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Title: Jim Webb, Iron Intellectual
Source:
The Trail
URL Source: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the- ... im_webb_iron_intellectual.html
Published: Jun 6, 2008
Author: Alec MacGillis
Post Date: 2008-06-06 19:33:05 by a vast rightwing conspirator
Keywords: None
Views: 2581
Comments: 219
By Alec MacGillis Both men, of course, have been mentioned as possible running mates for Obama -- and, in the eyes of the veep-obsessed press, that made the event into an audition of sorts. There's no doubt that Webb is tough. He's stood up to President Bush at a White House reception and has a concealed-carry gun license. But he also sees himself as a serious, free-thinking intellectual. He has a bevy of fairly well-regarded books under his belt and prides himself on writing his own stump material. If yesterday's joint appearance was any indication, far from canceling out Obama's Ivy League pedigree, an Obama-Webb ticket could be one of the most literary pairings ever to take the field. Whereas Kaine served up a fairly conventional Democratic rallying cry, Webb embarked on a meditation on American history and self-conception over the past forty years. He noted that it was the 40th anniversary not only of Bobby Kennedy's assassination but also of his own swearing into the Marine Corps. He took the audience back to that "tumultuous year" -- the assassinations, the Tet offensive, the riots in which "the African American sections in many American cities had erupted with frequent violence" and the Democratic convention in Chicago. Webb said he was giving the history tour "because we all know that the United States of 2008 is also a troubled and divided place in a quiet but equally disturbing way." "The tumult of those earlier years," he went on, "convinced me and others that we needed to learn our love our country more deeply for all its ugly flaws, because it required us to sit back and reconsider the beliefs and values that had once been handed to us as our national legacy. We went through an intellectual challenge in justifying America's uniqueness on fresh grounds and this caused us to believe all the more strongly that ... that this was the moral beacon of the world, that for all or problems we had the will to solve them, the patience to undergo the painful debates that might identify solutions ... and the constitutional system that will provide remedies and thus hold us together as a people." "He is man of great intellect," said Webb. He then drove home the praise by punctuating the final sentence of his introduction with a loud fist pound on the podium.
Barack Obama
Jim Webb, Iron Intellectual
Lost in the hubbub over Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's secret rendezvous at Sen. Dianne Feinstein's house last night were some of the intriguing ramifications of Obama's previous appointment, a rally at the Nissan Pavilion in the Northern Virginia exurbs that was also attended by Sen. Jim Webb and Gov. Tim Kaine.
This was particularly true for Webb, who, unlike Kaine, was making his first appearance in the role of an Obama booster, having stayed neutral throughout the primaries. One thing quickly became clear, as the red-haired senator introduced the presumptive nominee: those pushing for Webb because they think he will bring muscular, regular-guy credentials -- Marine hero in Vietnam, former Navy secretary, Scots-Irish roots -- may need to think again.
After a bit more in this vein, Webb got around to introducing Obama -- whom he praised, before all else, not for his toughness or determination, the qualities one might expect the ex-Marine to highlight, but for his brains.
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#42. To: Fred Mertz (#39)
(Edited)
It's fact, Fred. Please cite me examples of social progress and innovation being associated with non-Caucasians. Answer: you can't. What the future holds no one knows.
Sounds like McCain and Clinton II to me.
Civilization is not the product of any single race or skin-pigmentation. When our "white" ancestors were backwoods barbarians chasing game in northern European forests, the foundation of the civilization that those primitives would later come to inherit was being laid by darker-skinned folk in Africa and the Near East. When our "white" ancestors were still hacking each other to pieces and wallowing in ignorance during the Dark Ages, Arab civilization was preserving the wisdom of the ancients in the East and advancing the science of mathematics for later transmission to us, which made the Italian Rennaisance possible. Where would our civilization be without the advances made by the Chinese, which we received via Marco Polo when he returned from his great trek to the Far East? It is only in the last five-hundred years that Western and Northern European peoples have become dominant, thanks in no small part to prior advances made by other peoples in other parts of the globe. In the greater scope of human history, Northern and Western European "whites" have been rather unexceptional and even barbaric for the most part. The last five-hundred years is the exception, not the rule, and our dominance in this epoch is in no small part derivative from prior advances made or preserved in former epochs dominated by non-"white" peoples. History both exalts and humbles, in turn. No civilization or people remains dominant forever. The truly exceptional civilizations will understand this, and remain humble even when exalted and (temporarily) dominant. If we become too full of ourselves, our turn to be humbled and dominated by others is likely to come sooner than we think.
