The P-G Editorial Board Gets One Wrong

Here. By the way, I've blogged on this before.

I'm ususally a fan of the editorial board over there on the Boulevard of the Allies, but today they got it completely ass-backwards.

James Webb, graduate of the Naval Academy, decorated Vietnam War veteran, former secretary of the Navy, acclaimed novelist and senator-elect from Virginia, should know how to be an officer and a gentleman.

Apparently not. According to The Washington Post, the Democrat attended a recent White House reception where he went out of his way to avoid his host, President Bush, declining to stand in a receiving line or have his picture taken with the president. But Mr. Bush found him anyway.

According to the Post, Mr. Bush asked him, "How's your boy?" Mr. Webb's son is a Marine in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Mr. Webb responded.

"That's not what I asked you," Mr. Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Mr. Webb said to end the conversation.

Plenty of people criticize George W. Bush and poke fun at him in public arenas -- that's called democracy. But to meet a president, any president, and show cold contempt -- that's called rudeness. The discourtesy was compounded by the fact that Mr. Bush was asking a friendly question about the welfare of Mr. Webb's son, a fair and decent inquiry. It would have been better had the senator-elect not attended the reception than behave like this.

Let's trace the story a little. Here's the piece from the Washington Post.

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn't long before Bush found him.

"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

Now here's the same story in The Hill.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon. [emphasis added]

Note the part about wearing his son's combat boots - the war in Iraq is obviously a very personal issue for the Senator-Elect. At the end of the Post article, there's a bit more detail from the Governor of Virginia:

"He is not a backslapper," Kaine said. "There are different models that succeed in politics. There's the hail-fellow-well-met model of backslapping. That's not his style."

But Kaine said that Webb's background, including a stint as Ronald Reagan's Navy secretary, will make him an important -- if unpredictable -- voice on the war in Iraq.

"There are no senators who have that everyday anxiety that he has as a dad with a youngster on the front lines. That gives him gravitas and credibility on this issue," Kaine said. "People in the Senate, I'm sure, will agree with him or disagree with him on issue to issue. But they won't doubt that he's coming at it from a real sense of duty." [emphasis added]

A little context. Webb's son is in the middle of the bloody mess Bush manipulated the nation into. Webb's son is in serious danger every day directly due to the president's on-going failed foreign policies. Bush's own daughters, of course, are competely safe and sound. Neither daughter is in any danger of being harmed by any IED, shrapnel, bullet wounds or the stress of living each day in a war zone - the worst thing to happen to them in recent days is that one of them got her purse stolen in Argentina. Ee gads.

And so it's in that context that Bush saunters over and asks "How's your boy?" Seems to me that dubya, far from asking a "fair and decent" question, was showing Webb exactly who was in command. And as I wrote previously it was Bush who got testy when the conversation veered someplace he didn't want it to go.

Perhaps the Senator-elect should have declined the invitation. Perhaps he should have played nicer with the man who put his son in harms way. But it was Bush's cavalier question that angered Webb and so perhaps Bush got all the respect he deserved (Each question did end with the necessary "Mr President.")

So I have to ask, which one was showing contempt for the other? Which one was cold?

I guess you already have my answer.