VA Senate Race … James Webb May Have Some Explaining to do Regarding his Novels

The Virginia Senate race just hit one of those WTH moments. In this day and age when one runs for political office, they best be ready to explain things from the past. Everything is under a microscope.  Does it make the campaigns productive, no. But, unfortunately that is the political environment of today facing both sides. This one might need some explaining.

From The Drudge Report, Senator George Allen, R-VA, unleashed a press release late Thursday that exposed his rival’s fiction writing, which includes graphic underage sex scenes. I realize these books are works of fiction, but you know there are certain limits. I really have to question how in the hell someone would run for office knowing that such “over the top” writing was in his past. With the close scrutiny and vetting that takes place in choosing a candidate, especially for the Senate one really has to wonder why no one in the Democratic Party did not think this may be an issue. Virginia is far from a liberal, blue state.  There is a big difference between authoring books and running for office. What one does and gets away with in the private sector is much different than the public one.  Never was it more evident.

Yes its a work of fiction and yes its his artistic impression, but it also leaves you needing to shower. There are many writers who display these same talents and some on the radio like Howard Stern that say similar things. That being the case, Howard Sterns is not  getting elected to the US Senate either. As previously stated, it not even the words that really trouble me. Its the lack of judgment that one would run for public office, having wrote these words.   For that reason one has to  wonder whether the following comment from the Allen campaign may prove to be true.

(Drudge Report)

Most Virginians and Americans would find passages such as those below shocking, especially coming from the pen of someone who seeks the privilege of serving in the United States Senate, one of the highest offices in the land.

UPDATE: Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd video on IMUS, MSNBC. Sorry Senator Dodd, but think your excuses regarding Webb’s writings  are a double standard. Talking about the issues and what one can do, not idle promises and lies, should be what elections are about. That has been gone for years in the climate of “hate” politics.  However, Democrats have gone down that path to. Kind  of hard to put the Genie back in the bottle. Also difficult seeing that Democrats brought up the Foley situation.   What’s good for the goose Senator Dodd. This is unfortunately what occurs when politics gets to this level.

Allahpundit makes these very same points regarding the double standard that exists if it were Allen who had wrote such passages. In a political environment where every word that a candidate has ever uttered to another human being is analyzed and probed for its intent and content, why is it so shocking that the written word would not also fall under the same microscope?

If George Allen had written this book, not only would the left be going berserk, they’d be circulating lists of characters in his other books whom they suspect of being gay.

Michelle Malkin also makes similar points with “Politics and pulp fiction”. Its pathetic when both sides do it; however, if a Republican had ever done such a thing the media would be out in force on it. When its a Democrat, its just unseemly but accepted as a work of art.

Remember how pathetic it was when the Left tried to make scandals out of books written by Lynne Cheney and Scooter Libby?

  

In my opinion, in the end we all lose when this occurs. The fact that this is what our political process has become is a shame. In many ways its hard to blame the politicians, because we accept it. In many cases the extremes on both sides embrace it. Certainly makes good ratings on TV … but does it make good politics?