Jim Webb

[MADem]

42. Yeah--I wish I'd been a fly on the wall at that Professional

Servicewoman's luncheon where they tore him to shreds (see post elsewhere in this thread on that topic!).

I love this thread because it brought that memory back--hadn't thought about the woman who told me that story in years, and boy oh boy, was she VIVID in her descriptions.

IIRC, he tried to tell them that they couldn't have the professional luncheons anymore after that debacle--thing is, they were an interservice gig, and he only had authority over the USN and USMC women in attendance. I think (memory foggy, here) that he tried to tell them they'd have to take leave to attend, or something like that, and then either he got overridden by SECDEF or some ASD or he quit before the next one came up.

They really were "professional" meetings, apparently--they always had a tight agenda and good speakers, it wasn't a huge drunkfest or mini-Tailhook, or anything of that nature. But I got the strong impression that if the audience members had gotten a hold of Webb after he delivered, essentially, the same speech as was written in that denigrating article about women in combat roles, that he would have been kicked to death by a thousand patent leather pumps.