WASHINGTON - Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who runs his office on military time, is not yet indifferent to keeping people waiting, and he apologizes for the imprecision of his schedule. "They're like three root canals behind here," he says, looking around what he apparently sees as the world's most elaborate dentist's office, just off the Senate floor, where several of his scowling colleagues are pacing around trying to get a cell signal in between budget votes.
All of which reminds me, I tell him, of my husband's campaign season prediction that even if elected, the ex-Marine, whose unofficial campaign slogan was, "It's all about the beer," wasn't apt to like the folderol and general gasbaggery of the Senate very much -- and my own view, which was, "Baby, we don't care."
He laughs and says he had just been talking about that with his longtime friend and fellow Vietnam vet Bob Kerrey, the former Senator from Nebraska. "And I was telling him that it's going OK, other than that I've never been very good at being walked on a leash. But, these are really important issues we're dealing with right now, and I thought about it all before."
Today, the Senate intends to get back to work on an Iraq plan. And because Webb ran against the war, which he had argued against from the start, I ask him to walk those who share that view through why Congress has seemed in no great hurry to respond to public opinion.
Instead, however, he explains why he himself opposes a timetable for withdrawal -- and why, just this once, he happens to agree with the president. Though "the presence of American troops in Iraq is destabilizing," Webb says, timetables are utterly unworkable on the ground, in his view.
He is convinced that cutting off funding would be too hard to do in a sufficiently targeted way, and that troop caps "mean you've just given the administration the floor" -- and thus would actually decrease the likelihood of a full withdrawal.
Instead, the focus should be on the diplomatic front -- because without real progress there, all the caps and cuts and timetables in the world won't mean much, he argues: "If you get the diplomatic umbrella in place, you can withdraw expeditiously, but it doesn't work the other way around."
So he doesn't see the sense in either "the Democrats pushing to withdraw, withdraw, withdraw -- without putting diplomacy first" or the Republican focus on bringing factions within Iraq together without recognizing the necessity of a regional approach.
"I've been arguing for three years that the way to get out is through a diplomatic approach and we have caused a shift" in the administration's approach in recent weeks. And though he is one of 100, he does feel as though his efforts have had some effect: "After the second time (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice testified, she brought me in one-on-one and I pushed her on bringing Iran and Syria to the table in a way where you don't have to bring in other issues. And right after that, we saw the announcement that we're going forward with the diplomatic approach. People who have been frustrated with this war -- and I'm one of them -- can see this is going in the right direction now. Honestly, I think Secretary Rice has been value-added."
After a speech he gave last week at the National Press Club, he was asked about parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, and said that he must be the only guy in town who didn't really see any: "I don't believe there are parallels between Vietnam and Iraq. I may be one of the few people serving who still believes the Vietnam War was sustainable; it was important that South Vietnam not fall to the communists." Whereas in Iraq, "we have tied down our troops in what I called years ago a strategic mousetrap."
When asked how he feels about being mentioned as a possible vice presidential choice, he says, "I really -- it hasn't percolated up, or down, to me."
And how is his son the Marine -- the one the President famously inquired after -- doing in Iraq? "He got extended, and we're hoping he'll come back by the end of May, first of June."
Just then an aide tells him he's needed ASAP on the floor, because it's
his turn to preside. "Nobody likes to," he says, and shakes his head.
"It eats up your time, and is not terribly productive."
