooooooooooooooo. This idea is false on its face. For one thing, Webb's resume is such that there is really no one in the Senate who can claim to be his "better" when it comes to walking in the halls of power. Webb has been there, done that, and he isn't inclined to take a back seat to anyone, least of all Harry Reid.
So, I'm challenging with this question: how long do you think it will be before James Webb tees off on the likes of Harry Reid, John Kerry, Jack Murtha, Dick Durbin and Carl Levin?
Before you answer, read the following from his web page biographical and tell me where you see a Dhimmicrat anywhere? And where do you see any signs of a man who isn't what he says he is, "born fighting?"
About James H. Webb, Jr.:
James Webb is descended principally from the Scotch-Irish settlers who came
to this country from Northern Ireland in the 18th century and became
pioneers in the Virginia mountains. Through the 1800's and early 1900's, Mr.
Webb's ancestors moved steadily west and south from Virginia, most often to
settlements in North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri.
In the mid-1900's many members of the family joined the westward migration
to California, and the family is now scattered throughout the continental
United States.
Both sides of Mr. Webb's family have a strong citizen-soldier military
tradition that predates the Revolutionary War. Mr. Webb's father was a career Air Force officer who flew B-17s and B-29s during World War Two, cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift, and was a pioneer in the United States missile program. Colonel Webb, who was the first family member to finish high school and who graduated from the University of Omaha in 1962 after 26 years of night school, put the first Atlas missile into place for the Air Force in the late 1950's, and held an unsurpassed success-rate record as commander of an Atlas, Thor, and Scout Junior missile squadron during the early 1960's. During the Vietnam war he served at Air Force Systems command on sensitive satellite link programs and as a legislative affairs officer in the Pentagon, leading him to become a vocal critic of Defense Secretary McNamara's leadership methods and causing him eventually to retire from the Air Force, partially in protest of the manner in which the Vietnam War was being micromanaged by the political process.
James Webb grew up on the move, attending more than a dozen different schools across the U.S. and in England. He graduated from high school in Bellevue, Nebraska. First attending the University of Southern California on an NROTC academic scholarship, he left for the Naval Academy after one year. At the Naval Academy he was a four-year member of the Brigade Honor Committee, a varsity boxer, and was one of six finalists in the interviewing process for Brigade Commander during his senior year. Graduating in l968 he chose a commission in the Marine Corps, and was one of 18 in his class of
841 to receive the Superintendent's Commendation for outstanding leadership
contributions while a midshipman. First in his class of 243 at the Marine
Corps Officer's Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, he then served with the
Fifth Marine Regiment in Vietnam, where as a rifle platoon and company
commander in the infamous An Hoa Basin west of Danang he was awarded the
Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple
Hearts. He later served as a platoon commander and as an instructor in
tactics and weapons at Marine Corps Officer Candidates School, and then as a
member of the Secretary of the Navy's immediate staff, before leaving the
Marine Corps in l972.
Mr. Webb spent the "Watergate years" as a student at the Georgetown
University Law Center, arriving just after the Watergate break-in in 1972,
and receiving his J.D. just after the fall of South Vietnam in l975. While
at Georgetown he began a six-year pro bono representation of a Marine who
had been convicted of war crimes in Vietnam (finally clearing the man's name
in 1978, three years after his suicide), won the Horan award for excellence
in legal writing, and authored his first book, Micronesia and U.S. Pacific
Strategy. He also worked in Asia as a consultant to the Governor of Guam,
conducting a study of U.S. military land needs in Asia, and their impact on
Guam's political future.
Mr. Webb has written six best-selling novels: Fields of Fire (l978),
considered by many to be the classic novel of the Vietnam war, A Sense of
Honor (l981), A Country Such As This (1983), Something To Die For (1991),
The Emperor's General (1999) and Lost Soldiers (2001). He taught literature
at the Naval Academy as their first visiting writer, has traveled worldwide
as a journalist, and his PBS coverage of the U.S. Marines in Beirut earned
him an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
In government, Mr. Webb served in the U.S. Congress as counsel to the House
Committee on Veterans Affairs from l977 to l98l, becoming the first Vietnam
veteran to serve as a full committee counsel in the Congress. During the
Reagan Administration he was the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Reserve Affairs from l984 to l987, where he directed considerable research
and analysis of the U.S. military's mobilization capabilities and spent much
time with our NATO allies. In 1987 he became the first Naval Academy
graduate in history to serve in the military and then become Secretary of
the Navy. He resigned from that position in 1988 after refusing to agree in
the reduction of the Navy's force structure during congressionally-mandated
budget cuts.