Check out my blog, America, the Bushieful.
You are full of shit Arator. You pull ideas out of your ass to try to make a point. But the only point you are making is that you are stupid. The Romans were White, they dominated when Jesus was here. That was over 2000 years ago.
God is always good!
You seem to be fascinated with certain words such as "pigmentation". Most of us accept "color" as sufficient, unless of course you feel some need to impress people. If that is so, then feel free to impress for whatever self satisfaction you receive. We do not mind, however, in doing so you are painting a physical and character portrait of yourself. What we see so far is not a portrait of honesty nor of acceptable social character.
The Roman civilization was a copycat of the Greeks' with a bit of Etruscan spice. The Greeks themselves viewed the Egyptians as their source and their inspiration. Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China preceded the Romans by hundreds or thousands of years. Sadly, but deservedly, the so-called Western civilization is dying. Like the Romans', it's not the barbarians at the borders defeating us but the rot from within that's hollowing us out. I am re-reading Mein Kamph these days. Hitler's critique of the Jewish race is as valid today as it ever was and it applies to what we are calling today the Western world. Our greed, selfishness, irresponsibility, abandonment of any moral standards is making us all third-rate Jew copycats, worshipers of the golden cow and destined to collapse and return to ashes and dust. It's not very clear what is likely to emerge out of this collapse. Sadly, we finally corrupted the Chinese, the Japanese and the Indians. The Muslims are still resisting us but we changed them too as many of them find meaning in their life in opposing us. Buddhism may re-emerge to be the world's more promising faith and inspiration as the Hindus and the Chinese are taking over the world, hopefully spread humanity to other planets and re-civilize Europe and the Americas. If that's the case, it's not so bad. I can think of other, less elegant alternatives. Anyone dares envision the human-dominated universe in 1000 years? In 10,000 years? In 100,000 years? in a million years? In a billion years? One possibility would be for the machines taking over and doing lots of things meant to help us while the bio-foundation degrades and decays and, eventually, disappears which, surprisingly, would make the machines' continuation meaningless and highly unlikely. Who knows, some hidden and totally incomprehensible God might tweak a parameter or 2 and everything might change direction, following some kind of a reboot process.
Antiparty - find out why, think about 'how'
Only a PILE would chose the word "rule over
them" in reference to a potential President Obama. Such is your need for
subjugation. You have no character, Arator. You, more than most, know that my
politics would never bring me to support a Hillary, McCain or Obama, yet with
FReeper flair you avoid discussing Webb's Hate Speech vote I researched, and
continue the deflection. For a man who believes in every crack pot conspiracy
in Patriotville, you are missing the most overt threat to our freedom since
its founding. But then again you are consumed with white guilt and see Obama
as a god simply b/c of his color. Strip that away and he'd be on the lunatic
left and a non threat. Obama is blessed to be running, today, after decades of
multiculturalism and political correctness have conditioned a once proud
people. Although I'm forced to come along with you on this ride, I won't be
compliant. I'll never stop pointing out the socialism he's about to "deliver"
to us all. God help us, white and black.
Ricky Retardo can't seem to get it through his thick skull plate that one of them black folks is much smarter the he is. Obama graduated with a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991 Ricky. He also served as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and was elected to the Senate in a landslide with 70 percent of the vote after effective and successful service to his community his entire life after receiving his impeccable academic credentials. You are a fuckwit who repeats garbage in the face of facts, hoping that if you throw them long enough your lies will stick to something. What aa absolute idiot you are, one so stupid you are more amusing to watch then irritating, as it is you you hurt here, not Barack Obama. It is your own words and posts that erode your credibility, bubba. Sure sucks to be you.
A rational person would not vote for any one of the three and most certainly wouldn't spend hours on end talking about how wonderful one or the other of the traitors is.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Barack Obama is a man, a human being, wake up. Hello, stop obsessing about race, It is painfully obvious race bothers you a hell of allot. The rest of us don't give a damn as long as a candidate has the right stuff to lead and Obama has it. It doesn't matter what color or ethnic background he is. The campaign is going to be about his fitness to lead, not about your own personal racial myopia. I was arguing with someone recently who took that "Whites invented everything good" line. I asked him for examples and he mentioned things like the Chinese invention of gun power. I opened my lappie and used the wi-fi where we were to show him just how much the Chinese have invented or developed. Every people on this planet has contributed to humanity, and it was fun to watch him realize his White Supremacy hair shirt has holes in it. Simply put, Barack Obama is a talented leader and brings much needed change to the White House when he is elected this November. It is an election that is going to be about that, not whether he has Negro blood in his linage. Get over your obsessions. Your myopia and mean spirited short sightedness on race only hurts you, not Obama.
