We Heart This Guy

We've made no secret of our affection for this Marine, James Webb, who's running against an established Virginia progressive for the Democratic nomination to take on Virginia Sen. George Allen this fall. The decision will be made in the Virginia primary on June 13th.

The primary is causing some heartburn amongst Democratic liberals in The Commonwealth, and we can appreciate that. It tests the "reality-based" claims of some of our progressive friends, who tend to take the position always that the least compromise for the sake of victory is a sell-out of EVERYTHING. Never mind that Whatsisname, Webb's primary opponent, hasn't got the proverbial snowball's chance of unseating Allen. But Webb DOES, in spades.

But he's MILITARY and he worked in the Reagan administration, carp some progressive voices, which apparently means "he's not to be trusted." We got well on the other side of that kind of liberal cavilling many election-cycles past. We've been in far too many lengthy discussions on whether candidate x or candidate y was "pure" enough for the exalted standards of people who seem not to appreciate that democracy is a game of pushme/pullme, not Mother, May I.

Not that we trust ALL candidates who happen to be registered Democrats, not by a long shot (we'll refrain here from listing the N.C. members of our list, since this is TGIF, not Make Waves Monday).

But we can't find much fault in James Webb, and he looks like a winner (by which we mean ... we'd want him on our side in a barroom brawl, and which is -- come to think of it -- exactly what American politics IS). Why are some progressives so adverse to a winner? Cause he wears combat boots?