Billmon has an informative post up about former Navy Secretary James Webb.
I quoted from a 2002 article by James Webb the other day. I thought about doing a post on the Webb article that Billmon discusses at some length. I didn't, because I thought Webb's post dishonestly characterized John Kerry's role in the "Winter Soldier investigation" decades ago. And I figured getting into that would be too much of a distraction from the topic on which I was focusing.
Billmon, after sketching what a hardline conservative prick Webb has been over the years, comments:
[J]ust the fact that Webb is so ambivalent [about the Presidential election] represents a minor political earthquake -- and a sign of just how volcanic the repressed rage within the military has become. I would never in a million years have expected a Reagan stormtrooper like Webb to even hint that an incumbent GOP president was not God's vicegerent on earth.
Billmon also comments with blunt sarcasm on the irony of Webb now criticizing the Iraq War when he is even now unfairly, even dishonestly, critical of anti-Vietnam War protesters:
But of course, according to Webb and his ideological cohorts, people who said such things about Vietnam -- people like John Kerry -- were little more than traitors. Doesn't Webb worry that his anti-war views, published in the nation's most widely read daily newspaper, might demoralize our troops in the field by making them doubt their mission and their commander? How can he stab them in the back this way? Doesn't he love his country?
Unfortunately, today's GOP flaks would be willing to raise those kinds of questions against him without a hint of irony. If they're not already doing so.
James Webb maintains a Web page (no, he doesn't call it "the Webb page") with links to a number of his articles.
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