What does the man's formal education have to do with the socialism he espouses? FDR came to us after completing a Harvard and a Columbia Law School indoctrination. Wilson, a professor at Princeton, tried to stick the League of Nations down our gullet. Don't think for a minute the elitists among us have our best interest in mind.
My obsession? I've done nothing but speak to the hope and change bumper sticker mentality you've embraced. Lets talk issues. What has he accomplished legislatively that places America First?
People looking for a political Savior will always find one. They are easily swayed by oratory and a re a member of the "sheep" family of contented grazers.
Well, of course you are. You both seem to just love the whitey-hating Marxist for some reason. I would imagine the only ones who will ever know why will be God and your psychiatrists. I imagine those sessions, where he delves into what makes you tick and why you have changed from someone who supported a real patriot in Ron Paul, or claimed to anyway, and now supports someone who is his complete opposite in Obama, is confusing to say the least.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. They are easily swayed by oratory and a re a member of the "sheep" family of contented grazers. Sad, ain't it?
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. You are a responsible poster with whom discourse and debate moves along a logical line and who allows it to evolve. Ricky Retardo is a fuckwit who repeats the same crap over and over trying desperately to make it true by trying to wear down those debunking his verbal patter. I cite the stark, black and white, and incontrovertible evidence like extremely high accomplishment academically because it is begged by Ricky's fuckwit style. If I bore you with repetitions the obvious, my apologies. But as long as he posts lies, I will debunk them.
Race doesn't bother me and I could, and would, vote for a black person but not just any black person. And that is what the white guilters are doing in this case. And I think you will be eating huge helpings of crow if that whitey hating Marxist actually gets elected. Of course the way the system is rigged it is a "choice" between him and that lunatic, McCain, but a sensible person would say a plague on both their houses and do a protest vote or not participate in what he knows to be a fraud.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. I am not moved by your proclamations all three are equally incompetent and bad. I have lived in a community full of nihilists like you and am weary of doom and gloom stagnation politics. Your attitude and fuss budget attitude is what is sad here, nothing else.
Lincoln...lawyer..Civil War Wilson....College professor..WW1 Roosevelt...Hahvud...WW2 Truman...Dummy inherited FDR Korea... Johnson..School teacher...Vietnam Bush...Yale... Iraq Clinton...Oxfud...Kosovo Bush...Yale...Iraq II Obama...Hahvud.....Lets speculate, unless Bush beats him to Iran Obummer will dance to the tune from Tel Aviv... Note....Note a single small town bitter white trash hill billy yet has started a war.
The stupids are just as likely to vote for your hero, Obama, the whitey hating Marxist. Smart people will either do a protest vote or just refrain from voting to show their disdain for an obviously rigged system which only allows approved puppets to "win."
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Your misguided support of a black man solely because of your white guilt is what is sad. But just keep on touting him and, if he gets "selected" be prepared to eat lots of crow.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Obama's acolytes are hard to dismiss. Our question to them should be, "When did you come to Obama"? There is no other rational way to discuss their knee pad- like devotion for the Messiah. I understand Oprah simply calls him The One, because we need politicians who know how to be the truth. Help me with my Jesus here, but isn't there something in the good book about, "I am the way, the truth ..."? Apparently Obama is a living, breathing designer of Intelligent Design who can help us all get to a higher plane. But please, during our coming discussions, do not interject fact into the discussion. Or race. Or his radical African Theology. Or his past radical associates. You get the picture. The Os are to Obama as Marshall Applewhite was to Heaven's Gate.
I don't think FM likes Obama only because of white guilt. He's caught up in the good-cop, bad-cop game they're playing on us.
James... That will not suffice. You could draw a diagram from historical fact for "Vast" and the other white guilters and they would still deny reality. Knee padders yearning for a Savior to serve are not swayed by fact, rather they live in a fictional world of their own fantasy.
