The president's State of the Union address was rocked Tuesday by the improvised explosive device set off by the freshman senator from Virginia. The eight-minute rebuttal by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb tracked closer to the reality of the current affairs of state than the 49-minute ramble of George W. Bush.

Having squeaked past Republican George Allen for his seat, Webb is stranger neither to conflict nor to the written word. The novelist, filmmaker, Vietnam veteran and author of books on military strategy is also a former U.S. secretary of the Navy. Not one to suffer fool politicians, Webb reportedly resigned as secretary rather than shrink the Navy.

After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi welcomed the president as the Democrats' warm smile, Webb came on as the party's clenched fist. In November, when Bush inquired about his Marine son, Webb answered, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President." Bush shot back, "That's not what I asked you. How's your boy?" The newly elected Webb countered, "That's between me and my boy," who'd just had a battlefield brush with death.

During his rebuttal, Webb's high regard for the "war president" worked its way into the set of his jaw as his cold eyes measured Bush's speech and found it woefully lacking in credibility.

Bush proposed a tax-cut scheme for health care, alternative fuel sources and a balanced federal budget. In announcing a five-year plan to eliminate huge deficits, Bush neglected to mention that upon taking office in 2001 he inherited a huge surplus. Still, in his imagined economy, Bush inclined all arrows upward.

Webb described a different country entirely, one that distributes benefits unfairly. "When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times," he said. "Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them."

Recalling President Andrew Jackson, Webb urged that "the health of our society [be measured] ... not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street."

On the Iraq war, the highly decorated Marine combat veteran looked down at Bush from a high place. Already, his 2004 column in USA Today had blasted the "war president" as a shirker who avoided the Vietnam-era draft and evaded the battlefield. "Bush used his father's political influence to move past many on the Texas Guard's waiting list," Webb wrote. "He was not required to attend Officer Candidate School to earn his commission. He lost his flight status after failing to show up for a required annual physical. ...

"[As a war president] Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence."

Webb opened up with the same guns Tuesday, attacking an ersatz commander for wasting lives through gross incompetence. "[Our national leaders] owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it. The president took us into this war recklessly."

Even at this late and tragic hour, Webb called upon Bush to start acting in the best interest of the American people. Otherwise, "we will be showing him the way." It's about time.

©2007 Newsday Inc.

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