You left out the context of the remark you are criticizing. From the WaPo article you link:

"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President,"

Basically, you don't get to ask about his son's welfare (Bush had to know he was serving in Iraq)but declare off limits the desire to bring him home. Bush was rude, and Webb was curt in return.

What it says to me is how passionately Webb feels about the Iraq conflict, such that he would not enagage in false pleasantries when Bush brings up the subject. I would say that is a good thing.

Agree w/dmbeaster.

A few years back Bush went on national television and told the world that he valued the so-called "life" of fertility clinic garbage more than my father's life. If Bush ever had the nerve to ask me how my dad was doing, my response would make Webb's reply look like a Hallmark greeting card.

It seems to me that how someone in Webb's shoes might see George W. Bush's query is extremely relevant: if one takes it as a personal, non-political, sincere, expression of concern, than a third person could fairly see Webb's response as unnecessarily rude; if one takes it as an attempt to get around the political issue by an insincere personal approach, or as another form of political approach (a dishonest, insincere, manipulative one), or even if one simply feels strongly enough that the welfare of tens of thousands of American troops, and millions or Iraqis, is a far more important issue than one of personal politesse and feels negatively enough about/angry enough about Bush's responsibility for all the death and disaster, a third party could easily see it as completely justified and appropriate.

Personally, as in many things, I'm a bit wishy-washy here; for all that I think extremely badly, to put it mildly, of the Bush Administration and most of its policies and actions, I tend to rarely be good at passionate personalized hating, and it's not as if I have much personal experience with George W. Bush to be absolutely sure about how I'd judge him as a human being (I tend to be cautious about relying on third party accounts, no matter how numerous), so I'm really not sure how I'd act in Webb's shoes; also, I tend to default towards a bit of courtesy, and towards giving the benefit of the doubt, so I dunno that I'd act as he did; but I'm not clear that it was Absolutely (or even the least bit) The Wrong Thing to do, either.

In any case, Webb didn't play all that well with others in the Reagan Admin, and despite his military background, seems to show relatively little sign in his life experience of being all that much of a team player in general; I rather doubt he's going to be much of one for the Democrats in the long term, as well. He doesn't seem to be much of a go-along-to-get-along fellow, so I'm hardly surprised at any given instance of that.

(Of course, politicians who insist on working only on their own notions/visions/opinions, without compromise, however admirable or not they may be, don't all that often turn out to be very successful in our legislative system, which tends to require a fair amount of compromise to accomplish anything, and likeability is also often -- though hardly universally -- a positive factor. It's unclear as yet to me that Webb has the temperment to be a happy Senator.)

Perhaps relevant to understanding this exchange is that it came shortly after Webb's son was nearly killed. Bush had reportedly (not betting my life on this) been briefed about the incident and advised to steer clear. If Bush had said, "I appreciate your son's service to our country, I hope he's doing well", I would hope Webb would have responded civilly.

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