Make no mistake: I'm a Jim Webb supporter.
However, today's press conference referring to several objectionable things Mr. Webb wrote over 25 years ago about women in the armed forces should be an opportunity to show that the Webb campaign has learned some lessons from watching the Allen campaign's all thumb's response to the M-word incident.
1. Mr. Webb should immediately accept responsibility for what he wrote.
2. Mr. Webb should apologize.
3. Mr. Webb should, in some way, try to make amends or highlight other things he has done/said that are pro-women in the 25+ years since he wrote these things.
4. Mr. Webb should move on to discussing more substantive issues and preparing for the upcoming debates.
Neither Jim Webb nor proxies in his campaign should:
1. Blame the media. This just kept George "Welcome to America" Allen on the receiving end of bad press.
2. Say, "This may be bad but Allen has done worse!" Don't screw with moral equivalence. (See the result of 1. Blame the media.) If you want to compare voting record or policy etc, fine, but no ad hominem crap.
3. Dwell on this. Move on, nothing to see here.
In summation, be upfront, take responsibility, be contrite. It's the right thing to do.
PS: I have a good friend who is a Naval Officer and happens to be female. I know she does a damn good job. Women who choose to defend our country shouldn't have to put up with frat boy crap and Mr. Webb should say so.
Make no mistake: I'm a Jim Webb supporter.
Please see below:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Contact: Jeff Pyatt: 703-778-4080
Jessica Smith, c: 202-236-3002
Statement by Jim Webb
"I am completely comfortable with the roles of women in today's military, and I fully support the advancements that have taken place. Over the past few years I have been privileged to visit numerous military units, and to accept the invitations of female officers for command visits in Japan, Hawaii, Washington, DC and Quantico. I look forward to continuing to do so.
"27 years ago I wrote a magazine article about the issue of women in combat and women at the Naval Academy. I did not title the article. In the article I made clear that I would support a woman candidate for President and would have voted for Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir. The article was written during a time of great emotional debate over a wide array of social issues in this country, and the tone of this article was no exception. Many leading military figures, including the Commandant of the Marine Corps, shared my concerns in these areas.
"I did not anticipate the widespread reaction to this magazine article, and to the extent that my writing subjected women at the Academy or the active Armed Forces to undue hardship, I remain profoundly sorry. On the first occasion that I was invited back to the Academy in 1983, among my comments was a strong call for harmony among male and female midshipmen.
"This issue was addressed during two Senate confirmation hearings, in 1984 and 1987, to the satisfaction of the Senate, which on both occasions unanimously supported my appointments in the Defense Department. Further, when I was Secretary of the Navy, I strengthened policies against sexual harassment. I also personally convened a Navy-wide task force of senior male and female officers and NCOs to examine roles of women in the Navy, and as a result tripled the number of operational assignments available to women."
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Paid for by James Webb for U.S. Senate
Thanks!
Steve
...In his 2000 campaign to unseat Senator Charles S. Robb, Democrats and civil rights groups accused Mr. Allen of racial callousness for having displayed a noose in his law office and a Confederate flag in his home.Mr. Allen described those as parts of collections of flags and Western memorabilia. "I had all sort of Western stuff in my office," he said, characterizing what others called a noose as "more of a lasso." He said, "It has nothing to do with lynching."
"More of a lasso"? Here's how the Richmond Times Dispatch originally reported it in 2000:
U.S. Senate candidate George Allen wears his conservative heart on the sleeve of his cowboy shirt and makes no bones about his commitment to law and order.
Visitors to his old law office near downtown Charlottesville used to see a grim and graphic reminder of his view of criminals.
Dangling from a ficus tree in the corner was a noose, a reminder that the Republican politician saw some justification in frontier justice.
And here's how Allen's own campaign manager described it in a Washington Post story during the campaign:
Christopher J. LaCivita, Allen's campaign manager, said the noose was one item in a collection of cowboy memorabilia that Allen displayed in his Charlottesville law office in the early 1990s.
Far from being a racially charged symbol, the noose was an emblem of Allen's tough stance on law-and-order issues, LaCivita said.
This defense was echoed by Allen himself according to a Virginian-Pilot report in 2000:
The noose on a tree outside his law office, he has said, symbolized his belief in strong punishment for violent criminals and was not meant to have racial overtones.
And according to the Richmond Times Dispatch, when Allen was asked about the noose again in September 2004 when he first introduced the bill, a spokesman still did not dispute what it was:When Allen was asked after his news conference about the Confederate flag, he said he no longer displays it, and that he is a flag collector. Later, an Allen spokesman said the noose was part of an "Old West," law-and-order motif for Allen's former law office, and it had nothing to do with racial issues.
Allen, BTW, still can't tell the truth about macaca. http://home.hamptonr...
Allen, in his speech Tuesday, said: "I've learned a valuable lesson about the power of words, about how words carelessly chosen, or in my case, even made up, can have a totally unintended meaning and impact for another person from another background or from a different cultural perspective."
Made up, huh?
As most of you probably already know, the campaign office telephone number is (703) 778-4080.
Thanks!
Steve