Posted on 11/19/2016 12:28:06 AM PST by Sontagged
Jim Webb is, at least in a nominal sense, a Democrat. Last year, he briefly pursued the Democratic nomination for president, a run best remembered for his joke about killing the Vietnamese soldier who threw a grenade at him.
Now Webb is singing Donald Trump’s praises, and may have his eye on a cabinet job. “I would like to salute Donald Trump for his tenacity and for the uniqueness of his campaign,” Webb during a speech to a hundred or so attendees at a foreign policy symposium in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
To hear Webb tell it, in fact, he tried to do what Trump did. “It took an outsider, whatever his wealth and lack of government experience, to tell the truth,” Webb said, before explaining that his own efforts in this regard were tripped up by his lack of wealth and an intransigent Democratic elite.
Conservative writer Bill Kauffmann floated Webb’s name as a possible cabinet pick in his introduction of the former Virginia senator. Later on, a questioner mentioned an “incredible rumor going around” that Webb might be offered secretary of defense, and asked whether he would accept the role. Webb did not answer the question.
It all had the look and feel of a trial balloon being launched. Here was Webb, with his sterling resume, laying out a vision of America’s vision in the world that roughly hewed with what Trump said on the campaign trail: Putting America first, minding our own business, avoiding foreign entanglements. And of course he had nothing but nice things to say about the president-elect, even though he declined to say whom he’d voted for.
He also spoke quite a bit about how Democrats left working class whites behind: “It made white working people their most convenient whipping posts, particularly white males.”
It was a message likely to resonate with the audience. The American Conservative, a right-wing publication with a dovish, populist bent, had put the symposium together. Founded in 2002 as a home for anti-war conservatives, it can in some sense be credited for providing the intellectual architecture of what we now think of as Trumpism.
Whether any of that architecture still interests Trump is another matter. Regardless, Webb’s resume is immaculate. He’s a graduate of Annapolis and of Georgetown Law. He’s a highly decorated war hero. He’s already been an assistant secretary of Defense, secretary of the Navy, and a U.S. Senator.
And he’s also an acclaimed author of ten books, including “Born Fighting,” his 2004 history of the Scotch-Irish people that was the “Hillbilly Elegy” of its time.
That resume didn’t serve him in his no-hope bid for the Democratic nomination last year. But it would likely make a Senate confirmation vote a breeze, and that fact alone could make a Webb nod tempting to Trump’s White House team.
John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani, two floated names for Trump’s secretary of State, could easily be stuck in confirmation hearings for months. (Sen. Rand Paul is already saying he’ll do anything possible to stop Bolton.)
Meanwhile, Steve Bannon’s elevation to White House strategist has already produced tremendous blowback. Possible Defense pick Gen. Michael Flynn could face trouble explaining some of his foreign ties. And getting an immigration hardliner like Kris Kobach or Jeff Sessions to a major post could be a hard-fought battle as well.
Not so with Webb, a known quantity that would likely appease both Trump fans and some detractors within Washington officialdom. It would also give Trump a Democrat in his cabinet. Cross-party moves like that tend to be attractive to presidents, and may be particularly so to an off-and-on Democrat like Trump.
It would also reassure supporters and critics alike that Trump has no intention of getting the U.S. into a war. Webb, unlike Trump, was an early and outspoken critic of the Iraq War, a position that launched his career in electoral politics. His non-interventionist bona fides are rock solid.
Webb’s big idea is that we need a “clear statement of national security interests.” He’s critical of NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders, and said he feels humanitarian military adventures are deeply unwise. But first and foremost, we need a strategy that’s easily understood by enemies, allies, and the American people alike.
“Tell me what our national interest is, how we are going to defend it, how we will know we have accomplished our mission -- and if you can do that, you have a strategy,” he said. And in Webb’s version of that strategy, generally speaking, we’d be preoccupied to containing Chinese influence in Asia in lieu of wars of choice like the Libya intervention.
Regardless of what anyone makes of Webb’s pronouncements, he has the authority to make them, and could provide a degree of nuance to Trump’s foreign policy impulses. Whether the president-elect has any interest in that is another matter, but on the merits, a top job for Jim Webb would make a fair bit of sense.
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“Tough...Republican, Democrat. Independent.....he’s a reed in the wind.....not stable enough.”
