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Jim Webb to Sec/Def?

Looks like Acting SecDef Patrick Shanahan is Trump's choice.

It was now or never for Jim Webb supporters who wanted a more non-interventionist SecDef, which Shanahan looks to be anyway given Shanahan is Trump's ideal of a silent partner going forward. Shanahan still hasn't said his view on the retreat from Syrian and the 50% reduction of forces in Afg.


Trump may like Shanahan for one simple reason: He’s very deferential. During a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, for example, he sat stoically next to Trump as the president slammed Mattis for keeping America’s military involved in conflicts overseas, particularly in Afghanistan.

Shanahan has also reportedly told Pentagon leaders to focus on “China, China, China” — a country the president cares about challenging — which might keep him in Trump’s good graces.

“I see zero-percent chance Shanahan doesn’t get the job right now if he continues to focus on China,” a person familiar with the selection process told me.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...an-defense-secretary-webb-mattis-boeing-trump


Word is Trump will keep Shanahan for as long as he can and for as long as Shanahan keeps his mouth shut except to pucker up.
 
There are reports that Jim Webb is under consideration to replace Gen. Mattis at the Pentagon. I was interested when Webb was exploring a POTUS run in 2014/15. I was a supporter until he would not pin down exactly what he was for and continued to ask for money.

Chuck Hagel was of similar interest when he was a Senator from Nebraska. Returning after a number of years to serve as Sec/Def, he had lost some of his appeal.

Hagel served as an enlisted man in Viet Nam and Webb was a Marine officer awarded the Navy Cross.

Webb seems to be a strange pick by the Trump Administration.

Webb was openly hostile to 43.

I also supported Secretary Webb, and think he would make a great SecDef.

One thing about him, is that he is unquestionably a pro-military individual. And that he has a gift for working with both sides politically. A lifelong Democrat, he had no problem working with President Reagan, and only resigned when the President started to make cuts to the Navy.

And I doubt that President Trump would find him much easier to work with than he did Secretary Mattis. That is something that President Reagan discovered.

I want Webb to run for President again. He could easily beat Trump.

He had no support from the Democratic Party; no, I would have preferred Webb over every candidate either party has put forth for the last 20 years.

No, he could not have won, and he could not have beaten Trump because of that.

By the start of the 21st Century, the Democratic Party was firmly in the hands of the Liberal (leaning Socialist) wing of the party. And today it is even more so.

Meanwhile, Mr. Webb was always a good old-fashioned "Conservative Democrat". In the vein of Presidents Truman and Kennedy. Such an individual has absolutely no chance in the Democratic Party today (which is one of the reasons he finally left the party last year). He had the firm backing of the remaining "Conservative Wing", but that group has been shrinking more and more every year (and lost even more in the #WalkAway movement). His only chance to have beaten Trump would have been if a few years earlier he had switched parties.

Now, would he have a chance in 2020? Maybe, but he will be 74 years old then. If he waits until 2024 he will be 78. So short of his becoming an open Republican and Trump not running in 2020, I do not see him ever being President. But SecDef? That is possible. And it is not the first time, he was also on the "Short List" for consideration in 2017.
 
I don't think Webb would resonate with today's Democrats.

And unsurprisingly, they do not resonate with him.

Webb said the Democratic Party's message has "been shaped toward identity politics"

"And they've lost the key part of their base," he said.

"The people who believe that regardless of any of these identity segments, you need to have a voice in a quarters of power for those that have no voice. And we've lost that for the Democratic Party."

Webb said the Democrats haven't done the kind of "self reflection" they needed starting in 2010.

"You've lost white working people. You've lost flyover land, and you saw in this election what happens when people get frustrated enough that they say, 'I'm not going to take this,'" he said.

"There is an aristocracy now that pervades American politics. It's got to be broken somehow in both parties, and I think that's what the Trump message was that echoed so strongly in these flyover communities."

Webb also declined to share his vote in the presidential election.

"I'm comfortable for my vote and my vote is private to me. But at the same time, I will say that I did not endorse Hillary Clinton," Webb said.
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/319131-webb-dem-party-has-moved-very-far-to-the-left

He has openly had issues with President Trump, but unlike many he keeps things strictly relevant to the issues, and not gotten into petty politics. And he even castigated some Governors who tried to pull their National Guard out of border operations, stating that they did not have that right.

“The governor of Maryland, the governor of Virginia – both of which just pulled their troops out – don’t have the authority to do that,” the former Navy secretary and U.S. senator told the Hill.TV’s “Rising.”

Several other governors recalled troops and equipment over the separations.

Webb cited a Supreme Court ruling back when he worked in the Pentagon under the Reagan administration to back up his argument.

“The decision unanimously was the governor of a state does not have operational control over his national guard forces when they’re in federal status,” Webb told the Hill.TV.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/3...-who-pulled-national-guard-troops-over-family

So would he make a good SecDef? Hell yes. But like Mattis, there would be no real "controlling" him. Both will do and say what they feel is in the best interest for the US military. And if they come into conflict with the ideas of the President, then they will say that too. Even if like before he resigns rather than do something he strongly opposes.

