Today aim was taken at Senator Jim Webb. Cal Thomas was the triggerman. The design is to craft an argument that the Senator is a liar. Allegedly, his lie was one made during the campaign about his opponent's ownership of stock options. There is also an association made with Senator Schumer; you know, an appeal to one's already biased readership to associate Senator Webb with another Democrat that in the readership's mind has already been tarred; the old guilt by association. Senator Webb has clearly made someone uncomfortable. Mr. Thomas informs his readership that "You can conclude that Webb and Schumer used factual inaccuracies in the negation ad against Sen. Allen." I guess that it would be too much for him to directly accuse Senator Webb.
But I have read Mr. Thomas over the years and I know that he knows enough about capitalism, markets and the motivations of men and women to realize that he is the one using omission. He supports his argument by seizing on the letter signed by Representative Boxer, a proof source he rarely if ever invokes. And, he uses his readers' lack of financial sophistication and their righteous bias against Representative Boxer to create a veil of legitimacy for his insinuations.
From one who followed this election rather closely, trust me that that ad was hardly the factor that lost Mr. Allen the election. He did quite well by Senator Webb in that regard all by himself. In fact, my website (http://www.webbgrass...) is still out there with the chronicle of events captured in the series of news articles that track the campaign from August onward. You have to look really closely for that issue and you have to know more than the average bear to seize on the importance of this failure on Senator Allen's part. The press and media didn't get it; the story had no legs. It should have. I have to state clearly that I believe that Mr. Allen, at a minimum, shied away from the higher ethical and/or moral ground when he failed to report the options. And, I have to add that I believe that Mr. Thomas knows better too. The choice of the words "worth less" rather than the word "worthless" is the key to Mr. Thomas's own seeming ethical failure. Oh, wait a minute, Mr. Thomas uses both forms depending on his intended message.
The fact that the Senate Ethics Committee issued a ruling that supported Mr. Thomas's argument has also little to do with Mr. Allen's legitimate obligation to the electorate. Here we have someone who would decry a technicality working on behalf of a bank robber in a court of law, obscuring the fact that this determination was all about technicality. You know, technical virginity and all that. You see, Mr. Thomas decries the fact that a "good man" lost his job and the Republican majority in the Senate. But he would also immediately recognize that when I was on active duty, a Major with far less influence than a Senator, and I became involved in the analysis of the acquisition of a piece of equipment produced by a corporation in which I had owned stock for years, I faced a potential conflict of interest; particularly since the stock had become almost worthless. I sold the stock the very next day. That was not the day I learned the difference between "worth less" and "worthless." And I don't think today is the day that Mr. Thomas learned that difference.
I address this primarily because Mr. Thomas insinuates that Senator Webb is a liar but also that he delivers a hypocritical summary paragraph that uses what is becoming the mantra of those who want to avoid arguing the facts at all: that "unholy alliance between liberal politicians and the leftist big media." Come on Mr. Thomas, my fellow capitalist, "leftist big media" is a contradiction in terms. Visit the board rooms of those companies and let me know just how self-destructive those boards are.
Dan Sullivan