Thank you Mike, and I like you too. But back to the question at hand, what legislation has Obama advanced that places America First?
Zbig laid it out yesterday on live TV, if Obama is forced to take Hillary, she will be across the street, "a government in waiting". No one dared ask his meaning as they already knew and no one would discuss it. All of this goes well above the heads of the white guilters as they are mired in their own lack of self worth and are being used.
I see Obama as a more popular left-leaning analog to Mitt Romney on the "right." There were plenty of "patriots" who "liked" Romney, but you and I knew that he was an Israel-firster at heart, and didn't fall for him. This is my main argument with the tree-sitting one. We shouldn't fall for these "change" games they're playing with our minds. This is the Hegelian dialectic, nothing else.
I used to not care about Obama because I knew little about him and the most visible feature of his, when I knew little about him, was his color and his Somali-like skinniness. I thought he was the token negro, meant to add some color to Hillary's coronation process and I made many critical, derisive and uninformed remarks about him, usually deriding his supposed tokenist role. I now realize that I was wrong. In the McCain vs. Obama race you will have to decide between a glass that's not only empty but it's cracked and about to shatter and a glass that's maybe 80% full. Or you may write in Ron Paul, or your cat's boyfriend's name. You just do what you got to do but, as Hippocrates used to say, 'first, do no harm'. If you support McCain or Hilly, you do harm.
Antiparty - find out why, think about 'how'
Check out above. I addressed your curiosity on 'when did you come to Obammer'. Because I was against him before I was for him.
Antiparty - find out why, think about 'how'
buck... See my nr 68... Zbig laid it out in his stilted plain English as an Obama supporter, as to what well may come to be fact....It was a giant warning to all Americans, regardless of partisanship. The white guilters have no time to listen or consider what he said.
Ha... You were a sideliner from day one. Painted yourself into a corner as a non thinker and now cannot get out.
White guilters who support Obama are the last folks who should be calling other people "dumb."
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. If you support McCain or Hilly or Obama, you do harm. There. Fixed it for you. No charge.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. They may be male guilters, as well. Hillary may appear as a reasonable alternative to McCain to them. (I could care less that she's a woman, but her marriage to Bill Clinton, whose administration presided over the continuing Ruby Ridge coverup, the Waco incident, the AWB, the war against the Serbs, and "Black Hawk Down," and her own relationship to Saul Alinsy is unacceptable to me.)
Aha. Sorry, got to do my 100 laps before the guests show up for the pool party.
Antiparty - find out why, think about 'how'
Ha... Do your laps and travel all that distance and guess what? You end up right where you started, somewhat like your circular political thinking.
Gun-toting hippie yuppie?
how many times have we posted and you've not comprehended that if this were a Shelby Steele, Larry Elder, Reverend Jesse Petersen, Walter Williams (aside from the fact that he has subbed for limbaugh), Ward Connerly, or any other conservative or libertarian black that isn't establishment that they would have our support? further, if obama had Ron Paul's politics or if Ron Paul were black, either one would have our support. Now that was a great post, right on the mark. Sadly enough, Arator seems to have decided that what Americans need is a whitey hating Marxist to "rule over them." And I have never thought that a president was supposed to "rule over" Americans, that they were supposed to be our servants.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. And his wife being Asian would be a good reason to vote for the destruction of the first amendment? Are there not already enough laws on the books to punish actual harm done to people without going so far as to penalize their thoughts? Or to try to get into their heads to know why they murdered someone? Are the people not just as dead either way and is the punishment already prescribed for willful and wanton murder not good enough? "Hate crimes laws" are bull$#it and need to be called that and those who vote in favor of such stupidity need to be run out of Washington, not elevated to a higher position.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. We need someone who can deal with ground-level realities screaming to be fixed: endemic poverty, police brutality, cruelly unequal schools and foreign quagmires that drain the nation's economy and cripple its morale. Obama as POTUS will inspire unity and help get things back on track and moving in this country. The first thing to do - in a foundational sense - to put America first is to build up our sense of how we truly are in all this together. Barack Obama can do that, people sense this, which is why he is where he is right now. Bush and Cheney got ahead by exporting and exacerbating differences between people, and this was wrong, and people know this and want profoundly a reversal of this sort of politics as usual. I heard the right things from the man when he was here; that it is about us, the people of the United States, not him or any personality cult of elitist group. I see a man who can inspire and lead. He is about Americans coming first, which is precisely why I want him elected this November.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestIf you say so, whitey.