Webb is a slimy opportunist and a liar, not a reed in the wind.
Reagan correctly fired him from his job as Secretary of the Navy for incompetence.
President Reagan wrote about Webb, “I don’t think Navy was sorry to see him go.”
Trump should nominate George Allen for something.
It would be funny to see liberals go bananas over the “macaca” incident again. And it would fit the theme going on with Sessions, Bannon and Flynn.
Kind of like what Webb said about their exchange:
"Exchange with President Bush
On November 28, 2006, at a White House reception for those newly elected to Congress, Webb did not choose to wait in the line to have his picture taken with the president, whom Webb often criticized during the campaign.
The president approached Webb later and asked him, "How's your boy?", referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.
Webb replied "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President."
Bush responded, "That's not what I asked you. How's your boy?",
Webb responded, "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President."
The Hill cited an anonymous source who claimed that Webb was so angered by the exchange that he confessed he was tempted to "slug" the president.
Webb later remarked in an interview, "I'm not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall."
In response to the incident, some conservatives criticized Webb, including George Will, who called Webb a "boor" and wrote, "[Webb] already has become what Washington did not need another of, a subtraction from the city's civility and clear speaking."
Others, such as conservative columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, reserved their criticism for Bush, writing: "I thought it had the sound of the rattling little aggressions of our day, but not on Mr. Webb's side."
Webb was asked about the exchange in a January 4, 2007 appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews. He told Matthews:
My feeling about that – first of all, it's been kind of a bit overblown. But I think when people are now seeing how John McCain is handling the situation with his son being in the Marine Corps, perhaps they can understand a little bit more what I was having to go through during the entire campaign.
I greatly respect my son's service and all of the people who are serving. At the same time, I have not commented, even to many of my friends, about the operational side. That's personal to me in terms of my feelings about it. And it was not a casual comment.
As I said in the piece that you just ran, I think the best article that was written on that was by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal when she basically said that the lack of civility was not mine and I feel that way.
After his son returned from Iraq, Webb "buried the hatchet" with the president by setting up a private chat with his son, the president, and himself in the Oval Office."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Webb
Bannon - Jew problem
Flynn - Muslim problem
Sessions - KKK problem
Allen - Macaca problem
HELL NOOOOO!!!
I was being nice.
Steve Bannon is a great guy and somehow I think he and Webb would get along very well... though Bannon turns a blind eye on some obvious GOPe players like Bachmann and Cheney.
I need to research Mattis.
Mattis was all about the Iraq War, unlike Trump. Webb was even against Desert Storm.
The fact George Will came out against Webb makes me like him. He has same views on Iraq as high-placed vets in my family have had (and Trump): Bushes were war crazed.
Mattis can’t be SecDef, according to this.
“The law requires that retired military officers be out of uniform for seven years before they’re eligible to be defense secretary.”
Mattis retired in 2013. Ineligible.
He can get a waiver from Congress and likely will:
You go ahead and criticise him. I'm not qualified to weigh in on a any combat veteran. I mentioned him a few months back on this board and had mixed reactions. At the time he ran he was the only combat veteran on either side of the isle. Of course we had Lindsey Graham but he was a JAG officer.
I wondered at first with your dream garbage, now following inserting Bannon into what can only be honestly defined as a wet dream, you are either one of four.
1. Troll
2. Idiot
3. Not awake yet
4. All of the above.
If Reagan fired the incompetent fool for being exactly that, How you get to Bannon having any kind of inclination to getting along with this fool only shows just how wet your “deam” really is.
Away with you knave! Its amazing that some people will even try selling the Sunshine Skyway Bridge pieces that fell into Tampa Bay.
I liked him when I first saw him at the first debate and REALLY thought this election was going to be fun, but I thought it would be because of Webb, not cankles.
If the MSM thinks it’s a good idea, well, that’s a deal you walk away from.
Mattis CAN'T have the job, because, by law, a serving officer has to be retired for seven years in order to be eligible.
Mattis CAN'T have the job, because, by law, a serving officer has to be retired for seven years in order to be eligible.
>Americans didn’t vote for bipartisanship. They voted Republican.
All fair points. However, Jim Webb is far more my type of people than the bushies and neo-cons who inhabit national security arenas.
A vote for Obamacare makes you a democrat
I just hope he finds a spot for Allen West.
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