By Brendan McLaughlin

The dust up between Senators Jim Webb (D-Virginia) and Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina) on Meet the Press  Sunday was characterized in most accounts I’ve read as a slap-down by Webb, but I thought Graham made his case, however flawed, very effectively.  As a bonafide war hero, you’d expect Jim Webb to own any discussion of the troops. Instead, as Graham extolled the glories of the surge in Iraq, Webb assumed that exasperated half smile that Al Gore wore during his debates with George Bush. Then  he lost his cool and turned crimson.  

Webb scolded Graham for putting his arguments in the mouths of service men and women, but Webb was doing the exact same thing, citing polls that show soldiers and marines feel the same way about the Iraq war as the American public at large. But that shouldn’t matter.  The high re-enlistment rate cited by Senator Graham doesn’t tell us anything about the politics of the military. It does show that  these men and woman are extraordinarily committed to the mission they’ve been given and are loathe to leave their comrades in harm’s way even when their time is up.

I kept waiting for Senator Webb to make that point, but I suppose I shouldn’t put words in his mouth either.