VA-SEN: Artistic License

There literally isn't enough time in the day to document all the smears and lies coming from Republican campaigns in just the past week (don't even get me started on Rick Santorum's Daisy ad where he faults Bob Casey basically for scheming to blow up the world). Like a cornered, caged animal, Republicans with no record whatsoever have gotten unbelievably personal in their attacks in a desperate attempt to save their jobs. So in Tennessee Bob Corker warns voters about the dangers of voting for a black man who wants to take your women and destroy your way of life. And across the country Rush Limbaugh wants you to know that anyone with a terminal disease with no cure simply ought to be challenged as to whether or not they're faking.

And now, in Virginia, noted racist George Allen, whose own ad man created the racist ad used by Corker in Tennessee, the Jim Webb campaign is being forced to defend fictional passages from his novels. Now, the novels have been out there for a number of years. Unlike a federal investigation or whistleblower coming forward, the timing of this disclosure, which isn't a disclosure at all since they were in public novels, must be questioned.

And furthermore, this eerily prescient post by thereisnospoon at Bending Left puts the "controversy" into proper context. Webb wrote realistic, best-selling novels based on his actual experiences in Vietnam. When George Allen was busy trying on cowboy boots and calling people the N-word from the safety and security of a dude ranch, Jim Webb served, and he saw some horrible things in war and after the war as a journalist. And he wrote about them in a cogent and gripping way which impressed the likes of others who served there. For the record, I don't think something is automatically righteous just because John McCain says so, but in this case a fellow Vietnam Vet is backing up his comrade, and that means something.

All of this is really based on one excerpt:

“A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s penis in his mouth.”

Which according to Webb is based on actual events and not something you would understand if you didn't get out much:

"It's not a sexual act," Webb told Plotkin regarding the "Lost Soldiers" excerpt. "I actually saw this happen in a slum in Bangkok when I was there as a journalist. The duty of a writer is to illuminate his surroundings."

So what we're left with is rather remarkable: Webb, who fought in Vietnam and spent much of his lifetime exposing that experience in his fiction, documented a real and unsettling feature of daily life there. It was non-sexual, but testament to his actual experience in the country. The Allen campaign is warping it, ripping it out of context and pretending that it stems from Webb's own fantasies of pedophilic fellatio.

My guess? This is going to come out. Days one and two of this story will be very bad for Webb. Day three will not be. It's going to come out that these were strange and nightmarish remembrances from when Webb was overseas, fighting for his country. And Allen will look like a fool and a knave for trying to turn evidence of his war record into proof of perversion. This will give Webb the opportunity to speak of all he saw in Vietnam without seeming exploitive or opportunistic about. And Webb's service there, and the lesson it taught him, are not issues Allen wants on the agenda.

It's extremely telling that in the closing days of a tight campaign, George Allen would rather literally rip things out of context of a novel rather than talk about how he's let down the people of Virginia time and again by providing a rubber stamp for the failed policies of the Bush Administration. And this is happening all over the country. Whether it's trying to capitalize on a gay marriage ruling that didn't sanctify or even address the issue of gay marriage, or returning to the divisive issue of race to try and disqualify a candidate in the South... and let me just quote from that one for a second...

Again, let's be honest with ourselves. Racism is one of the key building blocks of Republican politics in the United States. Don't look at me with a straight face and tell me you don't realize that's true. That doesn't mean that all Republicans are racists. Far from it. It doesn't mean that a lot of Republicans don't wish the stain wasn't part of their party's recent political heritage. They do. But racism and race-baiting is the hold card Republicans take into every election. When times are good, guys like Mehlman 'reach out' to blacks and Latinos to try to take the edge off their opposition to the Republican officeholders. But when things get rough the card gets played. And pretty much every time.

This isn't surprising. It's expected.

...out of desperation, the Republicans are returning to their time-honored tactics of playing to fear and bigotry and the basest elements of society. It's disgusting but telling. When you strip everything away, when you get to the chewy conservative core inside the Tootsie Roll lollipop of rhetoric about "personal freedom" and "fiscal conservatism," you're left with the remaining icon of the modern GOP, still now as ever, Strom Thurmond.