December 02, 2006
Saturday

Mr. Thomassen's recent article concerning what he calls boorish behavior by Senator-elect of Virginia leaves out some very important parts, which I, as a Virginia voter believe are important. Perhaps because I live exactly 14 miles from Capitol Hill and many of my friends and neighbors work there, I see and hear much that is unreported, ignored, or simply unknown about how the Bush Administration and Mr. Bush have conducted themselves over the past 6 1/2 years. First off, this incident occurred at what any military or corporate type would instantly recognize as a "command function," so Mr. Webb, former military, naturally attended. Mr. Bush is well, if not widely known, for one-upmanship: patronizing, and deliberately underhanded behavior in seeking to secure any kind of personal advantage--- recently giving the German leader a nice little neck massage in public is an example, an effort to establish dominance, sure that others will have no way to rebuke him because of his position. Read Ron Susskind's book "One Percent Solution" for a longer discourse.

Mr. Bush asked Mr. Webb how "your boy" was doing. Among us Southerners "your boy" might be acceptable between two close old family friends in a community where everyone grew up together and everyone knows everyone's children by name (which Mr. Bush apparently did not trouble to learn, by the way). In any other context "your boy" is deliberately demeaning and patronizing. Mr. Webb, however, answered courteously that he wanted "them" (all) home, to which Mr. Bush said, "that's not what I asked you. How is your boy doing?" Those of us familiar with the Bush technique know exactly what was going on. If there was a boor present, it was not Mr. Webb, and Mr. Bush can count himself lucky that Webb chose to make a restrained reply that this was between himself and his son, and walked coolly away. Good for him.

What strikes me about the matter is how it is being used by the Bush noise machine to begin a studied campaign to discredit, demean, and trivialize Senator-elect Webb. After a half-dozen years of vicious partisanship and spiteful, inflammatory rhetoric on their part, now the Bush people demand gentlemanly bipartisanship and want their opponents to behave better than they themselves have. Mr. Webb is the real deal, and it scares the socks off the phony elitist establishment types who think they are entitled to look down their noses at the rest of us, and who have so royally messed up under the leadership of the hapless, crude, and in-over-his-head George W. Bush.

Teddy Goodson
Fairfax, Virginia



Received December 01, 2006 - Published December 02, 2006

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Dan K. Thomasson: Era of civility off to rude start - In the spirit of cooperation pledged by both sides to tackle Iraq and other major problems, the newly elected senator from Virginia already has "dissed" the president of the United States in the White House and made it clear he will be his own man no matter what his Democratic colleagues want. - More...
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