Among Mr. Webb's many other awards for community service and professional
excellence are the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal,
the Medal of Honor Society's Patriot Award, the American Legion National
Commander's Public Service Award, the VFW's Media Service Award, the Marine
Corps League's Military Order of the Iron Mike Award, the John Russell
Leader-ship Award, and the Robert L. Denig Distinguished Service Award. He
was a Fall, 1992 Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
Mr. Webb travels extensively, particularly in Asia, as a journalist,
business consultant and screenwriter-producer. He speaks Vietnamese and has
done extensive pro bono work with the Vietnamese community dating from the
late l970's. In 1989 he met with key Japanese government and industrial
officials as a featured guest of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. He has
worked on feature film projects with many of Hollywood's top producers. His
original story Rules of Engagement, which he also executive-produced, was
released in April 2000 and starred Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. It
was the number one film in the US for two weeks. His fifth novel The Emperor's General was purchased by Paramount pictures as
the largest book-to-film deal of 1998. His book Born Fighting, How the
Scots-Irish Shaped America, which is his
first commercial non-fiction effort, was published in October 2004 by
Broadway Books. It is currently in its 10th printing.
Webb's ancestry is very similar to my own and I'm interested in getting his book about the Scots-Irish as my own Pennsylvania Scots-Irish were in the forefront of those fighting to shape America prior to the Revolutionary War. My immigrant Scots-Irish ancestor is described as:
... born in Castle Blaney, near Carrick Macross, Ireland, about 1741, and who emigrated to America after the Steel Boy insurrection (1772) stopped on the eastern side of the mountains at that Scots-Irish hive in Cumberland, now Franklin county, and moved westward about 1773, settling on land in Sewickley Manor, now Mount Pleasant township, Westmoreland county, PA, about the time of the formation of Westmoreland county. Here he bought land from the Penns, and became an important land owner in his day of land that is now in the Connellsville coking coal region, four hundred acres of the land bought by him has been passed down through his descendants, and is now owned by his great grandson. True to the characteristics of his race, he became an agitator for freedom, was a member of the Mount Pleasant Association formed to protect this western country, was three years in the Revolutionary army, took the oath of allegiance required by all foreign born citizens, before Hugh Martin, a justice of this county, 3 March 1777 and served with his brothers-in-law in the campaign of the Jerseys.
It goes on to show a life of agitation, always for freedom from interference and taxes. There is no way that my ancestors (or my descendants, for that matter) would buy into the current Dhimmicrat agenda, and I really wonder if James Webb intends to either. And lastly, does anyone, after reading some of Webb's writings and speeches think he can be at all happy at the idea of being lumped in with those touted as a friend to the terrorists by the likes of Iran and al-Qaeda? Or as AJ Strata says: "The Democrats emboldened the terrorists with their unrelenting calls to
surrender Iraq. And now they have to make good on their commitments to
Al Qaeda - at least that is what Al Qaeda believes." Can Jim Webb possibly think of himself as one of those Dhimmicrats?
RELATED:
Is America Becoming a Nation of Surrender Monkeys?
By Gateway Pundit
Warrior or Surrender Monkey?... When does a nation cross that invisible line?
When is it the right time wave the white flag?
How much sacrifice is too much sacrifice?
What the far left expects from the Democratic Congress
By Sister Toldjah
on Clueless Wonders
While the new majority Democrats are promising investigations and inquiries galore, as well as working on perfecting their Iraq cut and run strategy, their far left base is not going to let so-called “centrist” Democrats forget exactly who put them over the top last Tuesday.
As a reminder, the LA Times prints a laundry list of Nutroots demands and expectations.
Captain Ed: "Democratic leadership also has to consider Jim Webb, the Buchananite that ran as a Democrat, on everything else but the war."
The Nutroots-Al Qaeda Convergence (LGF)
Here’s video of Greg Gutfeld, on the synchronization of opinions between the lefty blogosphere and Al Qaeda: Video: Greg Gutfeld talks liberal blogs on Fox.
Ayman al-Zawahiri vs. Democratic talking points.
COMMENTS ENCOURAGED
THE AIM OF EDUCATION IS TO TEACH US HOW TO THINK, NOT WHAT TO THINK.
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