Webb’s Foot-in-mouth disease: in remission?

My junior Senator suddenly sounds healthy (J.R. at Bearing Drift):

How did I miss this last week? Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), when at a book signing in Arlington, made comments advocating for nuclear and coal as alternative energy sources. This is sure to get the left in a twist.

First nuclear:

“We need to look at nuclear. We need to have a sensible nuclear policy. We haven’t built a nuclear power plant in this country in 30 years. Technology’s changed a lot in the last 30 years. You know when I was saying this two years ago, as some people in this room know – there were people who were Democrats whose hair would get on fire when I started talking about nuclear. But it’s sensible.
….
“It’s safe when it’s done right. France has shown us that. Japan has shown us that. It has to be done right, but it’s environmentally friendly.”

Then, coal:

“In terms of coal, we need to find technological solutions – and they’re available – that will go after carbon dioxide emissions and these sorts of things,” Webb said. “When we were doing the discussion of global warming, one of the things I started saying to my staff was … ‘Somewhere out there, in a lab at MIT, or Cal-Tech or George Mason – there is somebody out there who has figured out how to break apart a carbon dioxide molecule and put a carbon bi-product and oxygen going up in the air and that person is going to make a billion dollars and will help us solve this problem.’”

Now, if we can just get him to recognize that off-shore drilling has withstood hurricanes and the climate of the North Sea without any environmental threat, keeping the fjods and beaches as pristine as they ever were, we’d be all set.

Easy, now, J.R.  Foot-in-mouth is a terrible disease; as far as I know, there have been no instances of a full recovery.  Jim Webb has a long way to go before he’s healthy again; best to just wish him well for now.

Jim Webb’s Foot-in-Mouth Disease (Volume Two, Exhibit Six)

After staying neutral in his party’s presidential nomination battle for months (and thus increasing his standing relatively because he didn’t have to say anything), Jim Webb is stumping for Barack Obama - and the inevitable ensues.

Here’s Jim on the brouhaha between Wesley Clark and John McCain (The Hill via Riley at VV):

. . . John McCain’s my long-time friend, if that is one area that I would ask him to calm down on, it`s that, don’t be standing up and uttering your political views and implying that all the people in the military support them . . .

Funny, last I checked, only one public official had the sand to declare that he knew the views of the military - and that would be the fellow who said this:

The majority of our nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military.

His name?  Jim Webb.

Webb’s Foot-in-Mouth Disease (Volume Two, Exhibit Five)

This time, my junior senator’s illness catches the attention of the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Schwartz.

Here’s what Webb said about McCain’s insistence that American troops could stay in Iraq permanently, as we have troops stationed in Europe and East Asia (link above):

Last Thursday, Webb assailed Republican Sen. John McCain for comments on the Today Show, namely, McCain’s declaration that “What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. . . . Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine.”

Webb told the Washington Post, “It’s pretty clear their intentions are that we put in a basing system in Iraq that parallels the Korea-Japan history. . . . The difference is, Iraq is not Korea or Japan. . . . The history of every single outside occupation of Iraq over the last thousand years argues against that logic.”

Schwartz then fillets Webb with such efficiency and brilliance that I can do nothing more than reprint his words:

To suggest that a foreign presence in Iraq is more difficult to establish than such a presence in Japan shows breathtaking historical illiteracy. Baghdad was ruled by Persians and by the Seljuq Turks beginning in the 10th century, then fell to the Mongols in 1258–the latter is considered the most traumatic event in Arab history and was believed by Muslims of the time to be the end of the world. The soon-to-be-Islamized Mongols, who undermined the authority of narrow sharia, ruled until an invasion by the Persianized Central Asian conqueror Tamerlane, at the beginning of the 15th century. This was followed by the domination in Baghdad of more Mongols, then two sets of Turkic tribes (of which the Turkmens in Iraq today are a remnant), and once more by Iranians. The Ottomans took over in the middle of the 16th century and ruled until the first World War. Iraq did not gain anything resembling independence until the end of the post-WW1 British mandate in 1932.

