Webb says no
“Sen. Jim Webb apparently is tired of getting his name mentioned as part of the never-ending veepstakes,” reporter Christina Bellantoni wrote Monday in her “On the Democrats” blog at www.washingtontimes.com, citing the Virginia Democrat’s statement that “under no circumstances” would he be Sen. Barack Obama’s running mate.
Mr. Webb said in part: “Last week I communicated to Sen. Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country. Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for vice president.”
Miss Bellantoni commented: “The statement gives us a little hint into the selection process. Webb obviously felt a reason to ’communicate’ to the campaign he doesn’t want the job, since he’s been telegraphing that message in numerous press interviews for months.
“Perhaps the campaign asked him to submit papers for vetting. Let the defense secretary rumors begin.”
Next up
Sen. John McCain’s decision last week to put Steve Schmidt in charge of his presidential campaign was just a prelude to bringing in veteran Republican political operative Mike Murphy as chief strategist, William Kristol wrote yesterday in his New York Times column.
Mr. McCain “seemed to put Bush-Rove alum Steve Schmidt more or less in charge. But the full plan, as I understand it, was — and is — to have Schmidt, a good operative and tactician, take over day-to-day operations at headquarters, while bringing Murphy on both to travel with McCain and as chief strategist,” Mr. Kristol said.
“But McCain hesitated to carry out both steps of the plan at once, worried about an overload of turmoil. And Murphy’s arrival would mean a fair amount of turmoil. The current McCain campaign is chock full of GOP establishment types, many of whom aren’t great fans of the irreverent Murphy. Murphy’s also made no secret of his low opinion of the Bush-Rove political machine that has produced many of these operatives. And Murphy hasn’t made his possible entry into the campaign smoother by telling a New York Times reporter the other day that ’the depressingly self-absorbed McCain campaign machine needs to get out of the way’ of its candidate.
“Still, Jeb Bush — whose winning Florida gubernatorial campaigns Murphy guided — was with McCain in Mexico City last week. I’m told he argued that the time to bring on Murphy is now. McCain didn’t disagree. And so I expect that in the next couple of weeks we’ll learn that Murphy is coming on board as chief strategist, with Schmidt running operations at the headquarters. This would be a structure very much like the Obama campaign, led by the combination of strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager David Plouffe.”
How revealing
“As we learn more about the Colombian military’s daring hostage rescue last week, one detail stands out: In tricking FARC rebels into putting the hostages aboard a helicopter, undercover special forces simply told the comandantes that the aircraft was being loaned to them by a fictitious nongovernmental organization sympathetic to their cause called the International Humanitarian Mission,” Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady writes.
“It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location,” the columnist said.
“I am reminded of President Alvaro Uribe’s 2003 statement that some ’human rights’ organizations in his country were fronts for terrorists. Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd got his back up over Mr. Uribe’s statement, and piously lectured the Colombian president about ’the importance of democratic values.’
“But as the helicopter story suggests, Mr. Uribe seems to have been right. How else to explain the fact that the FARC swallowed the line without batting an eye?”
Clever ’flips’
“Barack Obama’s tack to the center is quite clever for three reasons (and maybe more, but three is all I could think of),” Fred Barnes writes in a blog at weeklystandard.com.
“One, it may cause moderate and centrist voters to feel more comfortable about voting for him. That’s the big one. Two, he’s better off being attacked by John McCain as a flip-flopper than as an unrepentant liberal. And three, he gave up practically nothing in the process. The tack to the middle has been mostly a fuzzy feint that didn’t lock him into any new positions,” Mr. Barnes said.
“Start with Iraq. He says he’ll consult the generals before ordering troop withdrawals. No kidding! Any president would do that. The only new thing in his formulation on ending the war is that ’stability’ would be a consideration. But of course ’stability’ is a vague concept. Stability in Iraq in January 2009 will be in the eye of the beholder. …
“On several issues, Obama has given, then taken away. He endorsed a faith-based initiative, but said the religious organizations that accept federal funds can’t discriminate in hiring. That’s a killer condition, sure to drive most of them away. Religious groups, more often than not, insist on hiring co-religionists.”
Left out
“The Washington Post published a front page story on Sunday headlined ’Obama Addresses His Faith: Senator Describes Spiritual Journey.’ But it completely ignored Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ,” the Media Research Center’s Tim Graham writes at www.mrc.org.
“Obama was allowed to declare to audiences how he ’let Jesus Christ into his life’ on the South Side of Chicago, but the Post utterly left out the fact that it was Rev. Wright who was his spiritual mentor and pastor for nearly two decades,” Mr. Graham said.
“Post editors might insist that Jonathan Weisman’s story was not a biographical or historical piece so much as a campaign trail piece about how Obama hopes to appeal to evangelical voters who aren’t thrilled with John McCain. But doesn’t Obama’s church factor in when those voters try to decide what kind of Christian he is?”
Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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