by Stanley I. Kutler

It took Senator James Webb, a former Republican secretary of the Navy, Annapolis graduate, and Marine Vietnam veteran, and gun control opponent to make the most unabashed, unapologetic, and unqualified response to President Bush's ill-conceived policies--not only of the past month, but of the past five years. Thank you, Virginia, for giving us Senator Webb. The senator had eight minutes in the limelight to challenge Bush's version of the "State of the Union." After his November election, conventional wisdom pigeon-holed Webb as one of the new breed of conservative Democrats. Webb's reply clearly demonstrated that he belongs, as Paul Wellstone liked to say, to the Democratic wing of the party, not to the idea-less, accommodating Clinton-Lieberman-DLC group. "Populism" now represents a convenient shorthand, signifying very little. But Webb fits comfortably into traditional historical patterns of populism, focusing on the priority of resolving America's domestic problems, limiting the influence and power of corporate America, and defusing involvements abroad that have come largely to fulfill the needs of that self-same corporate America. His speech followed lines he has set down for more than four years. He has challenged every Bush argument and rationale for war in Iraq since 2002. Speaking at the Naval Postgraduate School that year, he warned against any occupation of Iraq. "Do you really want the United States on the ground in that region for a generation?" he asked. "I don't think Iraq is that much of a threat." During his senatorial campaign, he stepped up his attack, labeling the war "a complete failure," and forthrightly called for withdrawal. And all this in Bush Country. Responding to the president, Webb's muscular rhetoric contrasted sharply with Democratic behavior of the past five years. Democrats passively succumbed to the president's politics of fear. They are paralyzed for fear of appearing disloyal, weak, and unduly divisive. They are intimidated by a deceitful president who manipulates an ill-informed electorate. They wither in terror before the preemptive assertions of a "unitary executive," a concept wholly unknown, indeed alien, to the American Constitution. They meekly accept a bloated security state, replete with denials of the rule of law. In short, they offer only a pale imitation of an Opposition. We have an anomaly. Statistical and anecdotal evidence clearly indicate national dissatisfaction with the Iraqi adventure. Yet the Opposition and the media tread lightly against the president. A new Democratic Congress holds its collective breath in opposing the president's misguided policies abroad and his catalog of abuses of power at home. They speak only of symbolic action, and their discomfort is obvious. Well, they can go to settled law and reaffirm the War Powers Act, undoubtedly goading the Republican senators into a filibuster. While the Democrats search for their meaning, Bush and his Consort boldly advance breathtaking expansions of their war, with total disdain for Congress and the Opposition. They had a pliant Republican-Congress until this year; obviously they see no change. And so far, neither do we. But Senator Webb has given the Democrats a model for change. Let us hope they have the courage to follow. We had the usual spin following Webb's talk. The party, we were told, had prepared a speech for him, but he allegedly tore it up and wrote his own. Undoubtedly.