HERE'S A THOUGHT: Gerald
His thinking is sound. The articulate and urbane Mr. Obama lacks experience and credentials in foreign policy and national security. Those who see defense as this nation's most pressing need would be drawn to the GOP's Sen. John McCain.
But adding Mr. Webb to the Democratic ticket would diffuse some of that enthusiasm. Mr. Webb, a first-term senator, is a graduate of the Naval Academy and a highly decorated Vietnam veteran. His bona fides include four military medals for valor as a Marine officer in Vietnam and service as secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. As a novelist, he is in the first rank of interpreters of the Vietnam War experience from the grunt's perspective.
If that's not enough, Mr. Webb claims rural roots among the Scots-Irish frontiersmen whose descendants work in the coal mines of Appalachia and fill blue-collar jobs all over America--exactly the constituency most resistant to Mr. Obama.
Whether Mr. Webb would accept the second spot on the ticket is unknown, but given his drive to gain the Senate seat held by George Allen, it's easy to imagine he would.