Webb's Former Roommate: "It Just Wasn't Happening"

An associate of Webb's, Dan Cragg, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that Webb told him he took drives through the black neighborhood of Watts, where he and members of his Reserve Officer Training Corps unit used racial epithets and pointed fake guns at blacks to scare them. Cragg was referred to The Post by the Allen campaign.

Oleg Jankovic, 60, said he was Webb's roommate in 1963 and 1964.

"No. No. It just wasn't happening," Jankovic said of Cragg's allegation. He said Webb once shot rifles into the air from the top of a dorm, but never drove through Watts with one or yelled epithets. "No. Absolutely not."

Meanwhile, the Daily Press reports the following:

Cragg told the Daily Press on Thursday that he taped the interview May 23, 1983, but erased the part dealing with the alleged Watts incidents.

"I thought it would hurt Jim," said Cragg, who was employed by Webb at the Defense Department before moving on to another job in the Pentagon.

Cragg, of Springfield, also told the Daily Press on Thursday that he was connected with The Washington Post a day earlier by Chris LaCivita, an official with the campaign of Republican Sen. George Allen. For weeks, Allen has been beset by allegations of racial insensitivity.

Oleg Jankovic, a Fairfax County resident who roomed with Webb when they were freshman ROTC students at USC, has a different memory of the events.

[...]

Jankovic told the Daily Press of a group of events that, he said, Cragg probably confused in the story he told the Post.

Those events involve a Springfield rifle that a student obtained through a surplus store, an expedition involving Webb and some other students to the top of a building near the downtown Los Angeles campus to shoot blanks with the rifle, and solo trips by Webb to Watts in 1963.

"He always said, 'They want me to be an engineer, and I want to be an artist,' " Jankovic said. "I never quite understood that, but I do know that he would go down there just to go. Once, he was caught by some blacks and beaten up. Another time, a black man pulled a gun on him."

"I know this," Jankovic added. "I have never heard Jim Webb say the N-word."

Meanwhile, Webb's daughter, Amy Hogan, told the Daily Press a story about her father:

"One evening my dad and I were sort of wrestling in the living room and I called him a nier," Hogan wrote. "... He grabbed me by the shoulders and set me aside, then sat back in shock and asked, 'What did you just call me?' I repeated it and with a look that could crack a rock, he told me to never ever say that word again, that it was a horrible and hurtful word."

She added that she never used the word again.

In sum, this whole "accusation" against Jim Webb, totally orchestrated by the Allen campaign, is complete crap.  It's simply not true, not in the least bit.  Which leaves us at this point with this:  the Allen people have nothing against Jim Webb, but the news media now has reported on tons of evidence and eyewitness testimony from multiple witnesses that George Allen used the "n word" frequently over the years, stuffed a severed doe head in a black person's mailbox (a hate crime under today's laws?), and talked about attending UVA because black people "knew their place" there.  Not to mention the August incident at The Breaks, in which Allen used a racial slur, common in his mother's Tunisia, against a young South Asian American man from Fairfax named S.R. Sidarth.

Hey George, you think it might be time to change the subject by accepting Jim Webb's offer - made several months ago and rejected by your campaign, as you recall - to hold a series of debates ON THE ISSUES?  Or, would you prefer to keep the discussion the next 5 1/2 weeks on your long and sordid history using the "n word," bullying people, etc?  You know, this isn't rocket science, George.  On second thought, maybe it IS rocket science for a man with no accomplishments in the US Senate the past 6 years, unless you count serving as a 97% rubberstamp for George W. Bush.  Maybe you should stick with your sordid past after all! Ha.

P.S.  In other news, Michael Shear reports that, yesterday, "black lawmakers in the General Assembly met to discuss whether to endorse Webb." According to Shear, they will announce their decision today.  Stay tuned...

Lowell Feld is Netroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign.  The ideas expressed here belong to Lowell Feld alone, and do not represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters.

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