WHAT A HEEL!: Webb Leaves Aide Twisting Slowly In The Wind
The WaPo’s Dana Milbank reports that "all-around tough guy" Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) was wearing a sh**-eating grin at the press news conference he held about his aide, Phillip Thompson, who was arrested at the Russell Senate Office Building Monday morning – his 45th birthday, as it happens - with a loaded pistol and extra ammo in a briefcase that he said belonged to his boss:
"I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," he announced, wearing the sort of baggy suit that made it hard to tell for sure if he was packing heat. "I have had a permit to carry a weapon in Virginia for a long time, and I believe that it's important for me personally and for a lot of people in the situation that I am in -- to be able to defend myself and my family." …
If Webb seemed to be enjoying the moment a bit too much, that's probably because a Virginia politician has never lost an election for loving guns too much.
Elsewhere in the paper, reporters detail Webb’s first public comment on the incident at the press conference that was held as Thompson, "a longtime friend of Webb's and fellow former Marine," was still in a holding pen awaiting arraignment in D.C. Superior Court on charges of carrying a pistol without a license and possessing an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition:
Webb … declined to confirm what [Thompson] told authorities after he was taken into custody on Monday: that the gun belongs to the senator and that he was "safekeeping" it for him. Webb said that a mix-up was to blame for the episode but that he could not provide details because Thompson faces criminal charges. …
"I have never carried a gun in the Capitol complex, and I did not give the weapon to Phillip Thompson, and that's all that I think I'll say," Webb said during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol.
Thompson - listed as Lockup No. 1 on a docket with people facing assorted charges, including weapons violations, panhandling, assault, domestic violence and possession of crack cocaine - spent the night in jail because the charges against him were not filed until after the deadline to get a same-day court appearance. When he finally faced a judge "in the foul-smelling arraignment room" at the courthouse some 28 hours later "he had a 5 o'clock shadow and a new pair of leg irons to accessorize his rumpled business suit," writes Milbank.
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May 1, 2007
The Stiletto wrote:
For weeks, Washington, D.C. has been the scene of frantic smoky back-room lobbying and political maneuvering against H.Res.106/S.Res.106 (AKA The Armenian Genocide Resolution). A recent article in the Los Angeles Times and a commentary by The Jewish Exponent’s Jonathan S. Tobin published by Jewish World Review describe Israel’s dilemma of being torn between allegiance to Turkey, the only Muslim nation not actively trying to drive it into the sea, and moral obligation to a people whose history of persecution and extermination (video link) parallels that of the Jews so closely that Armenians are sometimes referred to as ...
stupid, fascist bitch.
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Sorry you feel that way about The Stiletto, Paul Bingham. Don't exactly know what got your shorts all in a knot since this post merely summarized two items that appeared in the WaPo yesterday. Maybe you meant that Dana Milbank is a stupid, fascist bitch. Dana is a guy, BTW, so you would have to call him a stupid, fascist bastard. Unless you only make crude comments like this to girls. Bet you do. Have a nice day, Paul.
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