#43. To: RickyJ (#41)
Obama is a racist, a habitual liar, and a elitist.
#44. To: scrapper2 (#38)
(Edited)
However to diss the contributions of whites in Western nations is too PC blind on your part. Without a doubt the greatest inventions, the greatest progess in the arts and sciences have been accomplished through the intelligence and creativity of whites. Puhleaze...get real. Progress = whites.
#45. To: Arator (#44)
It is only in the last five-hundred years that Western and Northern European peoples have become dominant, thanks in no small part to prior advances made by other peoples in other parts of the globe.
#46. To: Arator (#37)
(as "white" supremacists like to pretend), it (ironically) signals the bleeding edge of an ongoing civilizational collapse towards barbarism.
#47. To: RickyJ (#45)
(Edited)
The Romans were White, they dominated when Jesus was here. That was over 2000 years ago.
#48. To: Arator (#19)
And, now, a black man shall rule over them, one possessing
exceptional intellect and political skills, and the prospect positively
terrifies them. In this way, the stars have aligned so that the very universe
mocks and laughs at their puerile and retrograde pigmentation-based
pretensions.
#49. To: RickyJ (#41)
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." Robert F. Kennedy
#50. To: Ferret Mike (#49)
#51. To: RickyJ (#41)
There is no rational reason to choose him over either McCain or Hillary. None whatsoever.
Lord Acton
#52. To: Jethro Tull (#48)
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." Robert F. Kennedy
#53. To: Ferret Mike (#49)
#54. To: Ferret Mike (#52)
Get over your obsessions.
#55. To: James Deffenbach (#51)
A rational person would not vote for any one of the three
#56. To: Arator, a vast rightwing conspirator, Jethro Tull (#19)
I'm with you, avrwc.
Lord Acton
#57. To: Cynicom (#55)
People looking for a political Savior will always find one.
Lord Acton
#58. To: Jethro Tull (#53)
"What does the man's formal education have to do with the socialism he espouses?"
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." Robert F. Kennedy
#59. To: Ferret Mike (#52)
It is painfully obvious race bothers you a hell of allot. The rest of us don't give a damn as long as a candidate has the right stuff to lead and Obama has it.
Lord Acton
#60. To: James Deffenbach (#57)
"Sad, ain't it?"
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." Robert F. Kennedy
#61. To: Jethro Tull (#53)
What does the man's formal education have to do with the socialism he espouses?
#62. To: a vast rightwing conspirator (#1)
The stupids are likely to vote for McCain or to stay home and watch Cialis infomercials.
Lord Acton
#63. To: Ferret Mike (#60)
Your attitude and fuss budget attitude is what is sad here, nothing else.
Lord Acton
#64. To: James Deffenbach, Cynicom, Aratoe, Mike, VRWC, all (#56)
#65. To: James Deffenbach (#63)
#66. To: James Deffenbach (#62)
obviously rigged system which only allows approved puppets to "win."
#67. To: Ferret Mike (#58)
#68. To: James Deffenbach (#63)
#69. To: Cynicom, bush_is_a_moonie (#66)
#70. To: James Deffenbach (#63)
#71. To: Jethro Tull (#64)
#72. To: buckeye (#69)
#73. To: a vast rightwing conspirator (#71)
#74. To: Arator, Jethro Tull (#19)
JT wasn't always so dumb.
Lord Acton
#75. To: a vast rightwing conspirator (#70)
If you support McCain or Hilly, you do harm.
Lord Acton
#76. To: Cynicom (#72)
The white guilters have no time to listen or consider what he said.
#77. To: Cynicom (#73)
#78. To: a vast rightwing conspirator (#77)
Sorry, got to do my 100 laps before the guests show up for the pool party.
#79. To: Cynicom (#78)
#80. To: christine, Arator (#31)
that's a crock. how many times have we posted it's not about his color, it's about his radical leftist, socialist politics and the fact that he, like hillary and mccain is OWNED.
Lord Acton
#81. To: scrapper2 (#40)
Webb may have voted for the Shephard hate speech law because it represented ssomething personal to him - his current wife is Asian - Vietnamese I believe.
Lord Acton
#82. To: Jethro Tull (#67)
"...what legislation has Obama advanced that places America First?"
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." Robert F. Kennedy
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