Wrong.

Iran Contra broke on November 3, 1986. Webb resigned in February 1988.

It doesn't make him guilty of anything, but your assertation that "Webb resigned from the Reagan Administration years before Iran Contra hit" is just false.

Why are you attacking Matt? It makes no sense.

And where are these hundreds of thousands of unemployed programmers? Employment in the VA tech sector is up - that's in part where the NOVA boom is coming from.

You make it sound as though the streets of Fairfax are clogged with panhandling former programmers. That's just not the case. The tech boom and the increased wages and employment in that sector are some of the reasons why real estate in NOVA is so expensive.

Outsourcing isn't to be applauded, but in your zeal to attack Miller, you distort the facts. Here's what's really going on:

"The high-tech industry is booming in Virginia," said Gregory Poersch, Executive Director of the AeA Potomac Council.  "Tech jobs, wages, and exports are all on the rise.  Venture capital investments jumped by 38 percent in 2005.  If these trends continue, next year Virginia will become the state with the highest concentration of tech workers in the nation."

Tim Kaine, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia said, "We are proud of Virginia's track record of extending high technology job growth across the Commonwealth, especially in our rural communities."

Virginia's rapid tech job growth is positive for the state's economy, as tech industry jobs in Virginia pay nearly twice as much as the average private sector wage.  

I think to say that Webb was NEVER a believer in anything but Reagan's military/foreign policy positions is a stretch. Or maybe you're right, and it's just hard to believe - in any case, Webb has no appreciable record on any of that stuff. We'll have to take his word for it, barring any revelations that either confirm or disprove it.

That said, I don't think you can argue that Reagan turned Webb into a Republican. I think it goes back further than that - from what I've read, it goes back to when he came back from Vietnam - though the reasons appear to be the same, and focused around his distaste for the anti-war movement.

I hear what you're saying here - It's clear the military has made strides where women are concerned, though I still am troubledy by DADT. It just seems wrong to me, regardless of arguments about being "realistic" or whatever.

While reading your comment, another thought occurred to me: While Webb's record on opening up billets for women is good, his comments about women in combat aren't so encouraging. Either way, I'm hesitant to take the statistics about the military over the last 30 years and somehow apply them to Webb's candidacy. He was Secretary of the Navy for less than 2 years in that entire time.

Actually, I don't buy this argument. Here's why:

Webb endorsed Bush and Allen in 2000 - and nothing has changed about Republican economic policies since then. Nothing. Ronald Reagan was a corporate stooge, and so are Bush and Allen. There is nothing surprising about Bush's assault on working Americans - the writing was all there on the wall in 2000. Allen's record was just as clear.

What has changed is that Bush got us into the Iraq mess. Webb is justifiably pissed about that. That's clearly the motivation for Webb's conversion.

All of this business about Webb having really been in sympathy with Democrats all along, even though he was endorsing Republicans, is a little tough to believe, given that he was basically a Republican for 30 years, at times taking a truly partisan line on their behalf.

Actually, I have more to say on this. The Republican ascendancy that arrived with Ronald Reagan had a lot to do with using racial identity issues to convince white voters to betray their economic interests and vote for Republicans.

A lot of these voters are wondering where the hell their jobs have gone - manufacturing jobs, mining jobs, etc. These folks have been cut off from the ecomonic opportunities of the information revolution because they haven't had the educational opportunities that others have had.

Not sure what is so offensive about not liking nooses and Confederate flags as symbols. I don't like what they symbolize, and I don't think that either symbol speaks to what is good about the Democratic Party. I think that waving these symbols around is what it is for politicians: A way to send coded messages to white voters who look back nostalgically at the times when these symbols were real instruments of power wielded by whites against blacks.

If what the Democratic Party needs is more nooses and Confederate flags, I'm going to have to move on.

Ouch. You misinterpret me: I assume that people who choose their candidates based on their willingness to pander on the Confederacy and the threat of people of color taking white opportunities are poorly educated.

Or maybe my error was to think that white folks who base political leanings on ethnic identity could use some more education.

Not sure what you mean about Harris Miller "jumping on board" against racism. Miller's been a Democratic leader in VA for a long time.

