Five Times Jim Webb Sounded Conservative During the Dem Debate

ashley.rae | October 14, 2015
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After last night’s debate, Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb retweeted an individual’s sentiments that Webb’s presence on stage has shown him “how far left the Democratic Party has moved.”

There were five instances in which the Reagan appointee and former Republican appeared to be more conservative than his opponents during last night’s Democratic presidential debate.

1. During the debate, Anderson Cooper mentioned Webb had once called affirmative action “state-sponsored racism.” Cooper also pointed out that in 2010, Webb authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege.” In the article, Webb made the case that “present-day” affirmative action programs “moved affirmative action away from remediation and toward discrimination, this time against whites.”

In his reply, Webb defended the use of affirmative action programs—for African Americans. However, Webb also echoed his stance that modern affirmative action programs judge individuals solely based on race, often to the detriment of whites.

Webb stated, “What I have discussed a number of times is the idea that when we create diversity programs that include everyone, quote, ‘of color,’ other than whites, struggling whites like the families in the Appalachian mountains, we're not being true to the Democratic Party principle of elevating the level of consciousness among our people about the hardships that a lot of people who happen to be have—by culture, by the way.”

2. While discussing mass shootings and means to curb gun violence, Cooper brought up Webb once had an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.

Cooper asked Webb, “Senator Webb, your rating from the NRA, you once had an A rating from the NRA. You've said gun violence goes down when more people are allowed to carry guns. Would encouraging more people to be armed be part of your response to a mass shooting?”

In his response, Webb advocated for background checks to “keep the people who should not have guns away from them.”

“But,” Webb added, “We have to respect the tradition in this country of people who want to defend themselves and their family from violence.

Webb ultimately decried the hypocrisy of politicians who use armed bodyguards while advocating for policies to deprive the average American of their right to bear arms.

“There are people at high levels in this government who have bodyguards 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Webb said. “The average American does not have that, and deserves the right to be able to protect their family.”

3. On the topic of foreign policy, Webb emphasized his opposition to the nuclear Iran deal.

Cooper asked Webb, “Senator Webb, you said as president you would never have used military force in Libya and that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was, in your words, ‘inevitable.’ Should Secretary Clinton have seen that attack coming?”

Webb responded, “Let's start with why Russia is in Syria right now. There are three strategic failings that have allowed this to occur. The first was the invasion of Iraq, which destabilized ethnic elements in Iraq and empowered Iran. The second was the Arab Spring, which created huge vacuums in Libya and in Syria that allowed terrorist movements to move in there. And the third was the recent deal allowing Iran to move forward and eventually acquire a nuclear weapon, which sent bad signals, bad body language into the region about whether we are acquiescing in Iran becoming a stronger piece of the formula in that part of the world.”

Webb reiterated his opposition to the Iran deal later in the debate. He stated, “I believe that the signal that we sent to the region when the Iran nuclear deal was concluded was that we are accepting Iran's greater position on this very important balance of power, among our greatest ally Israel, and the Sunnis represented by the Saudi regime, and Iran. It was a position of weakness and I think it encouraged the acts that we've seen in the past several weeks.”

4. When it came to the question, “Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter?” Webb was the only candidate to state, “all lives matter” as opposed to the mantra of “black lives matter” that the Democratic candidates have been forced to repeat throughout the campaign.

Webb stated, “As a President of the United States, every life in this country matters. At the same time, I believe I can say to you, I have had a long history of working with the situation of African Americans.”

Webb also emphasized his platform of criminal justice reform and putting “the African American soldier on the mall.”

5. Cooper’s final question of the night was, “Which enemy are you most proud of?” While the other Democrats named political opponents, such as Clinton stating “Republicans,” and Sanders claiming  “Wall Street,” Webb chose to emphasize his service during Vietnam.

Instead of taking a political shot, Webb bragged about killing a communist in Vietnam. Webb claimed the enemy he was most proud of is “the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me, but he's not around right now to talk to.”

 

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