Dissing Webb?

On the day the U.S. Senate approved his long-sought GI Bill to give war veterans a free college education, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb said he was determined not to get too excited.

President Bush, after all, still had to sign the measure.

``When I'm standing in the Rose Garden and the president is actually signing it, I will be excited," Webb said Thursday, hours before the Senate vote.

Bush signed the measure Monday, but without the fanfare that might be expected to accompany the creation of a generous new government program for the nation's war veterans.

Instead of a formal Rose Garden ceremony, Bush signed the measure quickly and delivered a brief statement from the Oval Office.

Webb, the chief sponsor of the GI Bill, was not invited to participate, his office confirmed.

The two men are hardly close.

Webb, a Democrat, had a frosty encounter with Bush upon entering the Senate as a freshman last year.

Bush had asked Webb about his son Jimmy, who at the time was serving in Iraq as a Marine.

``How's your boy?" Bush asked.

``That's between me and my boy," Webb was reported to have responded at the private White House reception.

Webb has since said he has reconciled with the president and even brought his son Jimmy to meet Bush.

But the Bush administration fought Webb openly and vocally for months this year as the senator pushed his GI Bill.

The White House and the Pentagon warned that Webb's bill was costly, at $52 billion over 10 years. And they said the measure would entice too many troops to leave the military for college at a time of war.

In the end, Bush agreed to accept the GI Bill, partly to ensure passage of $162 billion in funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Webb's measure was included in the war spending package.

In a concession to the Pentagon, Webb agreed to allow veterans to transfer their unused education benefits to their spouses and children.

``I'm pleased that the bill I sign today includes an expansion of the GI Bill," Bush said in his brief Oval Offfice address. He added, ``It will help us to recruit and reward the best military on the face of the Earth."

Bush thanked Webb and co-sponsor Sen. John Warner, R-Va., along with senators who had lobbied for a less-generous education benefit: Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, and Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Burr of North Carolina.

A spokeswoman said Webb was happy the president signed the bill, even though the senator couldn't witness it.

``This is a great day for our veterans," Webb said in a written statement issued after the signing. ``It also gives me confidence and renewed hope that the Congress can begin working more effectively across party lines to do the work of the people."

Desperate times, desperate sloganeering

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore takes a jab today from the left-leaning New Republic.

In TNR's political blog, The Stump, Eve Fairbanks takes note of Gilmore's Senate campaign slogan -- "Drill here. Drill now. Pay less." -- under the headline, "Department of desperate campaign slogans."

I thought the best line came in a response from a reader, who called the former guv's catch-phrase, "a good slogan for a walk-in dental clinic."

These folks obviously never heard the lyrical, "No car tax."

Here's a link.

Defending McCain

Virginia Sen. John Warner rushed to the defense of his party's presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, on Monday to counter an attack on McCain's military record.

The McCain campaign organized a conference call with reporters to respond to an attack over the weekend from retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme commander and Democrat who has been mentioned as a possibly running mate for Sen. Barack Obama.

Clark, in an appearance Sunday on CBS's ``Face the Nation," suggested McCain lacks the experience needed to serve as commander in chief.

``He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall" as a wartime commander, Clark was quoted as saying.

When reminded that McCain was shot down in the Vietnam war and held prisoner, Clark said, ``I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."

That triggered McCain supporters-- including Warner and other distinguished military veterans-- to come to McCain's defense.

``I was utterly shocked when I saw this yesterday, knowing Clark as I have, that he would, in a disrespectful way, attack one of his fellow career military officers," Warner told reporters.

Warner, a Republican retiring in January, noted he has known McCain since the 1970's, when McCain returned from a Vietnamese prison and Warner was serving as secretary of the Navy. The two men have served together on the Senate Armed Services Committee for nearly 20 years.

As for Obama, Warner said, ``To the extent he had knowledge of this, I find it an exercise of poor judgment to allow an individual like Clark... to come in and do this attack."

Warner was an early McCain backer, having endorsed his Arizona colleague well before McCain had locked up the Republican party nomination.

You know gas prices are too high when truckers stop hiring hookers...wait what?

Um.....my editors have set up the Taser to keep me from commenting on this story from the Associated Press about gas prices triggering lagging numbers according to the Nevada Brothel Owners' Association.

In response to a 5 percent drop in business, the Shady Lady Ranch along U.S. 95 about 150 miles north of Las Vegas plans to offer $50 gas cards to clients who spend $300 and $100 gas cards to those who spend $500.

Click here for the full story from CNN. I am not creative enough to make this up.

Mark Warner and Glenn Nye stopped by my house this weekend...

Well not literally, I'm much too far down the totem poll for that.

But staffers came by my home in Virginia Beach this weekend to drop of fliers about former Gov. Mark Warner - who is running to replace retiring U.S. Sen. John Warner - and Glenn Nye - a first time candidate hoping to knock off U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake.

Warner has a nice looking pamplet all about getting beyond partisan politics - I can almost hear him talking about the "Radical Centrists" right now. He never mentions former Gov. Jim Gilmore, the Republican nominee, but gives quick snippets of his background starting off with the budget shortfall.

Nye takes a different tact - by asking people to join his campaign to lower gas prices and then outlining his personal and professional background. Nye's flier also moves to link him with some high approval ratings saying "In Congress, Glenn will be an independent leader like Mark Warner."

Looks like the Democrats are really going to work for Hampton Roads this November.    

Bobby Scott to host discussion of youth violence

U.S. Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott will hold a "summit on youth violence" in Surry Wednesday night at the Surry County Recreation Center.

In addition to Scott, the panel discussion on  the causes of and possible solutions to youth violence will feature Norfolk Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Jerrauld C. Jones, and Professor Emeritus Robert E. Shepherd Jr. from the University of Richmond. It is designed, in part, to give young people the opportunity to meet and talk to elected officials.

The summit begins at 5:30 at the recreation center, which is at 205 Enos Drive, Surry.

Good Monday morning

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John Warner's parting gift

Congressional passage this week of a new GI bill, giving war veterans a free college education, was a victory for its chief sponsor, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.

But it also came as a modest victory for Virginia's senior senator, John Warner, R-Va., who will retire in January.

The 81-year-old veteran of World War II and Korea joined Webb early this year to push for the GI bill, after resisting it last year because of its cost.

Warner, who went to college as a result of the original GI bill, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, said he decided to support Webb to help pay tribute to the military.

``I really wanted to be a part of getting this done as another part of my chapter to try to repay the American military for all the things that have been given to me," Warner said at a news conference hailing Senate passage of the measure.

``I think this is one of the finest hours in the history of our military."

In his final year in office, Warner had tried to do one last big thing: pass legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions to help curb global warming.

That legislation now lies in tatters on the Senate floor.

But with a new GI Bill about to become law, Warner said, ``I leave here with a sense of accomplishment."

The new GI Bill: just for war veterans?

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's new GI Bill, which President Bush may sign into law next week, promises to give more than 1.6 million military veterans the opportunity for a free college education.

In promoting his bill, Webb said the existing GI bill, which pays for about half the cost of a college education, was designed for peacetime. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he argued, deserve the same education benefits given to veterans of World War II.

The original GI Bill, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, sent nearly 8 million World War II veterans to college free of charge and, some say, helped create the post-war middle class.

But will Webb's new GI bill be limited to war veterans?

What happens when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars end?

``When this war is over, one would assume this benefit is going to end," Webb said Thursday in celebrating the Senate's passage of his measure.

That would seem an unlikely bet, however.

Nothing in Webb's legislation calls for the program to end when the wars end. Curtailing the benefits would require new legislation. And there would be little political glory for future lawmakers to push a bill cutting veterans' benefits.

The poweful veterans' lobby would seem sure to beat back any attempt to weaken the GI bill it just fought to pass.

``This is a promise we make to anyone who signs up, peacetime or wartime," said Patrick Campbell, legislative director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which claims 100,000 veterans and supporters.

All of which explains why government entitlement programs, once created, usually never die.

In Webb's case, that means that all future military veterans who serve at least three years of active duty will likely get a free college education at a state university if they want one. No combat duty required.

Obama adds two more staffers to Virginia campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has added two people to his Virginia campaign staff -- Stacey Brayboy as deputy state director and Kevin Griffis as communications director.

Brayboy previously was the director of Obama's primary campaigns in South Carolina and Virginia. She also has been Gov. Tim Kaine's deputy director of the Virginia Human Rights Council. In 2005, she was the state "core director" for Kaine's successful gubernatorial campaign.

Griffis started with the Obama campaign as the South Carolina communications director and held the same position during primaries in Virginia, Mississippi, Indiana and South Dakota. Griffis has also served as communications director for the Democratic Party of Virginia.