The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Yesterday, Virginia Senator James Webb appeared on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopolous. Primarily, Webb's interview covered Iraq, diplomacy with Iran and Syria and the Walter Reed scandal. However, it was his response to Stephanoplonous's final question that caught my attention.

Webb was asked if he has any interest in becoming the Democrat's nominee for Vice President in 2008. Stephanopolous specifically noted the blogosphere was championing Webb as an ideal number two for the Democratic Party next year. Initially, Webb's response was predictable about his desire to remain in the Senate.

But Webb also added he wanted to address problems not typically mentioned in political campaigns. What sort of issues does Webb have in mind? Webb actually wants to understand why two million people are incarcerated in the United States. He notes this is an issue "tearing apart" the country. In a post last week I asked if anyone cared about America's prison industrial complex. How gratifying to learn we have at least one Senator taking an interest.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO OF SENATOR WEBB'S APPEARANCE ON ABC.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Campaign 2008 reminds me of something former New York Yankee and member of the baseball Hall of Fame, Yogi Berra once said: "It gets late early around here." The jostling, pandering, fundraising and lying are well underway in both parties for the most wide-open presidential campaign in over a half-century. And it's only February 2007.

Yet as we focus on individual candidates, their platforms, tactics and even how they look in a bathing suit, it's instructive to contemplate what these campaigns say about our culture.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

I feel like Count Vitte who served the insipid Czar Nicholas II in the final years of Russia's monarchy. A stupid boy sovereign who believed he was annointed by God. His subjects, the ungrateful peasants and proletarians lost their stomach for a noble war.

Rabble rousers, subversives and opportunists sowing the seeds of dissent and undermining morale. "Peace, land and bread!" Now it's peace, healthcare and raise the minimum wage! Put a mustache and beard on Senator Schumer and he resembles Leon Trotsky! Instead of Lenin's propaganda pamphlets we have blogs. Hillary Clinton might as well be the reincarnation of Vladimir Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya.

As some political experts have put it, George Felix Allen began this campaign season evaluating his upcoming senate reelection race in Virginia as nothing more than a speed bump in the road before running for president in 2008, a Republican Southern alternative to John McCain of Arizona.  

Now the speed bump has attained the level of a ponderous mountain that appears increasingly difficult for the once confident Allen to climb.  Yes, there is that unfortunate element for Senator Allen in the form of a steady population increase in Northern Virginia.

Those well read, politically savvy suburbanite professionals commute to and from the District Columbia, where they work.  They identify in large numbers with the Democrats.

Those Northern Virginians are progressives, citizens in touch with the present.  Allen's current campaign harkens back to the pathetic nadir of Strom Thurmond and Theodore Bilbo's Dixiecrats while his campaign style appears to be blending in with that of Republicans elsewhere in the nation, scrambling around aimlessly, reminiscent of the late nineties crackup of Britain's Conservative Party.  

One of the interesting U.S. Senate candidacies of the 2006 primary season along with Ned Lamont's challenge against Senator Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut is that of James Webb in Virginia.  Should Webb win the Democratic primary his opponent would be Senator George Allen, a Cheney-Bush Republican currently seeking to run away from his roots, given Bush's recent dismal polling numbers.

If one Democrat of all those seeking office at this stage of the 2006 political sweepstakes could be selected who would typify everything that strategist Karl Rove fears as a candidate it would figure to be James Webb.  

An even cursory analysis of Webb's personal and political biography reveals why Rove and the Republican attack machine would have significant reason to worry in the face of a Webb candidacy in the fall election.

James Webb is a Naval Academy graduate who fought in the Vietnam War and won medals for courage and valor.  Webb served with the 5th Marine Regiment in Vietnam as a rifle platoon and company commander, receiving the Navy Cross, the second highest award in the Navy, along with the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts.  

james webb, former navy secretary under reagan, in today's nyt...

   Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice.     Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice.