Former first lady Nancy Reagan has sent a stinging letter to James Webb, who’s running for Senate in Virginia against the hapless George Allen: get that video of my husband off of your campaign commercial now.
A three-paragraph letter from the former first lady’s office says the use of footage of President Reagan is “neither authorized nor appropriate.”
An ad Webb intends to begin televising Monday features Reagan praising Webb, then an assistant secretary of defense, during the 1985 U.S. Naval Academy commencement ceremony.
On the video Reagan says, “James’ gallantry as a Marine in Vietnam won him the Navy Cross and other decorations.”
Webb was NOT immediately available for comment.
Former Attorney General Edwin Meese was a Reagan adviser. He calls the ad, “improper, unethical and very possibly illegal.”
What’s THIS all about? Red State gives the background:
After 10 months, Jim Webb resigned as Reagan’s Navy Secretary. Webb told the New York Times that he could not “live inside the [Reagan] administration.”
In 1988, Jim Webb gave a speech at the National Press Club in which he broke ranks with the Reagan Administration on its very successful policy of dealing with the Soviet Union. While the Reagan administration was pursuing an arms buildup to force the Soviet hand, Webb was out demanding cuts in American military strength in Europe.
Also in 1988, Jim Webb went on record opposing President Reagan’s Persian Gulf policy. On April 24, 1988, in the Albany Times Union, Webb wrote an opinion piece highly critical of President Reagan. Webb called the Reagan administration cowardly…among other things…
So it is not illogical that Nancy Reagan would be up in arms: Webb not only broke with her husband (whose image while in office and whose legacy today have been two things she has always protected) but also did it in a highly public way.
It is a bit mind-boggling that after that Webb would use Reagan in an ad in a way clearly designed to appeal to voters who might cherish Reagan’s memory, implying that he was just another member of Reagan’s cabinet without expecting some kind of angry “Hey-don’t-you-remember-what-you-called-us” reaction from the Reaganistas.
You have to wonder? What’s in the water in Virginia that these two candidates for Senateare drinking?
Webb earlier was enmeshed in a controversy about an anti-Semitic cartoon, then you had Allen making a racist comment with his handlers offering a virtual voice mail menu selection of CYA explanations to choose from (and when Allen’s polls started to go south, THEN he apologized directly to the person who he had insulted).
Regardless of your party (or lack of it) you can easily conclude this: when it comes to political common sense, neither candidate in Virginia is a rocket scientist.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.