Webb Blasts McCain, Praises Condi

By: Josh
Published On: 4/13/2007 10:39:38 PM

I remember, not too long ago, folks were talking about the incredible possibility of a McCain/Webb presidential ticket.  That possibility, if it ever existed, just hit zero.

Bloomberg News reports:

April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic Senator James Webb accused Republican John McCain of questioning the patriotism of those who disagree with him on Iraq and "hiding behind the troops as political justification" for a misguided policy.

"I think that John McCain has been impugning people's patriotism and I really regret that he is doing that," Webb, of Virginia, said on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt," scheduled to air today. "I'm very disappointed in him."

Webb is none too pleased with McCain's personal attacks, and rightly so.  It's a despicable political ploy that the right has engaged in ever since Tom Davis equated dissent with treason in the run up to the War in Iraq.

``I don't believe it is in anybody's interest for members of the Senate to be impugning the other side's patriotism or, by the way, hiding behind the troops as political justification for what we are doing,'' said Webb, a former U.S. Marine.


That tough-as-nails plain talk is why Virginia sent Jim Webb to the Senate.  It's also stunningly absent from the current bent-knee incarnation of Senator McCain. 

Surprisingly, Webb also singled out Condoleezza Rice for praise during the same interview:

Webb said he hasn't spoken to Bush since the two discussed Iraq at a reception for new lawmakers last year. ``But I have been working with people in the administration and I have got a, I think, a very positive and cordial relationship with them.''

He particularly praised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Sometimes asking the right questions and demanding the respect you deserve gets things done.  Let's hope more Democrats take Jim Webb's lead: it could bring civility back to the Senate.  Imagine that.

Comments



Ouch. (JPTERP - 4/14/2007 12:43:16 AM)
Tough words from Senator Webb.  Well said.


It's almost sad (Jambon - 4/14/2007 12:59:55 AM)
to watch the once respected "Maverick Senator" totally sell out (ineffectively) in pursuit of his presidential ambitions.  He's been nothing but a punch line in peoples jokes for the last week and a half. 

Josh, was that you I saw at the AFL-CIO hdqtrs on Thurs?  I was in the Union Shop buying some buttons but I you took off before I could catch ya.  There was a huge hotel workers rally over by Woodley Park at 5pm.  Over 1,000 people marched across the Taft Bridge and managed to tie up traffic for a bit.  Good times baby!

 



YUP... (Josh - 4/14/2007 6:55:33 AM)
I've been in and out of a 2 day conference on online political organizing, and my office is a block away.

Dude!  you shoulda said "hi", if you coulda caught me.  I'm kind of a fast walker. ;)
Josh



Sorry I missed you both (AnonymousIsAWoman - 4/14/2007 11:24:13 AM)
I'm at the AFL building quite a bit as my hubby works there and we carpool together.  Maybe I'll see you both someday. And the Union Shop also has some great books on the labor movement.


Tea Leaves (Lee Diamond - 4/14/2007 1:47:04 AM)
This is the terrain the Democrats have been trying to find.  The Republicans are desperate.

The first question is always what is in the national interest, but we also have a responsibility to stand up to these 6+ year losers.



"Old soldiers never die..." (cycle12 - 4/14/2007 5:13:13 AM)
I knew it had to happen and I figured it was coming soon, and I am most impressed with the still-respectful way in which Jim Webb challenged and refuted John McCain's recent statements about the Iraq War and its critics and opponents.

Senator McCain's fall from grace has been a truly sad process to observe - from a much heralded Vietnam War hero and proud former prisoner of war to a rapidly failing and inept presidential candidate.

On April 19, 1951, in his farewell speech to Congress after being relieved of his command, General Douglas MacArthur invoked these famous closing words from a popular World War I British ballad;

"...old soldiers never die, they just fade away..."

Godspeed, Senator McCain; Godspeed...

Steve



Good for the Senator...but... (Dianne - 4/14/2007 8:48:06 AM)
I'm curious what he could have praised about Condoleezza Rice.  To me she's no less culpable than Bush or Cheney in spreading the lies that have gotten 3300 Americans killed and 25,000 injured (1/2 seriously) in Iraq. Anyone know what he said or where I can find his words?  In the past, and no doubt in the future, anytime we give them an inch, they turn our words around just to save their own necks!


I think that she's finally helping out (Josh - 4/14/2007 9:01:39 AM)
He went after her on Iran, got the runaround, and he held her feet to the fire.  I'm guessing she's actually started helping him do the hard work of addressing Middle East security policy.  She must be relieved to have somebody to talk to with an IQ over 95.


But Cheney and his Apparatchiks Still Trample Condi at Will (FMArouet - 4/14/2007 12:27:44 PM)
...at least if Robin Wright's article in today's WaPo is accurate. Wright tends to accept WH spoon-feeding and spin with little skepticism, so we need to be careful about believing everything in the article. However, someone, for whatever reason, leaked the report that Cheney's office had been the strongest voice arguing for continued detention of the five Iranian officials seized in Irbil in January.

Maybe Cheney's office leaked the report--just to show that Cheney is the one who is still running the show. Or perhaps neocon wacko David Addington, Cheney's current chief-of-staff, is the guy who is really pulling the levers behind the curtain in the Land of Oz.



Another bridge attack today (PM - 4/14/2007 1:58:05 PM)
Insurgents also used a suicide bomber on Saturday to strike Baghdad's Jadriyah bridge, although it escaped without suffering any structural damage.

People nearby were not so lucky. Charred corpses were piled in the back of an ambulance, while a pair of sneakers lay next to the badly burned body of another victim on the bridge.

http://www.alertnet....

Just mentioning this because of your thoughts on bridge attacks.



Insurgent Attack on a U.S. Patrol Base Yesterday (FMArouet - 4/14/2007 4:41:19 PM)
PM:

Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that story.

Juan Cole today carried a link to a story on an insurgent attack yesterday on a U.S. patrol base south of Baghdad. Two U.S. soldiers were killed, and another seven were wounded. Here is the link:

http://www.abc.net.a...

Distributing small U.S. patrol units in neighborhoods within and near Baghdad will provide inviting targets for Sunni insurgents and also for the Mahdi Army, if Muqtada al Sadr gives the green light to go after U.S. forces.

It will be interesting to see whether the insurgents go about destroying bridges in Baghdad in a systematic way. If they do, I would guess that coordinated, simultaneous assaults on U.S. patrol outposts would not be far off. Yesterday's assault south of Baghdad may have been practice.



Presumably we're watching the bridges real carefully (PM - 4/14/2007 5:20:13 PM)
But I don't see how one can effectively monitor the traffic; maybe they are doing it, but searching every vehicle for explosives would seem untenable;

Reading these stories every day is sickening; I fear the worst is yet to come.



Well maybe but... (Dianne - 4/15/2007 1:14:53 PM)
"cooperation" after being personally responsible for the death and injury of our military in Iraq certainly doesn't deserve praise.  What have we come to in this country when things like that just get glossed over...."well, that was in the past".  That's what the Republicans are saying to us now.  Forget our mistakes in the past, "we" need to figure out how to fix Iraq.  WHERE IS ACCOUNTABILITY???