Tangled Webb

Via Andrew Fersguson in the Weekly Standard we have an analysis of James Webb and why he is embraced by the Democrats:

What has made Webb acceptable to the Democrats of Arlington, however unevenly, is his furious opposition to the war in Iraq, which he declared early, before there was even a war to oppose, in an op-ed in the Washington Post in September 2002. And Webb's opposition to the war is doubly valuable to Democrats because of his bona fides as a warrior. Democrats are so sick of being labeled the peace party--mostly because they are the peace party--that they grow faint at the first flash of a battle ribbon, in hopes of proving they too are just as recklessly bloodthirsty as their opponents.

This warrior romance has led them into numberless absurdities. It explains why, for example, they stuck that Snoopy helmet on poor Michael Dukakis and forced him to ride around in a tank. And it explains the entire national convention of 2004, in which desperate Democrats nominated an undistinguished career politician for no other reason than that he was a decorated war hero and then launched his campaign with ceremonies so martial they might have been borrowed from a Latin American coup: phalanxes of saluting veterans, crisscrossing color guards, brass bands pumping Sousa tunes--everything short of a firing squad to liquidate the opposition.

The problem for the Democrats, is that Webb is not actually a Liberal. In fact, he is a reactionary; a conservative more in the mold of Pat Buchanan than George Bush or Ronald Reagan.

When I asked another neighbor what she thought of Webb's experience working in the Reagan administration--he served as secretary of the Navy late in Reagan's second term--she waved me off.

"He resigned in protest!" she said.

And so he did--but only when Reagan ordered cuts in the military budget that threatened the Reaganite goal of a 600-ship Navy. It's hard for anyone in these days of the Reagan Afterglow to remember that some people, back in the late 1980s, thought Old Ron was going soft.

Dreema Fisk, an Arlington poet and retired schoolteacher, told me she'd heard that Webb had once been a member of the Republican party--a group with which, she said, she was tragically familiar. "I come from West Virginia," she said, "and I discovered last time that my entire family back home voted for Bush." She shook her head and kneaded her hands. "I cried all night."

She said she was a Quaker. I asked her whether she'd read any of Webb's war novels. "Are they violent?" she asked. "Maybe I should read one."

Among those Arlingtonians who do know more about Webb, enthusiasm is often muted. As chairman of the County Board a decade ago, Ellen Bozman helped bring about Arlington's continuing era of Democratic dominance. At the party she told me that many of her acquaintances had expressed reservations about her candidate.

"I have friends who say they'll vote for him, but reluctantly," she said. "His service as a Reagan administration official, that bothers some people. And they worry--about other
things."

"Like affirmative action?" I said.

"There are concerns here and there," she said.

"And guns," I said. "He's incredibly pro-gun."

"There can be reasonable differences Democrats can have," she said. "I had a cousin who had guns. He hunted. Of course, that was in rural Illinois."

"And the Confederacy. He really likes the Con fed eracy. He named his son after Robert E. Lee."

"One friend tells me she just won't feel right voting for him," Mrs. Bozman said. "I say, He'll listen. He'll learn."

It looks as if Allen will win, but it's entirely possible that if Webb wins the Right may not have reason to complain.