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Joe Klien's excellent column in the October 2, 2006
issue of Time Magazine focuses mostly on the candidates for US Senate
from Virginia, contrasting their points of view and aspects of their personal
lives. But it also points out the shallowness and inappropriateness of the
press, who were more interested in revelations that one of the candidates is
part Jewish than in their contrasting views on Iraq, where the other candidat's
son is a Marine lance corporal, that very week scheduled to be conducting a
sweep in one of Ramadi's toughest neighborhoods:
"It is difficult to imagine what it was like to be Jim
Webb last week. It should have been the moment that his race against Republican
Senator George Allen crystalized. Two debates were scheduled. They promised to
be the sharpest discussion about Iraq in any Senate campaign this year. Allen's
support for the war has been uninflected but not entirely uninformed. The
Senator has visited Iraq several times and has a solid knowledge of the
contending forces there.
Webb's opposition to an invasion of Iraq predates the first Gulf War. "I
thought we would empower Iran, and we have," he says. His views are precise but
complex. They are based on a lifetime studying warfare, first in the Marines
and then as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy. And there were moments in
the two debates when Allen and Webb—especially Webb—seemed about to settle into
the sort of serious discussion of Iraq that the nation desperately needs, but
those moments were fleeting. Moderators interrupted, time limits were imposed,
other topics were raised. And then there was the business about Allen's Jewish
heritage, which overwhelmed everything.
The caption on Klein's column says it all:
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