But hey, even if he were coming late to the practice of siezing opportunities to stand up to racism, we should welcome him. Someone please let me know when Webb decides to sieze those opportunities...

Webb's special obligation is based on more than that. Webb has called affirmative action "state-sponsored racism" and compared it to the "gulag". He has given speeches at the Confederate Memorial.

Granted, his position on affirmative action (that it should be based on class and not race) is more complex than these comments indicate. And granted, his nostalgia for the Confederate soldier does not necessarily indicate that he supports the causes for which the political leaders of the Confederacy urged them to fight.

But given the "complexity" of Webb's record on race, this would not only be an opportune time for him to give us an indication that he'd stand up to people like Allen (who voted against the MLK holiday in VA), it's Webb's duty as a candidate for the Democratic nomination to be a US Senator to make clear the contrast between himself and his opponent.

That he chose instead to attack the journalist who raised the issue is seriously troubling.

The Kucinich comment is just ad hominem - there's a LOT of territory between Kucinich and Webb, a self-described "Reagan Democrat". Mark Warner has called for Rumsfeld's resignation. Tim Kaine did the Dem response to the SOTU. Jim Moran got arrested at a protest last week.

There are Virginians who get elected - statewide - and who are partisan Democrats and who have been so their entire lives. The idea that anyone to the left of Webb is in Kucinich-land as far as VA voters are concerned is spurious.

I say welcome Jim Webb to the tent too. I'd just like him to do his "more thinking" and give us an answer before we put him in charge.

So he's against censure. In the Senate you have to vote, and basically what he's saying here is that he wouldn't vote for censure.

Fair enough, but let's call it like it is.

The point here is accountability. Webb wants "more information" - which is a Senator's favorite excuse for not doing shit. He wants more information on the domestic spying stuff and he wants more information on Rumsfeld's management of DoD.

Jesus Christ, what more does the man need to know? Bush is attacking the constitution (just a God Damned piece of paper) and mismanaging the hell out of the war (69 American lives lost in Iraq in April, 3 years after the "mission accomplished" stunt).

What more does Jim Webb need to know?

Agreed. What's disappointing here is that his gut reaction to someone who is raising significant questions about the character of a Republican presidential contender and, more importantly about his own opponent, is to attack the messenger.

I, for one, think that a journalist who writes a well-researched article about George Allen and exposes significant character weaknesses out to be someone I buy a beer, not accuse of "hitting below the belt" and "personal attacks". No one has argued that anything in the article is not true.

Meanwhile, the article is putting Allen's record on race into the public discourse - giving other candidates an opportunity to tell us where they stand on things like the Confederate flag and nooses. Given Webb's history of strong opposition to affirmative action, I'm particularly interested to hear what he has to say on the subject. It's an opportunity to show me where his head is at on thhis stuff - and he drops the ball. Instead of saying, "These stories about George Allen's teen years aren't what's important here - what concerns me is Allen's record as Governor, etc.", he attacks the journalist who wrote the story.

This is like Webb's positions on key gay issues: In 2006, he is sort of trying to say the minimum stuff he needs to say to keep the left off his back while he sort of winks at the tactics used by Reagan to court poorly educated whites: Generally opposing equal rights for gay people and looking nostalgically back on historical periods when black people had fewer rights.

For the record, I don't think that Webb dislikes African Americans. He may well not have any personal distaste for gay people. But before I throw open my arms to him and announce that he's the guy I want speaking for my side of the aisle in this election, I'd like to know what being a Reagan Democrat means to him - and so far, it looks like it means pandering to poorly educated whites.

So what you're saying is that while Webb thinks heterosexual couples deserve to marry while homosexual couples do not, he is libertarian enough to think that it's not his call.

Meanwhile, this guy we're all suppose to be digging because he's a straigh-shooting war hero is hiding behind political expediency and "realism" as his excuses for supporting policies that discriminate against gay people.

While I don't question Webb's courage, this certainly doesn't enhance my impression of it. These are the positions and excuses of a typical politician who is trying to keep a minority from getting too pissed off while he courts the votes of people who are all too happy to discriminate against that minority.

How come he gave George Allen a pass on his record on race?

How come he gave Donald Rumsfeld a pass on fucking up the Iraq war?

The kind of backbone I'm interested in is the kind that kicks the crap out of Republicans.