GASP! Jim Webb is a bad dinner companion!

Ah, that Jim Webb. Not only is he a terrible writer, but he is also a bully, a boor, and a meany-mean pants to the president. Today we learned from my buddy Liberal Progressive that Jim Webb is also a...wait for it...pain in the ass. Well, that is not all pholks. I learned today that in addition to all of these horrible personality traits Jim Webb possesses, he is also...

A HORRIBLE, BORING COMPANION AT DINNER.

That's right. Don't go out to dinner with Jim Webb if you want to have a good time. This is all according to R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. of the American Spectator, a CLASSIC example of neo-conservative writing at its best. And by best, I mean laughable crazy barrel of NUTS.

Some highlights:

When Ronald Reagan's former secretary of the navy, James Webb, eked out victory against the Republican Senator George Allen in Virginia, what did the Democrats gain? To be sure they gained control of the Senate. That has been widely noted. Less widely noted is the fact that they gained something infinitely more subtle, but delightfully more amusing as will become apparent in the months ahead. In Webb they gained yet another very unpleasant person as a conspicuous member of the party hierarchy. He will not be easily obscured. Webb now takes his place with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dr. Howard Dean, Al Gore, Jean-Francois Kerry, and so many other Democratic notables as a rebarbative blowhard with whom you would not want to share a gondola. Nor would a civilized American want to have any of these churlish cads to dinner or even as neighbors down the block. Just the other day one of Senator Clinton's neighbors turned up with a gunshot wound. I would not be surprised if it were self-inflicted.

Oh, ok. So everyone wants to use big words now that George Will has decided Jim Webb doesn't speak plainly enough. Got it. That makes perfect sense.

You know, by the way; I had no idea that Howard Dean WASN'T a former governor and that he was JUST a doctor. Huh. Oh, and did you know that John Kerry's middle name was Francois? I didn't. I must have missed that in 2004 when I was glued to the television for every single second of the election coverage. And WOW-Hillary's neighbors are trying to kill themselves? Sheesh. Tough neighborhood.

But wait...there's more.

AS IT HAPPENS I DID dine with Webb, sometime after his brief stint at the Department of the Navy. He is a pretty good novelist and in print at the time had expressed some ideas of which I approved, particularly his scruples against women in combat, though other of his references to women strike me as coarse. At any rate, I invited him to dinner for what turned out to be a gruesome evening. Webb is one of those people of whom it is said he is uncomfortable in his skin. At first I thought his discomfort might come from the fear he was going to have to pay his way. It was a classy eatery. I reassured him that he was my guest. I went on to make clear I considered him a fine writer. Nothing I said reassured him, not even my insistence that he have dessert. I left baffled. Most of the military men I have known are gents. Many writers are cads, but I thought a writer who had also served high up in the Reagan Administration might be civilized. After that dinner I never made the mistake of inviting him anywhere again.

His campaign was a prolonged demonstration of his caddishness. He who had called President Bill Clinton's administration the most corrupt in modern history invited Clinton to campaign with him. He actually exploited his own son's present service in Iraq for political advancement. While campaigning he paraded around in his son's combat boots! There were others in the 2006 election with sons in Iraq. One is a leading opponent of the war. None put a son in such an embarrassing and potentially dangerous position. Once elected, Webb took his boorishness to the White House.

So Jim Webb sucks to go to dinner with, and the decision to wear his son's combat boots out of respect for our members of the military and as a reminder of this atrocious war was ACTUALLY an exploitation. It's all clear now.

God, why the hell did I vote for this guy? Maybe it was because he is one of those "angry leftists" I love so much, right? Well, the brilliant Emmet Tyrrell thinks so.

Believe me Senator Webb is going to be a vast source of amusement, and he will fit in nicely with the unpleasant pols whose political base is the Angry Left.

I have said it before and I shall be saying it again, often politics is not a rational act. Increasingly, especially in the Democratic Party, it encourages behavior that is abnormal: politicians windsurfing to assure their constituencies that they are just like them or ranting to show how genuinely human they are. These pols play on the fantasies of mildly delusional voters. In the case of the unpleasant Webb, the delusions are a bit over the top. It makes me wonder why his stay at the Department of the Navy was so brief. Did the Reaganites shove him out? Did one of them make the mistake of taking him to dinner? Or did they catch him acting up at a White House reception that has gone unreported? Some reporters should have looked into this.

Well, I must say, my eyes are opened. You know, it's a good thing all of these writers are telling me what a bad guy Jim Webb is. I am DEFINITELY going to take their word for it. They must REALLY know what they are talking about, right?


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Oh, sour grapes. It's so nice to be in the majority.