Webb's Audition: Blasts McCain, Assesses Obama's Appalachia Problem

Jim Webb, one of Congress' fastest rising Democrats and a Senator believed to occupy a spot on Barack Obama's vice presidential short list, is slated to throw his support behind the Illinois Democrat on Thursday, introducing Obama at a rally in Bristow, Virginia.
And while the event is designed to help Obama appeal to a portion of the country -- Appalachia and, more specifically, Virginia -- that could prove crucial in the general election, in an interview Wednesday with The Huffington Post, Webb showed off the political attributes he brings to the national campaign table.
On several key domestic and foreign policy issues, the Virginia Democrat offered persuasive defenses of Obama, in the process taking swipes at his presumed Republican counterpart.
"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."
Webb has stayed religiously neutral throughout the Democratic primary, but is seen as a natural complement to an Obama presidency. Beyond reaching a set of voters with whom the presumptive Democratic nominee has had difficulties (working class whites), the Virginia Democrat brings with him military and foreign policy experience, and the ability to say he was against the Iraq war (as well as the first Persian Gulf War) before it was launched.
"You don't want to be an occupying power in that part of the world," he said. "It flames the tensions."

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