I was going to resist writing about this but as I commented on Seablogger's post about Peggy Noonan's piece on an exchange between Senator Webb and President Bush, I realized I wanted to put my thoughts here. For those who don't know about it, there are two important pieces of background you need to know. One is that Webb's son is a Marine, stationed in Iraq. The other is that Webb was a Republican but so incensed by the war in Iraq that he switched parties and ran as a Democrat this year and won his Virginia election. With all that in mind, what happened last week at a White House Christmas reception is getting lots of attention. As GWB moved among the people there, Webb indicated he didn't want to be photographed with the president. He didn't make a big deal of it, at least as far as it's reported, but later on, GWB went to Webb and asked, "How is your son?" According to The Washington Post, Webb answered that he wants his son back from Iraq. To which GWB replied, "That's not what I asked you. I asked how's your son?" To which Webb reportedly replied that was between him and his son.

Must have been an amazing moment but the brouhaha is between those who think Webb was unnecessarily rude and those who think GWB put himself foolishly in line to be attacked. My own opinion is that I think they both knew exactly what they were doing and it wasn't that big a deal to either one of them. However, I think there are several very human pieces to this story. For one thing, the army is entirely volunteer, so Webb's son chose to enlist. He may have had his father's support or, more likely, his father may have argued with him and lost. Imagine how Webb feels either way - if he supported the decision and now his son is in Iraq, or if he opposed it and every day has to wait and see knowing it was his son's choice. Difficult and miserable situation and any parent would sympathize. Meanwhile, Bush had to know about Webb switch and election because it was a huge and decisive deal in the Senate power balance. So I think he knew what he was getting into when he went to talk to Webb and obviously Webb knew he might run into Bush and that Bush might speak to him.

What crafty nasty motive would be behind asking after Webb's son? Suppose Bush is indeed a jerk and really meant "nya, nya, your son's in danger because of my decisions, so I hope you have a really unhappy holiday." That seems really dumb because at least someone would make note of it and reported it and what would he have gained besides two minutes of bad-tempered amusement. Plus, by all accounts, Bush isn't bad-tempered or mean but a nice guy personally, so his question almost certainly was simply meant to express concern.

Finally, when you consider what Webb could have said and/or done as an answer, his response was fairly restrained. I'd bet Bush expected at least that, if not something worse. And since he's not the emotionally delicate creature that his predecessor was (thank goodness), I'd also bet he was partly curious to see what Webb would say but wanted, more, to express his concern. (And by the way, does anyone report what Bush answered at the end, or did his handlers whisk him away?)

Labels: huh?