Jim Webb and Women: Actions Speak Loudly As Women Run His Campaign

George Allen, who voted against a law that would protect working women by allowing them to take UNPAID leave from their jobs for family emergencies, is spending millions on misleading ads to convince voters that Jim Webb is "demeaning" to women.

Here's the truth: Webb's campaign is practically run by women, who he obviously has trusted with the most important positions of responsibility around him. His campaign manager: Jessica Vandenberg, a competent skilled advisor who has been with Webb from the start and helped him win a tough primary race and make George Allen sweat like never before.

His campaign treasurer: Ingrid Morroy (pictured above), Arlington' County's popular and efficient treasurer and also a supporter from the earliest days of the campaign.

Webb's campaign spokesperson: Kristian Todd Denney. Denney is literally the face of the campaign for countless press inquiries and responses, clearly a position of responsibility. Again, with the campaign from the start.

Finance director? Ashley Flanagan. And the list goes on. These aren't women recruited after Allen started his diversionary attacks--they were selected by Webb for positions of responsibility from the start.

Webb's wife, Hong Le, is also a working mother. A securities lawyer in a major law firm, with a nine-year-old daughter, Hong Le is pregnant, due in December, and still working. Webb has not demanded of his wife that she give up her career--or even take an unpaid leave--to go off and help his campaign.

While George Allen's wife, Susan, may be a popular figure, she is playing the traditional "stand by my man" figurehead role of a political wife, hardly a great role model for women.

So, what about those novels Webb wrote in which he allegedly demeans women? You could just as easily say they demean men. As with any work of fiction, there are good characters and there are bad. These are novels of wartime, and they have some pretty awful male characters. And they are FICTION for gosh sakes.

Allen's campaign, abetted by the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, is also running ads saying Webb called the Tailhook scandal a "witchhunt". We dealt with that particularly misleading low blow a couple weeks ago: what Webb said is that after a "botched investigation" into the "inexcusable harassment of women at a Las Vegas convention of naval aviators," the situation was threatening to turn into a "witchhunt".

Webb's article opposing admission of women to the Naval Academy, written 30 years ago, does contain unfortunate language for which Webb has apologized. When it came time for action,--when Webb served as Navy Secretary--he didn't hesitate to promote women into positions of responsibility.

We wonder what Allen's views were on women back then, when he was running around using the N-word behind the backs of black football players at U.Va.?

Fiction can be fascinating, but shouldn't be confused with fact. Allen's depiction of Webb on women's issues is fiction. Jim Webb's actions speak loudly to the point.