Comments on: No Webb For VP

By: Barack Obama: Wrong on ethanol, wrong for America « Upturned Earth || John Schwenkler

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:49:07 +0000

[...] Barack Obama: Wrong on ethanol, wrong for America July 7, 2008, 9:48 pm Filed under: economics, energy, environment If you read just one thing from the latest issue of The American Conservative, skip my article and go for Jim Webb’s must-read book excerpt on our history of failed intervention in the Middle East (sadly not available online, though Larison quotes a bit of it here). Once you’re done with that, though, head straight for Tim Carney’s piece on the awfulness of corn ethanol. Here’s a quote to whet your appetite: The economics are simple: when corn is being used for fuel and farm fields are no longer producing food or feed, the price of food and feed goes up. The USDAâ€™s National Agricultural Statistics Service finds that farmers received $5.15 for a bushel of corn in May, up from an already high $3.49 a year ago. Corn futures, trading near $2.50 on the Chicago Board of Trade throughout 2006, climbed to almost $7 this past month. [...]

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:14:35 +0000

Well, he probably is better off in the Senate. I hope he manages to stay on the national stage.

God help us, now we’ll probaably end up with Slow Joe Biden.

By: General Mobius

General Mobius — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:56:35 +0000

Webb is one of the most thoughtful and decent national politicians we have. As a resident of the Old Dominion, I would be happy to leave him where he is for the next 50 years.

By: Adam01

Adam01 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:35:09 +0000

Jim Fallows put it best:

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/belated_comment_on_jim_webb_as.php

“Jim Webb has arranged his life so as to maximize his intellectual and personal independence, and minimize the things he “has” to do and the bosses he must answer to. Novelist, essayist, journalist, movie-maker — through the two decades before his Senate race he’s been his own boss as much as possible, and has clearly relished saying exactly what he believes. The federal government office that most nicely matches his previous life is the one he now holds: as a U.S. Senator. Especially a Senator of the model Webb has described as his ideal: Daniel Patrick Moynihan. There are still lots of things Webb “has” to do — fundraising, constituent service, party efforts — to maintain this role. But in the big scheme of things, not that many.

The federal government office that least matches Webb’s lifetime path is the vice presidency. Some wonderful people have held the job, plus some terrible ones. The ones who are happiest are those who can bide their time, bite their tongue, fly to foreign-dignitary funerals, and stick absolutely to the company line.”