Indeed, for almost the entire past 1,000 years the only proponents of Iraqi independence have been the 20th century British and Americans, even as Nazi and Communist agents latterly and unsuccessfully attempted to impose their influence in the country. And so it is today as the U.S.-led Coalition defends a new Iraq from Wahhabi and Iranian terrorists. Perhaps Sen. Webb thinks the lesson of “outside occupation of Iraq over the last thousand years” is that we should encourage an Iranian reconquest?

Schwartz wasn’t done either:

Webb’s pseudo-history is especially ridiculous in that he intimates that Iraqis have a long tradition of resistance to foreign domination, lacking in Japan, and that this explains the success of the American occupation of Japan. Japan, unlike Iraq, was never invaded or conquered by foreigners of any kind until 1945. The lessons of the past 1,000 years of Iraqi and Japanese history support U.S. intervention, not abdication. The primary rule of historical analysis, as well as of politics and even war is to make distinctions, not confuse them. Loose lips sink reputations.

We can only pray that Webb ends up Obama’s running mate!

GULP! You CAN run for VP and something else in Virginia

When I first saw this post from Riley (Virginia Virtucon), I have to admit I was skeptical.  Conventional wisdom in the Commonwealth has held that a person can’t run for Vice President and Senate (or House of Representatives) at the same time.  Riley wasn’t so sure:

. . . I’ve been checking Virginia election law and do not see where a candidate is prohibited from running for two federal offices during the same election.  In fact, the closest that the Virginia Constitution even gets to this issue is:

nothing in this Constitution shall limit the power of the General Assembly to prevent conflict of interests, dual officeholding, or other incompatible activities by elective or appointive officials of the Commonwealth or of any political subdivision.

It appears that the General Assembly has not voted to prevent someone from holding dual offices (although that would not preempt federal law on the subject) nor has it addressed the related issue of running for two seats in the same election.

Like I said, I was skeptical.  So I started digging around the Virginia Code.  Unlike Riley, I actually found something - and it was quite the jaw dropper (Title 24.2, Part 504, emphasis added):

Only a person fulfilling all the requirements of a candidate shall have his name printed on the ballot for the election. No person shall have his name printed on the ballot for more than one office at any one election. However, a candidate for federal or statewide office, or a candidate for an office being filled in a special election, may have his name printed on the ballot for two offices at an election.

In other words, Virginia law does say something about running for Vice President and something else at the same time: as I read the law, it explicitly permits it.  Everything we thought we knew about Vice Presidential nominees and Virginia was wrong.  Fasten your seat belts, folks; we have quite a ride ahead of us.

Now, about Webb’s comments on the Navy

Now that I’ve revealed the dumb things Senator Webb said yesterday, I can focus on the very salient point he did make: the American Navy is far too small, and that had better change quickly.

Webb’s been harping on this for literally two decades.  In 1988 (when the Navy had over 550 ships), Webb resigned from the Reagan Administration in protest over its decision notto build up to 600 ships.  Followers of the blogosphere will remember the scathing criticism handed to Webb by most of the rightoshpere over his decision.  Far less publicized was the fact that this came in the middle of a Presidential primary campaign, and that Webb’s chief defenders were from the right.  That included then Presidential candidate Jack Kemp, who as I recall put it thusly (I’m recalling a 1988 CNN quote from memory): “I agree with Jim Webb; I support a 600-ship Navy.”

There were plenty of reasons to choose George Allen over Jim Webb in 2006 - as I did.  Webb’s insistence on a 600-ship navy was not one of them.

Today, Webb is still worried about the size of the Navy (although he’s steering clear of an enumerated goal), and he has good reason (Daily Press):

Webb called for increasing the size of the Navy’s fleet beyond its current target of 313 vessels and strengthening maintenance and modernization projects by encouraging more free-market competition among contractors.

“Three hundred thirteen can’t do it, I can’t see, in the long run,” Webb said. “We’re building one (submarine) per year and the Chinese are building three per year. We need a strategy based on the United States being a maritime nation, and the United States should be a sea power.”

