September 17, 2006

Who Has Clarity?

All politics is definitely not local as evidenced by today’s Virginia Senate Seat debate between George All and Jim Webb. The closest the debate came to discussing the state of affairs and general health of Virginia was to clarify whether Southern Virginians understand if Senator Allen’s ‘macaca’ comment was harmful. However, I thought that Mr. Russert concentrated, rightly, on the serious part of the comment, something that other journalists didn’t address too much, understandable since they are still trying to get past the initial gaffe.

Mr. Allen said, “Welcome to Virginia, welcome to the real America.” When asked what he meant by that Senator Allen stumbled in his answer even though he had sufficient time to reflect on it since the time he said it. He could have brushed it off easily by saying something to the effect of, “By saying that, I meant that these people standing here are the majority. They believe in what I believe in.” That’s even suspect, just coming off the top of my head, but the fact remains is that Senator Allen had plenty of time to clarify and he could not. Second fact, I’m not for Senate.

Also, the senator was inherently at a disadvantage before the debate began because of the aforementioned macaca and his voting record on Iraq policy; he has a lot to answer for.

With this in mind, Mr. Russert tried to put the screws to Former Secretary Webb about his attitudes toward women in combat. The damn thing is that very few politicians can fully say he or she is sorry or that they regret a comment – never a full concession. Mr. Webb regretted some language but not all – typical.

However, I will say this – agree with him or not, Jim Webb seems a lot more sure of where he stands on things and that you have to respect. Allen couldn’t (wouldn’t) answer the ‘yes or no’ question about being disloyal to the President if he voted against the Iraq war. Speaking of relative respect, how much more do you have for Senators Warner, McCain, and Graham? That indicates Allen is a follower in the Senate, maybe not as Governor was he a follow, but in the United State Senate – he is. Then Senator Allen in the debate said he was still anti-establishment (Mr. Russert shot in, “but you were the Governor”). If you believe that… I don’t know… Maybe there’s medication for you.

I also realize that I beat up on the Republicans more in this column, but frankly it’s been on their dominant watch that things have gotten screwed up. In the context of this debate discussion, I’m not giving Mr. Webb a pass, not at all. But these days that we’re living right now require clarity of thinking, purpose, and policy. We can no longer afford political answers to real questions - questions where the answers determine the number of dead on the ground.

That group of three senators I had mentioned earlier – I don’t agree with them on a lot of issues, but on the issue of interrogation they are right and that you have to, at least, respect.

The first 40 minutes of the hour were devoted to the questions of Iraq. Who has more clarity to answer those difficult questions – the winner of the debate, the man who has a son in the military, the man who was on the front line and behind the curtain – Jim Webb.