Jim Webb did not attend the New Hampshire Democratic Convention in mid-September, which I considered a major statement. He would have had an uninterrupted 20 minutes to make his case in front of Democrats whose votes count and he would have had major media coverage. If his speech had been a surprise hit this would have been news. He wasn't there.
Lincoln Chaffee had his chance. He got his 20 minutes. People were leaving during the speech but he had an opportunity to surprise, to shock, to make his case. I listened to maybe ten minutes of his speech and there was nothing memorable, so I joined the people standing at the exits.
Bernie Sanders is saying something big and bold. He says it with passion. He is earning his audience and he is getting significant support. So Bernie stays in the race.
But neither Webb nor Chaffee did what they needed to do, so they have left the race.
I never heard Lincoln Chaffee say anything big and bold. Jim Webb had something to say, but he did not say it.
Jim Webb had an important message on issues of war and peace. He is spoken of as a conservative Appalachian-style Democrat, almost a Republican, but I recall that the true blue card carrying MSNBC liberal Rachel Maddow wrote a book with much the same message as Webb presents, that Americans have lost touch with their own military, to our detriment. Given the Republican orthodoxy Fox News monolithic foreign policy position (re-engage and lead from the front in Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Crimea, Ukraine, South China Sea with a much bigger and more aggressive military paid for with lower taxes) then Webb has a good Democratic message.
Webb's point is that the people who are most trustworthy on issues of going to war are civilians who themselves have served and whose children and grandchildren will serve, and that neocon chickenhawks in the Republican party, and Democrats who have never served and whose friends and family have not served, are making decisions of war and peace. And they are the wrong persons. Republicans foolishly get us into war because they think war is grand and exhilarating and an expression of America's exceptional wonderfulness, and Democrats get us into war because they get steamrolled by generals and are afraid of looking soft.
He has a point. I am reminded of the analogous position pro-choice friends say about abortion: On the difficult issues of whom to trust to decide on abortion, the best and safest person to trust is the woman herself.
Pundits scoffed at Webb's answer in the debate about the greatest enemy; he said it was the guy who threw a grenade at him, the one who is no longer around. Silly, stupid answer, they said.
Webb didn't make his point all that well, so I will try to make it for him. Webb meant that at its most basic, politics is war, as Carl von Clausewitz observed, and war is an expression of politics, by other methods. Phrases like "projection of American power", and "block communist incursion" and "diplomatic pressure", etc., are all expression of politics, trying to get ones way and bending others to ones own will. These nice phrases obscure the basic reality that the phrases are describing the potential violence and death. Politics is power. At its nicest it is persuasion to get concurrence and agreement, but if that fails then it moves to lawsuits or military saber rattling and if that fails then to armed men doing an arrest or execution domestically or armed men going to war internationally, bombs, grenades, rifles aimed and fired. In Vietnam a North Vietnamese soldier doing the politics of a foreign nation tried to kill Webb, but Webb escaped and instead killed him. It wasn't personal; it was just politics by other means.
I think that this is what Jim Webb was trying to say. That the discussion of "who is your biggest enemy" with answers of "the NRA" or "drug companies" or "Republicans" was just the silly niceties of Democrats who were multiple steps away from reality. They were typical Democrats, in their ivory tower.
Jim Webb point was that he understood political enemies and had faced one: a man trying to kill him with an explosive device. That is a no-BS enemy, and a Commander in Chief needs to understand that.
Webb should have spelled out his point, the point that a politician who doesn't understand that politics comes down to soldiers in arms fighting on behalf of the politics of others doesn't really understand the world. And to paraphrase my pro-choice friends, on the difficult issue of whom to trust to lead a country into potential war, the best and safest person to trust is a former solder himself.
Lincoln Chaffee had his chance. He got his 20 minutes. People were leaving during the speech but he had an opportunity to surprise, to shock, to make his case. I listened to maybe ten minutes of his speech and there was nothing memorable, so I joined the people standing at the exits.
Bernie Sanders is saying something big and bold. He says it with passion. He is earning his audience and he is getting significant support. So Bernie stays in the race.
But neither Webb nor Chaffee did what they needed to do, so they have left the race.
I never heard Lincoln Chaffee say anything big and bold. Jim Webb had something to say, but he did not say it.
Jim Webb had an important message on issues of war and peace. He is spoken of as a conservative Appalachian-style Democrat, almost a Republican, but I recall that the true blue card carrying MSNBC liberal Rachel Maddow wrote a book with much the same message as Webb presents, that Americans have lost touch with their own military, to our detriment. Given the Republican orthodoxy Fox News monolithic foreign policy position (re-engage and lead from the front in Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Crimea, Ukraine, South China Sea with a much bigger and more aggressive military paid for with lower taxes) then Webb has a good Democratic message.
Webb's point is that the people who are most trustworthy on issues of going to war are civilians who themselves have served and whose children and grandchildren will serve, and that neocon chickenhawks in the Republican party, and Democrats who have never served and whose friends and family have not served, are making decisions of war and peace. And they are the wrong persons. Republicans foolishly get us into war because they think war is grand and exhilarating and an expression of America's exceptional wonderfulness, and Democrats get us into war because they get steamrolled by generals and are afraid of looking soft.
He has a point. I am reminded of the analogous position pro-choice friends say about abortion: On the difficult issues of whom to trust to decide on abortion, the best and safest person to trust is the woman herself.
Pundits scoffed at Webb's answer in the debate about the greatest enemy; he said it was the guy who threw a grenade at him, the one who is no longer around. Silly, stupid answer, they said.
Webb didn't make his point all that well, so I will try to make it for him. Webb meant that at its most basic, politics is war, as Carl von Clausewitz observed, and war is an expression of politics, by other methods. Phrases like "projection of American power", and "block communist incursion" and "diplomatic pressure", etc., are all expression of politics, trying to get ones way and bending others to ones own will. These nice phrases obscure the basic reality that the phrases are describing the potential violence and death. Politics is power. At its nicest it is persuasion to get concurrence and agreement, but if that fails then it moves to lawsuits or military saber rattling and if that fails then to armed men doing an arrest or execution domestically or armed men going to war internationally, bombs, grenades, rifles aimed and fired. In Vietnam a North Vietnamese soldier doing the politics of a foreign nation tried to kill Webb, but Webb escaped and instead killed him. It wasn't personal; it was just politics by other means.
I think that this is what Jim Webb was trying to say. That the discussion of "who is your biggest enemy" with answers of "the NRA" or "drug companies" or "Republicans" was just the silly niceties of Democrats who were multiple steps away from reality. They were typical Democrats, in their ivory tower.
Jim Webb point was that he understood political enemies and had faced one: a man trying to kill him with an explosive device. That is a no-BS enemy, and a Commander in Chief needs to understand that.
Webb should have spelled out his point, the point that a politician who doesn't understand that politics comes down to soldiers in arms fighting on behalf of the politics of others doesn't really understand the world. And to paraphrase my pro-choice friends, on the difficult issue of whom to trust to lead a country into potential war, the best and safest person to trust is a former solder himself.
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