Sep 14 2006
Kiss Webb Good-bye
James Webb deserves to lose the VA Senate race after his sexist comment about women in the military:
In the Washingtonian magazine article, “Women Can’t Fight,” the ex-Marine Webb wrote of the brutal conditions during the Vietnam War and argued against letting women into combat. Allen’s campaign zeroed in on passages in which Webb described one of the academy’s coed dorms as “a horny woman’s dream” and said that he had never met a woman he “would trust to provide . . . combat leadership.”
America deserves much better than this. And women definitely do not deserve to have this jerk representing this state or this nation. As a native Virginian I find these comments repulsive, especially after all those women who have sacrificed protecting this country’s interests overseas. To each and every family member who has lost a wife or daughter to combat, James Webb owes and apology and should prepare to lose big the Fall. It is the least he could do after this.
Addendum: One more thing. The WaPo has a lot of nerve calling this a dirty campaign act by Allen’s campaign. The comment is dirty and ugly – but it is Webb’s own words. It is not dirty campaigning to remind people of a candidates words and views freely offered. The WaPo needs to apologize to all the women working at the company and their female customers. It is not wrong to expose this kind of bigotry, where Webb clearly sees women as second class humans driven by hormones and nothing more.
Update: More here – ugh, this guy is a jerk.
I certainly agree that he shouldn’t have made the comments. There may be some military jobs that aren’t suitable for women, but it is an all voluntary military and they should be free to do whatever they want to do. I’ve been married to the same woman for nearly 46 years and believe me, she could certainly do any job she wanted to. If they aren’t qualified, just as some men aren’t qualified, then it would be obvious.
Seem’s he needs to watch a rerun of GI Jane.
Come on Guys. How many of you know any of the girls who are joining the military. Most of them are doing it because that’s where the guys are. I know several girls who have enlisted and after flunking out of training for different jobs ended up in the MPs. Remember it was a female general who let the inmates at Abou Grab run wild and act like juvenile gang members initiating new recruits. Didn’t they decide she was incompetent or wasnt’ paying attention to her job, or soemthing like that? Meaning she wasn’t even qualified to be in the MPs much less a general.
I’m an old girl and I never ever would want to take on a job like being in the military. First of all, I don’t like competing with the boys and second I still think the boys should be taking care of and protecting the girls. If the girls are going to be more macho than the guys, and let the guys know they don’t need them to do what guys have always done, just what is left for the guys to do? The girls are doing their best to make wimps out of all the guys. It’s no wonder so many guys are joining the alternative lifestyle gang.
Momdear1:
I have had known women who joined the military, in fact I am related to a couple of them. They join for the same reasons the men do.
MomDear1,
It is not a complaint about physical attraction or enjoying a little of the old fashion roles, it was the condenscending tone of it all. And there is no way you are going to convince me that woman cannot lead. There is no genetic defect in women which precludes them from leading. That was why his comments were insulting and showed more of his insecurity than anything else.
momdear1, yep, while i said my wife certainly could have done it if she wanted to. She didn’t. She wanted to be a mother and a grandmother. But, it was her choice. I have worked in business all my life, and believe me, there are some great women leaders. There are poor men and women soldiers and leaders, just as their are good men and women leaders, but at least they have the option or choice to do what they want to do.
I am a feminist, but only in the questions of equal pay and rights. Women are not qualified to be on the front lines in a war. You hear tale after tale of buddies carrying their wounded comrades from the field of battle. How can a woman carry a man thus? Soldiers depend on their comrades for back up. How can they depend on someone in hand to hand combat who is defeated before they can begin? I saw many times a commercial of a police woman chasing a felon over fences, down dark streets. It crossed my mind what in the world is she going to do if she catches him? He would beat the crap out of her. Women, sad to say , lead with their hearts and not their heads. Women are moved by feelings and not things that have to be done. It is not that they are not as strong mentally as men, I think they are actually stronger, but they are not as strong physically. Women do not have the pure guts to do the necessary things in war. They hesitate before acting and that small bit of hesitation can be fatal not only to them but to everyone around them.
Or maybe Webb’s past opposition to the Persian Gulf War and,
I believe, past criticism of the Zionist Lobby’s influence on foreign policy brushes Wilsonian liberal interventionists posing as conservatives the wrong way?
Whenever a poster uses the word Zionism, I think he is probably a muslim. Very few people in the US use this term.
Barbara: that might be a tipoff as to why the US populace, ignorant of Mideast reality, allowed its political class to embark on a suicidal no-win war. Notice AJ, I include the Democrats in the “political class.”