Cultural Cuisinart

Regular readers are by now familiar with my almost unholy love for the Democratic Senator from Virginia, Jim Webb. I've spoken about why I ultimately feel that Webb needs to stay right where he is right now, instead of becoming Obama's VP. That seat is too important and he's been too good in it so far for the party to lose that seat and voice.

However, I still think Webb can help Obama in other roles besides VP - namely as a very public surrogate for Obama's talking points. The Huffington Post has a great interview with Jim Webb up right now. He does a great job framing why McCain's recent attacks on Obama are groundless, and demonstrates his own understanding of history and politics.

A few money quotes:

"John McCain's comment about Barack not having sat down recently with General Petreaus means nothing," Webb said. "If you know who to listen to, if you know how to make judgments, if you know how evaluate information, you can do that. I don't think Franklin Roosevelt was ever at the front in France during WWII in order to help end the war."

On the other major foreign policy debate of the day -- whether or not a president should talk to hostile foreign leaders -- Webb again offered up a historical defense.

"Under the right circumstances, you have to [talk to your enemies]," he said. "My model for Iran is China in 1971. China was a nuclear power, it was a rogue state, it had American war on its border with Vietnam, it was spouting the same kind of hostile rhetoric. We took none of our military options off the table, we abandoned none of our alliances, but we reached out in a aggressive way diplomatically to bring China into the world community."

This is powerful commentary from a man with an impressive background (one that should appeal greatly to those voters in demographics that Obama has had difficulty courting) - former military man, son serving in Iraq as a Marine right now, etc.