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| Sleeping with the Enemy: Jim Webb: Then and Now |
| 2007-02-21 |
| Read this and askyourself: How the hell does Jim Webb get from what he wrote here (which I 100% agree with) to his position today? As you read this, substitute 'Iraq' (and I might have left some in here) for 'Vietnam'. It is almost spooky. Is his BDS that bad? What made the change in him? I have performed some bold edits. It is difficult to explain to my children that in my teens and early twenties the most frequently heard voices of my peers were trying to destroy the foundations of American society, so that it might be rebuilt according to their own narcissistic notions. In retrospect it’s hard even for some of us who went through those times to understand how highly educated people—most of them spawned from the comforts of the upper-middle class—could have seriously advanced the destructive ideas that were in the air during the late ’60s and early ’70s. Even Congress was influenced by the virus. After President Nixon resigned in August of 1974, that fall’s congressional elections brought 76 new Democrats to the House, and eight to the Senate. A preponderance of these freshmen had run on McGovernesque platforms. Many had been viewed as weak candidates before Nixon’s resignation, and some were glaringly unqualified, such as then-26-year-old Tom Downey of New York, who had never really held a job in his life and was still living at home with his mother. This so-called |
| Posted by:Brett |
| #11 You can e-mail the distingusihed gentleman from Virginia here. I did. It took me a long time to find his Senate website,but the "Elect Jim Webb " site pops right up on Google. I have recently read two of your essays from about ten years ago, regarding the disgrace of Vietnam. I believe one was "The Triumph of Intellectual Dishonesty" and the second was "Sleeping With the Enemy". Excellent pieces! I did not vote for you Senator, but had I read those essays last fall, I might have. But I am confused. Your positions seem quite liberal, or perhaps just anti-conservative. Has your position changed so much in ten years? Did you write those essays? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-02-21 18:14 |
| #10 This is a textbook example of a 180° turn. And I mean 180.0000°, not 179.9999 or 180.0001! |
| Posted by: Dar 2007-02-21 17:46 |
| #9 I believe that thousands of Americans fully deserve to be tried and executed for treason and genocide for their conduct during the Vietnam War. Seconded. And for the conduct of so many during the current war. You could be sent to the stockade for spreading defeatism in England during the Second World War; I cannot understand how our common sense has failed us now. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-02-21 09:59 |
| #8 I believe that thousands of Americans fully deserve to be tried and executed for treason and genocide for their conduct during the Vietnam War. I further believe that this statement is defensible on common law and constitutional grounds, if considered outside the limited mental horizon of mass media culture. Potential defendants would include political and academic personalities as well as leading media figures. If we can defeat these same people and their successors and current proxy forces in this current war, it may yet happen. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2007-02-21 09:32 |
| #7 That's the one thought that always gets me: If/When the jihadis take over, the LLL (Hollywood, gays, Donks, etc.) will be the first to be put up against the wall and "re-educated." |
| Posted by: BA 2007-02-21 09:26 |
| #6 Intellectual and liberal Cambodians actually welcomed the Khmer Rouge into Phnom Penh. They thought it would be a welcome change from the corrupt Lon Nol government. Just like intellecrtual and liberal Americans would welcome jihadis into Washington. Of course, as educated people with foreign contacts, they were first up against the wall when the revolution came. Unfortuantaley Khmer Rouge weren't satisfied with putting against the wall a bunch of never-do-weels who thought themselves superiors because they had read, spit, Sartre and contemplated their navel, while being unable to solve a first degree equation. Over a million people who were NOT decadent "intellectuals" with a death wish accompanies them in death. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-02-21 09:19 |
| #5 Its been about 10 years since Webb published the article. People change. |
| Posted by: mhw 2007-02-21 08:49 |
| #4 Intellectual and liberal Cambodians actually welcomed the Khmer Rouge into Phnom Penh. They thought it would be a welcome change from the corrupt Lon Nol government. Of course, as educated people with foreign contacts, they were first up against the wall when the revolution came. |
| Posted by: gromky 2007-02-21 08:31 |
| #3 the rallying point of the American Left: Fixed it for you. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-02-21 06:20 |
| #2 The only explanation I can come up with that doesn't involve psychiatry is anti-Semitism. Pat Buchanan, like Webb, sees our defeat in Vietnam as ignoble, yet opposes victory in Iraq. Buchanan, like Webb, sees this war as something the "neocons" (Jews) foisted on us, and has it in for Israel. Read Pitchfork Pat on Iraq, then read No-Class Webb on Iraq, and you'd swear they have the same speechwriter. Since the modern Democratic Party and the modern antiwar movement--but I repeat myself--are congenial to anti-Semitism (and anti-religious impulses of all stripes), that's where these guys gravitate to. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-02-21 06:14 |
| #1 I very much enjoy his movie Rules of Engagment, however I now realize he'll say anything now that he's a democratic politician and out to grab a vote. I'm definately confused too by his new stance. |
| Posted by: Angenter Crolugum3645 2007-02-21 01:11 |