Like George Allen.

When I first saw Jim Webb's resume I was flabbergasted at its strengths.  For George Allen to have criticized him as a mere novelist -- was a pathetic form of character assassination.

I do think the GOP fear Webb yet I also think he is going to be great for bi-partisanship because it's pretty obvious to me at least they respect him.

Jim Webb Smash

Jim Webb DESTROY

JIM WEBB CREATE ECONOMIC FAIRNESS!!!!

and then Howard Dean jumps in a gives a goood BYAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I keep trying to keep my hopes low, just so they don't get dashed as they have many times before when it came to politics.  Every time I see Webb though I get more excited.  I feel like for once I actually honestly have a representative who represents me.  I can't even express how great that feels.

There is another thing I would point out about the importance of a Democratic-led confirmation hearing on Bob Gates. The point of such a hearing would not be to torpedo his nomination, but rather to put down some markers on Iraq and attempt to define the parameters within which the Administration will operate going forward.

I'm talking about big picture items. What is victory? What is the strategic objective? Are we spread too thin militarily and how do we address that? What will troop rotations look like going forward? What should our force strength be? How much repair and replenishment of materiel is required and what will it cost? What resources do we need to commit in Afghanistan? What are the relative priorities?

I don't have much confidence that those questions will be addressed in GOP-led hearings. The thrust of Republican questioning will be, You're not Don Rumsfeld, right? End of story.

The temptation will be--already is--to dump the Iraq disaster in Rumsfeld's lap and be satisfied that just about anything and anyone will be better than Rumsfeld. First, that ignores the continuing role of the President and Vice President. Second, it seems to me that we are at a crossroads, with many options before us. Simply saying any road is better than the one we just came down is irresponsible. There are real choices to be made at this juncture.

Senator Webb would be perfectly positioned to raise these questions...

While Donald Rumsfeld was Ronald Reagan's errand boy to Saddam Hussein in the mid-1980s, Robert Gates, the man named to succeed him as Secretary of Defense, was at the very heart of the American intelligence apparatus, actively planning and carrying out covert operations in Central America and the Middle East.

Gates, a 26-year CIA veteran and the agency's director between 1991 and 1993, has long been accused of undermining competent, unbiased intelligence analysis at the agency during his tenure, opening the way for its role in partisan politics, a reality brought to the fore again as the Bush administration made its flawed and phony case for war with Iraq.

Gates was a high official at the CIA at a time when the U.S. intelligence community experienced one of its most humiliating debacles: the failure to predict the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Instead, under CIA director William Casey the U.S. concocted evidence showing the expansion of Reagan's "evil empire."

On December 14, 1984, in a five page memorandum for then Director of Intelligence Casey, Gates, then serving as deputy director of intelligence, set forth his views: "It is time to talk absolutely straight about Nicaragua," the memo begins. "The Nicaraguan regime is steadily moving toward consolidation of a Marxist-Leninist government, and the establishment of a permanent and well-armed ally of the Soviet Union and Cuba on the mainland of the western hemisphere. Its avowed aim is to spread further revolution in the Americas." Gates goes on to say this is an "unacceptable" course, arguing that the U.S. should do everything "in its power short of invasion to put that regime out.". . .

Nicaragua wasn't the only place Gates wanted to take action. In 1985, sounding very much like one of today's neoconservative hawks, the then head of intelligence analysis at the CIA drafted a plan for a joint
U.S.-Egyptian military operation to invade Libya, overthrow Col. Muamar Ghaddafi, and "redraw the map of North Africa." . . .

According to Robert Parry, a reporter who has closely tracked this period in the CIA's history, during this time the Reagan administration was "pressing the CIA to adopt an analysis that accepted right-wing media reports pinning European terrorism on the Soviets. . . "In 1985, Gates closeted a special team to push through another pre-cooked paper arguing that the KGB was behind the 1981 wounding of Pope John Paul II.

