The American Spectator

Then we have Mr. Tyrrell with his breathless account of a dinner with Webb some twenty-four years ago. He describes it as “gruesome,” prattles on about how he kept trying to “reassure” Webb that dinner was on him, and that Webb still wouldn’t warm up to him in spite of his boundless charm. Well it couldn’t be that Webb simply found him a bore and didn’t enjoy being at dinner with him, could it? How offensive and patronizing to say that Webb, a bestselling author and former Navy Secretary, was uncommunicative because he was “fearful” of paying for dinner at Tyrrell’s “classy eatery.”

Last we have Mr. Bowman himself, who talks about manners but does not see how profoundly Bush trespassed upon them by insisting that Webb answer a personal question. And honor? Honor does not require obsequiousness or that one forfeit ones right to privacy. Honor demands only that when asserting oneself one does not yell, act petulant, dramatize, or demean. Webb’s first response to Bush was an attempt to deflect the personal question with a general reply, spoken quietly and with the honorific. When Bush rudely persisted in demanding an answer, Webb replied firmly, but not offensively, and with the honorific. If you wish to talk about honor, Mr. Bowman, tell us how honorable it was for Mr. Bush twice to attempt to discuss Webb’s son with him, knowing that Webb holds him responsible for the war, knowing that Webb’s son is in a combat zone, and probably fully aware that Webb’s son had recently fought in a battle in which three of his platoon members were killed.

During the campaign Webb rarely spoke of his son, and then only to say it was his son who asked him to wear his combat boots. Webb was the despair of his campaign managers who wanted to focus on his military service. Of his nine commercials only one, the Gipper commercial, speaks much at all of his military service, and then only to illustrate his character. Mr. Bowman accuses Webb of attacking Allen for “cowardice.” He did no such thing. Allen, taking excerpts from Webb’s fine (according to Mr. Tyrrell) historical novels, attacked Mr. Webb’s character and imputed perversion to him. This caused Webb to lash out that he was fighting in a war when Allen was playing around on a dude ranch. It was one of the rare times Webb talked about his military service and about Mr. Allen’s lack thereof. Even Mr. Will thought Allen was going too far.

p>All these three articles did was illustrate the enormous divide between elitists like Bowman, Will, and Tyrrell, and the rest of the country. br> — Carla F. Ward br> Arlington, Virginia /p> p> Congratulations to Mr. Bowman for his hypocritical rant about Senator Webb’s courage to express the sentiments of most Americans about the war in Iraq to Mr. Bush’s face, something that no Republican sycophants have had the gumption to do. Bowman’s pretensions are hypocritical because he is of the same crowd of conservative pundits who cheered Dick Cheney’s “straight talking” after his vulgar insult to Senator Leahy on the floor of the Senate last summer. The extent that Mr. Bowman seeks to stand as the guardian of civility in politics is laughable. It is well know by most mainstream voters, like myself, that it is the vitriolic hate and distortion that streams constantly from the Limbaughs and Savages of the right that is the true source of the decline of civility in our national discourse. I suggest Mr. Bowman get off his high horse and smell around his own side of the aisle as there is plenty there that stinks. br> — Paul Griffin br> U.S. Citizen /p>

I would call it “piling on”: the esteemed editor of this publication, one of its noted contributors, along with the additional musings of a nationally known columnist, have all decided that the recent victor in the Virginia senatorial race, Jim Webb, is, among other things, a cad, a jerk, not a (Southern) gentleman, inclined toward personal violence and intimidation, and, most serious of all, a modern day Benedict Arnold. Fancy that! One wonders what’s left: serial murderer?

Let me clarify my position from the outset: I have neither a personal loyalty to senator-elect Webb, nor did I cast my ballot in his behalf on Election Day, but the Tyrrell/Bowman/Will jeremiad is just plain silly.