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Confederacy defender Webb embraces Sherman over Illinois Senator

Not born to fight for Obama by attacking McCain’s heroic service

By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report

The moderate junior senator from the Old Dominion, and author of “Born Fighting”, James Webb (D-VA), less than seven days after joining Wes Clark in Barack Obama’s scurrilous attack McCain’s military record chorus, today echoed War between the States, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman with the following statement ( h/t to Redstate’s Bill Dupray :

"Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country," Webb said in an issued statement. “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for Vice President."

Are there any moderate white male Democrats with executive experience left that haven’t issued Shermanesque statements eschewing the thought of running for Vice-President against Republican John McCain with Barack Obama, the presumptive first black nominee for President on a major party ticket in U.S. history?

For the record, while we have seen the racism of the Democratic Party in the raw during their nomination battle this year, I have no doubt that Webb’s decision is not part of that pathology. Rather, I agree with Dupray when he cites part of Webb’s statement:

Then again, maybe Obama ain't Webb's kind of guy after all.

WEBB: “I entered elective politics because of my commitment to strengthen America's national security posture, to promote economic fairness, and to increase government accountability," Webb also said. "I have worked hard to deliver upon that commitment, and I am convinced that my efforts and talents toward those ends are best served in the Senate.”

Obama has never heard of two out of three of those goals.

Why did Virginia’s combative first term Senator, Vietnam war hero, and former Republican chief executive officer for Ronald Reagan’s Cold War winning Navy, choose the Seventh of July to echo a man reviled in the South for burning the Peach and Palmetto States to the ground?

I think Webb’s epiphany came from an inability to further sully his honor like he did last week in assisting fellow Obama surrogate, former NATO General Wes Clark in a scurrilous attack on McCain’s heroic service in Vietnam, including his many years as a POW, most of which was served after refusing to accept release by the Communists as part of a propaganda ploy, unless all of his prison mates were also released.

Last week, I documented the latest vile Barack Obama/Democratic Party attack as follows:

Vietnam vet, junior Old Dominion Senator James Webb recently broke protocol as Obama's limp-wristed security resume wafts:

WEBB: John McCain's been a longtime 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, because they don't, any more than when the Democrats had political issues during the Vietnam War. Let's get politics out of the military, take care of the military people, and have our political arguments in other areas.

RUSH: Get politics out of the military? John McCain needs to calm down? This from a rookie Senator Jim Webb. Needs to calm down, don't be standing up and offering your political views and implying that all people in the military support them. This is again more smoke and mirrors. None of this McCain is done. But Webb gets up and says it, the Drive-Bys report what he says, and that becomes the official record of what McCain says, i.e., what Webb says that McCain is doing. Who infused politics into this? Who infused the military into politics? It was Clark who claims, by the way -- grab audio sound bite number four. Here's Wesley Clark last night on MSNBC, asked for his response to being criticized for his remarks.

CLARK: I wasn't representing the Obama campaign in anything I said yesterday about John McCain. I want to assure you, I would never, never diss someone's service. When people choose to serve in uniform, I honor it. I came home from Vietnam on a stretcher. I was shot, I took a burst of AK, I got four rounds, so I think I know a little bit about what it's like to honor men and women who serve in uniform. And I do, and I would never dismiss somebody.

RUSH: Twilight Zone time. This is after he did diss somebody. This is after he did diss somebody specifically on the basis of their military service. Claire McCaskill on MSNBC Live today, the infobabe asked her, "General Clark is not backing down from those comments that were critical of Senator McCain. What's the campaign's response to hearing that he's not stepping away from those comments?"

RUSH: What does this remind you of? Here we have two Obama supporters, Claire McCaskill from Missouri, a senator, and Jim Webb, both recasting reality. Obama, (paraphrasing) "Our campaign never said anything, why, we would never do this. We're not going to put up with this. We would never, ever do it." Webb said, "McCain's gotta calm down." I wish McCain would act in a way just one day that somebody could legitimately say "calm down" and have it mean something. The Official Obama Criticizer nailed this in his critique in the first hour of this program. Barack Obama and his campaign, he is the first black Clinton. He will not be the first black president because that's Clinton's. But he is the first black Clinton. That is exactly what's happening here. Living in an alternative reality, and knowing full well that the Drive-Bys are going to cover for you and make reality whatever it is you say in response to things. So Clark gets a total pass. Obama gets a total pass. Obama gets treated as though he has rebuked what Clark has said, when he hasn't, and then Webb goes out and says that McCain's the one that needs to calm down. Meanwhile, the only official response from some elected Republican has been Bob Dole's.

An astute conservative Democrat [political observer] in Alabama advised gamecock that Obama spoke to Bill Clinton this week, just as flip-flop moves to the center multiplied and just before Webb came to [Wes] Clark's defense for off the high-dive denigrations of McCain's heroic service in Vietnam.

It had to be painful for the man that masterfully and proudly chronicled the fighting spirit of his Scots-Irish kinsman in Born Fighting to go to bat for a kook Bill Clinton had to fire before he started WWIII by bombing Russian troops in Bosnia. It had to turn the stomach of a man that ran for public office in large measure based on his own military experience to lie and say McCain suggested that all vets agreed with him because he served and to add insult to injury by using the term “calm down” in the process, against the man that was held for many years as a POW, but who has served for decades since in Congress. Shame on you Jim! Your penance will be to shut up for a few weeks. And while you are at it, call Bill Clinton and tell him to do so as well, as he seems to be down in that gutter as well.

Webb obviously cares about his proposed legislation to increase benefits for war veterans, obviously wants to strengthen America’s defenses overall and is much more conservative than Obama on a host of issues including second amendment rights.

I would suggest that Webb, like the unprecedented number of sitting Democrat Governors and other white male moderate Democrats with executive and/or national security credentials that Obama desperately needs to legitimize the ticket, can’t stomach the leftism of Obama.

For a defender of the Confederacy to echo this man, who served the former Illinois senator that defeated the CSA, he must really loathe the idea of running with a current Illinois senator that wishes to lead the USA :

"If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.” William Tecumseh Sherman refusing to run for President in 1884.

I don’t blame you Jim, and take some Mylanta for that stomach ache.

[Rumors of the imminent retirement of CockStradamus were greatly exaggerated. While technically wrong about the Dem’s VP nominee, we think we were right before Webb’s stomach ache, and we think we are right about a declaration of victory in Iraq before November.]

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report
Race 4 2008
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson