Richmond, Virginia -- March 10, 2006
On Wednesday of this week, Harris Miller's press secretary Mo Eleithee tried to "Swift Boat" Jim Webb and the mainstream press went along with the ruse like a bunch of rookie stringers. Eleithee trotted out Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy and waved a thirty-year old memo Jim Webb had written entitled "Women can't fight" laying out the military's viewpoint at that time that women did not belong on the battlefield.
Wow. One whole memo. One thirty-year old memo.
Mr. Eleithee, is that one memo really supposed to make Virginians forget the many years of service to his country that Jim Webb has given to his country as a Marine officer, Asistant Scretary of Defense, or Secretary of the Navy? The thousands of hours of pro-bono work Jim Webb has done on behalf of our nation's veterans?
The real reason Mo Eleithee is trying to "Swift Boat" Jim Webb is that he has to direct the mainstream media's attention away from the fact that his candidate, Harris Miller, has no record to speak of. Miller's own biography airily skips over the eleven years between 1984 and 1995 with the words:
He spent the next decade helping raise his two young children, playing an active role in numerous community organizations, and running a series of small businesses that specialized in banking, insurance, technology, agriculture, and immigration issues.
What kind of small business specializes in "immigration issues"? Harris Miller hasn't even revealed his age or what he majored in while at college or graduate school.
Mo Eleithee tried to "Swift Boat" Jim Webb because he has nothing positive to say, no record of achievement to point to, and no positive agenda to describe.
Harris Miller's chief achievement is to have been one of the most successful lobbyists in Washington, D.C. during the same period that Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay ruled the roost. Hardly the credentials of a mainstream Democrat.