Digging Dirt

In a front page Washington Post article on Sunday reported that the "National Republican Congressional Committee is planning to spend millions of dollars digging dirt on Democrats. The NRCC has dispatched operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates and it plans to spend its entire bank account, $60 million-plus, on what officials described as negative ads to help Republicans keep control of congress on the mid-term elections. GOP officials are quoted as saying that this type of strategy will help limit loses in the House to 10 seats and 3 in the Senate. The NRCC is planning to drive third-party ads in behalf of their GOP candidates; what this means is that their candidate can truthfully pledge to run a clean campaign with a limited budget because neither candidate can control what outside groups spend. In other words, the NRCC will do the dirty deeds and after the damage is done the GOP candidate can distance himself/herself from the negative ads. Federal law prohibits coordinated campaign activities between candidates and groups making independent expenditures. Wink, Wink.

It appears that we will have nasty and misleading mid-term election rhetoric. Once again the real issues will be set aside, and the debates will concentrate in attacks and defenses of derogatory libelous or slanderous material. The so-called journalists will keep on functioning as idiots reporting to the morons and the elections will be decided not on who can best serve the people but on who can smear the best.

Virginia voters are beginning to see the GOP plan in action. Senator George Allen is up for re-election, his Democratic Senate opponent is Jim Webb, a decorated military man who also served as Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan. Research has paid off for the Allen camp. It has uncovered an article by Jim Webb published in 1979 on the Washingtonian magazine that seems to be derogatory or hostile towards women. Reminiscent of the Swift Boat people attack on Kerry, five female U.S. Naval Academy graduates on Wednesday said Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb fostered an air of hostility and harassment for them with a magazine article he wrote. Excerpts from a Richmond news outlet reports:

• The women said Webb's article in Washingtonian magazine, "Women Can't Fight," made almost intolerable the already edgy relationship between male midshipmen and females, first admitted to the military service academies in 1976.
• In the article, Webb describes the horror of combat in Vietnam for himself and the Marine infantry company he commanded and explains why he believes it was no place for a woman. He wrote that he'd never met a woman, including those at the academy who would become Navy officers, "whom I would trust to provide those men with combat leadership."
• In a statement released by Webb's campaign, he said he did not anticipate the widespread reaction to his article, "and to the extent that my writing subjected women at the Academy or the active Armed Forces to undue hardship, I remain profoundly sorry."
• Webb said in the statement he wrote the article "during a time of great emotional debate over a wide array of social issues in this country, and the tone of this article was no exception." He said he is "completely comfortable" with women's roles in today's military.

Of course, what will be making news is that Jim Webb was hostile to the female midshipmen at the Naval Academy. It will never be put into the context of the social and political times of that era. No sir! He is a male chauvinist pig who could not appreciate the great service those future female naval officers were to provide this country. And this group of ladies will be ready to march all over the state to tell us morons that he should not be representing the state of Virginia in the Senate. But why did they wait over a quarter of a century to complaint? Why not while attending the academy, when it would have served them best? Why go 20+ years in the military with that burden on their shoulders? Those questions along with the questions of the incumbent’s record while in office are not to be discussed. I wonder if these women are aware that in 1996, their candidate Allen, while governor, supported the male-only policy at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), or that he accepted a membership to male-only, all-white club, or that their candidate evaded the draft. I wonder if the money they received from the GOP has eased their pain so that they can ignore these facts.

I have no idea what kind of politician Jim Webb is or how successful he will be in the Senate if elected as the man to represent the people from Virginia, but I do know something about Allen’s record and it is time for a change. The following is just a very small example and I recommend all Virginians to research his record on the war, immigration, health, etc.

Allen on Education:

• In 1995 while Governor he cut the budget for all 15 state-supported four-year colleges. Black colleges suffering the biggest cuts.
• Consistently voted against proposals in 2001, 2003 and 2005 for after-school programs for students
• In 2001 voted against an amendment that would have created a new tax credit of up to $2,000 for education loan expenses for nurses and teachers.
• In 2001 voted against an amendment that would have authorized $2.4 billion for teacher hiring programs, although, Virginia faced a critical teacher shortage.
• In 2003 voted against an amendment that would have provided for an additional $437 million for teacher quality programs.
• In 2003, George Allen voted against a proposal that would have provided $132 million in rural education grants. Virginia has the ninth largest rural enrollment in the United States, with more than a quarter of the state’s students enrolled in a rural school

Allen on Labor:

• Has voted at least four raises for himself while voting against raising the minimum wages for working families
• In 2004 and 2005, Allen voted against amendments which would have applied taxes to American companies who move jobs overseas
• In 2003 voted twice against fundings for job training programs
• In 2003 and 2004 voted to end overtime pay eligibility for workers. Allen’s votes would have taken away overtime pay for as many as 8 million workers--including registered nurses, workers on oil and gas pipelines, field and platform workers, steel workers, teachers, firefighters; police officers; funeral directors; and longshoremen.