In fact, I’d say Webb wasn’t strong enough in his language.  The United States should be the sea power; geography and geopolitics demands it of us.  We certainly should not want to make it any easier for Communist China to get even within whiff of naval parity, given its ambitions to swallow Taiwan and its history of choosing our worst enemies as its best friends.

So while Jim Webb has made plenty of mistakes (and I’ll keep revealing them in my usually charming way) his call for a larger Navy is not one of them.  In fact, it would be our mistake if we didn’t listen to him on this.

Jim Webb’s Foot-in-mouth disease (Volume Two, Exhibit Two)

Less than one week after the return of our Foot-in-mouth tracker, Jim Webb did it again yesterday in an address to the Surface Navy Association.

The headline grabber was Webb’s call for a larger U.S. Navy (Daily Press via The Write Side of My Brain) - I’ll have more on that later.  What triggered the shoe-about-to-be-tasted alert was this near-paranoid assertion:

After Democrats took control of Congress following the 2006 mid-term elections, the White House and Republicans in Congress “made a conscious decision that there would be no victories on major issues and, particularly on national defense issues” for Democrats, he said

While it’s nice to here a Democrat use the terms “victory” and “national defense issues” in the same sentence, Webb left out a very important dynamic: namely, what the Democratic leadership decided the party’s “national defense issues” would be - namely, thwarting the President’s 2007 strategy at every turn.  Had the Democrats been willing to discuss other issues - any other issues - regarding national defense, they may have been surprised by the Republican reaction.  As it was, they went all-in on Iraq, and lost.  So the “conscious decision” on how the Democratic agenda on national security would play out was made by the Democrats themselves, not the Republicans.

Webb then tries some false bravado, and juts sounds like an idiot:

With time left in President Bush’s final term winding the final turn, the president “has got to realize that if he wants any kind of legacy at all, (the administration) has to start cooperating,” Webb said. “He better step up.”

Are you saying the President needs you and your fellow Democrats for a “legacy,” Jim?  How about no terrorist attacks in over six years?  How about dealing al Qaeda a crushing blow in not one theatre of operation, but two?  How about removing from power one of the most terrifying and bloodthirsty leaders in the Middle East (and that’s saying something)?  How about wiping out years of bad blood between the United States and India - thus ensuring a friendship between the world two largest democracies?  Something tells me the President has already “stepped up,” Jim.

It’s too bad, because I think Webb really had a good point about the U.S. Navy, but that’s for a later post.

Jim Webb’s Foot-in-Mouth Disease: (Volume 2, Exhibit 1)

It’s a new year on the calendar, but Virginia’s junior senator remains as embarrassing as ever.

In an interview with the editorial board of the Winchester Star, Webb made this comment on the situation in Iraq and the Middle East:

Webb said a regional Mideast policy that targeted global terrorism, for example, would have kept the world on the side of the United States, something the current policy has not done.

“I’ve been saying since ’04, before I ever ran for the Senate, that the way to end the occupation of Iraq and get our troops out of there — it is not a place where the United States should be occupying for a long period of time — is through a strong diplomatic surge that would bring the countries in the region together to buy into a long-term solution,” Webb said.

Does Webb have any idea how ridiculous he sounds?  Does he seriously think that the Iranian mullahcracy - which is not only allied to al-Qaeda-in-Iraq but is arming AQI as well, be convinced to “buy into a long-term solution” against “global terrorism”?

Or perhaps he’s back on his Syria-and-Iran-are-not-natural-allies routine?  I can only assume he hasn’t notice Syria’s bloody campaign to turn Lebanon back into its satellite state.  Maybe he still hasn’t figured out that Syria, while a majority Sunni nation, is suffering under tyrannical rule by a Shi’itefamily (the Assads), for whom the Khomeinist Shi’ites in Iran are certainly “natural allies.”

The damnable thing is that Webb passes himself off as knowledgeable on foreign policy.  How laughable.