What Do You Do Now?

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Senator Jim Webb had to answer that question time after time in his service to this country and all of us over the years, but the most poignant moment, the one he himself says stays with him to this day, was during his Marine Corps duty in Viet Nam.

From his new book, A Time to Fight, excerpted Sunday in Parade magazine and at Parade.com:

A gray-haired man in white pajamas, probably a grandfather, was dead, having wrapped himself around a small boy to protect him from the blast. It was clear that his final thoughts were of the boy. His shocked, opaque eyes and his still-curled body were the very definition of love and human sacrifice. The boy was still alive, although barely....

The doc put the boy on a wooden box next to our command post. Over the next half hour, as I spoke on the radio, the boy lay near me quietly, never making a sound, all the while watching me. Nor could I stop watching him. And as we stared at each other, he slowly died.

Webb sees the state of the nation today, but also issues a challenge to each and every one of us.

Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis. This crisis has many causes, but much of it has been brought about by poor leadership decisions at every level of government. In addition, our electoral process is dominated by financial interests that are threatened by the very notion of reform.

Be as shrewd and ruthless in your demands on our leaders as the wizards running campaigns are in their strategies to get your vote.

This past week we saw a ramping-up of the Politics of Smear by George Bush and John McCain in their tag-team attacks on Barack Obama. Attacks that backfired as Democrats justly rallied around the candidate, including his only remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton.

But this was an attack that goes beyond partisan politics. The history of the presidency itself has been smeared by Bush's craven desperation to inject himself into the campaign against Obama with his words to the Knesset. The best disinfectant and clean-up for such dirty politics is a good housecleaning... and that's going to take your vote.