CIA analysts again knew that the charge was bogus, but could not block the paper from leaving CIA.". . .

In his book, "Firewall: The Iran/Contra conspiracy and Cover-Up," Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation, wrote that he was skeptical of Gates' repeated denials of having been aware or involved with the details of the Iran-Contra operations with Oliver North. . . In blunt terms, Walsh thought Gates was a liar. It was only for a lack of evidence that he eventually gave up trying to indict him.

http://www.motherjon...

NY TIMES, 1991 - David Boren, the [Senate Intelligence] committee chairman, commends Mr. Gates for forthrightness. Yet he overlooks occasions when Mr. Gates helped skew intelligence assessments and was demonstrably blind to illegality. The illegality concerns the Iran-contra scandal. Mr. Gates contends he was 'out of the loop' on decisions about what to tell Congress. And he defends his professed ignorance on grounds of deniability--that he was shielding the C.I.A. from involvement. These contentions defy belief.

The testimony of other puts Mr. Gates, on at least two occasions, very much in the loop. He supervised preparation of Director William Casey's deceitful testimony to Congress about the scandal. And one C.I.A.
analyst, Charles Allen, says he informed Mr. Gates, before it came to light, of three unforgettable details: Oliver North's involvement, the markup of prices of arms sold surreptitiously to Iran, and diversion of the proceeds into a fund for covert operations. In a telling lapse of his reputedly formidable memory, Mr. Gates could not recall the details when Congress asked two months later.

The second criterion concerns intelligence estimates. Incorrect forecasting should not be disqualifying; estimates can be wrong for the right reasons of political expediency, that's `cooking the books.'

The hearings have documented at least three cases of such slanting: a May 1985 estimate on Iran, estimates of Soviet influence in the third world, and assessments of Soviet complicity in the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. . .

It is more reasonable to think the agency would be better off with a director unbound by William Casey's dark legacy--the conviction that the agency knows best, a barely concealed contempt for Congress and a belief that anything goes including evading the law. Reshaping the agency wisely depends on casting off the legacy.

Thomas Polgar, a C.I.A. veteran, urged the committee to consider the message that confirmation would send. Would officials wonder whether it was wise for outspoken witnesses to risk their careers by testifying?
Would they say to themselves, `Serve faithfully the boss of the moment; never mind integrity? Feel free to mislead the Senate--senators forget easily?  By voting no, senators will vote to remember.

http://www.fas.org/i...

Yeah, they're worried.  Chickenhawks.

Webb wins NL Cy Young Award

By MIKE FITZPATRICK, AP Baseball Writer
November 14, 2006

AP - Nov 14, 2:22 pm EST

NEW YORK (AP) -- Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks won a wide-open race for the NL Cy Young Award, beating out San Diego closer Trevor Hoffman on Tuesday. ***

Striking fear in the hearts of NL batters.
 

It says he has a doctorate in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University.

One strange thing is that Russian oil guy Simon Kukes was on the board at Parker Drilling and doesn't show up there now.  Wonder what happened...

And there's a Halliburton link from 2001 with Kukes:

TNK President Simon Kukes, an American citizen born in Russia who formerly worked for Amoco and Phillips Petroleum, sees Western knowhow as crucial to the company's future. Houston-based Halliburton is advising on drilling strategy at TNK's big Samotlor field in Western Siberia, now producing some 400,000 barrels per day -- about half of the company's total production.

TNK is also working with Texaco to produce lubricants at TNK's Ryazan refinery, as well as developing Texaco Star Mart convenience stories around Mosow. Indeed, TNK's long-term goal is to sell a large piece of the company, possibly all of it, to a major Western oil company. "We need to give control to the West," Kukes declared in a May 28 interview with BusinessWeek. And for a company that wants it all, TNK is certainly acting that way.

And there's this.

Does anyone have a handle on Gates' business ties?  This sounds like more of the same - but worse.