However, maybe what we need at this time is a Jim Webb. Any Democrat who tried to say he was a "War mongering Alt-Right Neocon puppet" would be seen as a complete idiot, by both sides of the isle.
 
I also supported Secretary Webb, and think he would make a great SecDef.

One thing about him, is that he is unquestionably a pro-military individual. And that he has a gift for working with both sides politically. A lifelong Democrat, he had no problem working with President Reagan, and only resigned when the President started to make cuts to the Navy.

And I doubt that President Trump would find him much easier to work with than he did Secretary Mattis. That is something that President Reagan discovered.





No, he could not have won, and he could not have beaten Trump because of that.

By the start of the 21st Century, the Democratic Party was firmly in the hands of the Liberal (leaning Socialist) wing of the party. And today it is even more so.

Meanwhile, Mr. Webb was always a good old-fashioned "Conservative Democrat". In the vein of Presidents Truman and Kennedy. Such an individual has absolutely no chance in the Democratic Party today (which is one of the reasons he finally left the party last year). He had the firm backing of the remaining "Conservative Wing", but that group has been shrinking more and more every year (and lost even more in the #WalkAway movement). His only chance to have beaten Trump would have been if a few years earlier he had switched parties.

Jim Webb has spent most of his life as a Republican. And a very conservative to reactionary Republican at that. Jim enrolled in the Democratic party only after the turn of the century.

Jim Webb's professional career is meritorious despite his often intemperate conduct and behaviors during his first forty years. In recent decades Jim improved his temperament considerably from the set in stone right wing nut I worked with during the latter half of the 1970s. Jim once said to me that the only functions the federal government has under the Constitution are national defense and veterans care. Two departments of the federal government. That wuz it. Frankly, it caused myself and others to wonder which planet the guy was from.


Accept plse thx:

*From 1977 to 1981, Jim Webb was assistant minority [Republican] counsel on the staff of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.
*During the Reagan Administration Jim worked in various Pentagon positions, to include as the first assistant secretary for Reserve Affairs. As we well know from media coverage Jim was SecNavy also.
*During the Ford Administration the Marine Captain Jim Webb worked in the office of the SecNavy who was John Chafee, later US Senator R-RI.
*Wikipedia has Jim Webb as enrolled in the Democratic Party from 2006 to the present, and enrolled and active in the Republican Party prior to 2006.

Reagan was Jim Webb's kind of guy but Reagan still left Jim wanting. Trump is in fact Jim Webb's premier kind of guy. The ultimate testimony to Trump by Jim Webb came on November 15, 2016 when Webb quoted his Marine buddy since Vietnam days: “This guy Donald Trump, the Republicans hate him, the Democrats hate him, the media hates him, I think I found my guy.” To which Webb himself said, "So, I would like to salute Donald Trump for his tenacity, and for the uniqueness of his campaign."


Jim Webb opposed Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Jim still has a hard time finding anything at all good about 'em. Jim's separation from the Republican party began when GHW succeeded Reagan. By the time GW was talking Iraq in 2002 Jim had all but left the party of the "carpetbagger" Bush Clan of Connecticut Yankees that had moved to Texas after being educated at Yale to include the family patriarch US Senator Prescott Bush from CT.


…and the Horrors of A Desert War
September 23, 1990
by James Webb, The New York Times

President Bush has not only embarked on his own voyage into the Persian Gulf, that Bermuda Triangle of Presidencies. Unlike his two immediate predecessors, he has dragged more than a hundred thousand of our troops with him.

http://www.jameswebb.com/articles/foreign-policy-national-security/and-the-horrors-of-a-desert-war


Jim makes a point as Jim always makes a point. Yet a central theme of the Bush Clan has been success in war, which seemes to offend Webb. Jim and I do however share the view that the Bush Clan is the Family of War. Jim was right to oppose GW and his Dick Cheney in Iraq to include the Iraq warhawk John Bolton who apparently threw in all he could to help quash any likelihood of Jim Webb becoming the successor to Jim Mattis. This is regrettable. Because given the times, the issues, the challenges, Jim Webb was the guy we needed to succeed Mattis. The greatest challenge being of course Donald Trump as Potus/CinC.
 
I don't think Webb would resonate with today's Democrats.

He said Republicans were the Opposition, not the Enemy.


So, no, he wouldn't.



Mind you, the same attitude wouldn't fly in reverse in the Republican Party.
 
There are reports that Jim Webb is under consideration to replace Gen. Mattis at the Pentagon. I was interested when Webb was exploring a POTUS run in 2014/15. I was a supporter until he would not pin down exactly what he was for and continued to ask for money.

Chuck Hagel was of similar interest when he was a Senator from Nebraska. Returning after a number of years to serve as Sec/Def, he had lost some of his appeal.

Hagel served as an enlisted man in Viet Nam and Webb was a Marine officer awarded the Navy Cross.



Webb seems to be a strange pick by the Trump Administration.

Webb was openly hostile to 43.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2008/02/01/jim-webb-no-more-combat-boots/

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/03/jim-webb-defense-secretary-1060169

You still don't get Trump, nor do you understand how he isn't like 43 or anyone else. Go back to his campaign and review the promises.
 
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