Friday, May 30, 2008

Webb

It does seem true: the right welcomes converts and the left is suspicious. I'm not so sure that this is Webb's problem. I think it's fundamentally that he's said some pretty abhorrent things during his lifetime that he's never apologized for or explained. Were he able to mount a plausible argument for what changed between the time that he believed that women shouldn't join the army in the late 1970s and now. It's not like Reagan's situation: Reagan was able to give an accounting for how he switched from a liberal Democrat to a conservative, so there wasn't much question about whether Reagan might have been a closet liberal. If Webb were to do this, he might be in a better chance to get the nomination. If he wants it. And I'm not entirely sure he does.
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The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.