I disagree with George Will more than usual  over this one. Nobody disputes the event, between newly elected Democratic Senator Jim Webb and current POTUS George W. Bush. Bush and Webb were both at a reception for newly elected members of Congress. Webb tried to avoid contact with Bush, refusing to pass through the reception line or have their picture taken together. Bush eventually cornered Webb and asked, “How’s your boy?”

Webb responded that he would like to get his own boy, and the other boys and girls, out of Iraq.

Bush responded, “That’s not what I asked. How’s your boy?”

Webb’s response, “That’s between me and my boy.”

Will pronounces Webb’s behavior “boorish,” which seems uncharitable, to say the least (his child is fighting in a war, Mr. Will, which is more than can be said for you or Mr. Bush).

It also ignores the fact that Bush’s own behavior is hardly above reproach -- he knows Webb’s son is in Iraq, and he knows how Webb feels about that. So why provoke a confrontation? Was it an attempt at an olive branch, gone awry because of Bush’s fundamental lack of ability to be anything other than a snot? I’m reasonably certain Miss Manners would not approve of the seeming pissiness of the repeated question in an attempt to simply ignore the difficult response. A real president might have said something diplomatic and meaningless, something like “I understand” and let it go at that.

Also, while Webb’s “That’s between me and my boy” might be socially awkward, is it actually rude? People ask me all the time “how are you?” and my usual response is “okay.” But sometimes people come back with “just okay?” at which point I think they are being rude. And they think they’re... honestly, I have no idea what they think. I have no idea what has to go through your mind in order for you to think that is an appropriate comeback. I usually just want awkward situations like that to end. Sometimes I look at them, baffled, for just a little too long, and say, “I thought ‘okay’ was good.” But sometimes I wish I had the chutzpah to say something more like, “No, things are a lot worse than okay, pretty horrible actually, and I just said ‘okay’ so you’d leave me alone, because I really don’t want to talk to you about my personal problems, and I doubt you want to hear about them either, so maybe the next time somebody says they’re okay you should just take that at face value and move on, instead of engaging in your moronic attempts to do whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing with that kind of crack.”

Anyway, I’m not quite sure where I was going with that. Maybe, it’s that Webb is sensitive about being asked how is boy is, and I’m annoyed to be asked how I am by people who act like there’s a right answer other than “okay,” and maybe we make it awkward for people who press that particular button, but they made it awkward for us first.

Okay, I guess, what I’m getting at, is, I understand Webb. Not like I know him or anything. But I know there are areas where I would be on the Webb side of an exchange with people. The testy side. Like if I had been at this little shindig, I probably would have avoided Bush myself, and avoided having my picture taken with him, and then if Bush cornered me and asked me something to which there is no polite answer, for example, “what do you think of the job I’m doing?” I would have no choice but to say, “Terrible in every way.” And then I might add, “Sir,” because I’ve been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica.

Will also makes the blatantly false statement, “In a republic, people decline to be led by leaders who are insufferably full of themselves.” Which, I’ve been here through six years of Bush, so I know that’s not true. I know I have never been particularly impressed by Bush’s arrogance, but obviously, some people are. And I still haven’t worked out how Webb’s statement betrays any arrogance or self-importance, or how it was “studied truculence in response to the president’s hospitality.” (But “truculence” is a great word, isn’t it? Means, “obstreperous and defiant aggressiveness” And “obstreperous” means “noisily and stubbornly defiant.” )

Having wrung all the juice from this little confrontation, Will decides that he’s not yet done with Webb and berates him for “going out of his way to make waves” with a Wall Street Journal column that states, “The most important -- and unfortunately the least debated -- issue in politics today is our society’s steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America’s top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country.”

Will then acknowledges that Webb has written well in the past, then takes him to task for “slapdash prose that would be rejected by a reasonably demanding high school teacher,” which makes one wonder the last time Will has read anything written by high school students, because I’m pretty sure that an essay of that caliber would get you an “A.” It wasn’t until college journalism classes that I had teachers persnickety enough to take me to task for things like misuse of “infinitely” and “literally,” as Will does. And, no, I can’t argue with him there. But I can say that both words are used hyperbolically, meaning “employing hyperbole,” and “hyperbole” means “A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect.”

Will attempts to deflate the main thrust of Webb’s point -- that the US is tending toward class-based stratification -- by playing a few games with Webb’s numbers. Will points out that our society is more egalitarian than it was 50 years ago, and that 50 years ago we were more egalitarian than 80 years ago. I doubt Webb would argue with that. I certainly wouldn’t. But, Webb is comparing today with twenty-five years ago.

Is it so unbelievable that, perhaps, our tendency toward ever-greater equality stalled out and even began to reverse 25 years ago? In the 80s? During the era of Reagan, whom Will has always flat-out adored?

Will’s dudgeon aside, I’m pretty sure, based on the election results, polls, and general zeitgeist, that Webb is, so far, being the kind of politician -- populist, a little feisty -- the people who elected him want him to be. They don’t want him to play nice and shake hands. They want him to be a little aggressive on their behalf, a little... obstreperous... you know, representing them. Like representatives do. It’s a democracy thing.

But then, that sort of democracy has always seemed a tad offensive to the sensibilities of conservatives like Will, who is many admirable things, but a populist is not one of them.