Yesterday I voted for..*Gulp*. a republican.

Ok, the title of my post is a bit misleading since Jim Webb ran as a democrat, he turned to the democratic party during George W. Bush's administration. I could honestly get behind someone who finally saw the political light so to speak, but I guess the reason for my hesitant nature was that he was once Reagan's Navy Secretary. Of course his title didn't mean that he put women and children in gas chambers for Christs sake, but if you grew up like I did, in a house were the mere mention of old Ronnie's name would incite growls and snarls, it would give you reason for pause as well. But besides his Reagan ties, I learned that Jim Webb was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, 2 Bronze Star's, and 2 Purple Hearts. He has written 6 best selling novels, one of which was turned into the movie "Rules of Engagement" starring Samuel Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones. He speaks fluent Vietnamese and has done pro bono work in various Vietnamese communities, he also became the first Vietnam veteran to serve as a full committee counsel in the Congress. But most of all, In 1982 he first proposed, then led the fight for, including an African American soldier in the memorial statue that now graces the Vietnam Veterans memorial on the National Mall.

OK, OK, you got me, even though he has an impressive resume, I just think that he has the best chance to unseat that miserable fuck George Allen out of his Congress seat. It's true, Webb has military credibility, is a gifted writer, and has enough conservative leanings to attract many of the people that George Allen is betting on. Besides, even if Mr. Webb loses he puts a serious strain on George Allen's projected presidential aspirations in 08'.(See, he has to take Webb seriously, which is going to take time away from his presidential fundraising and campaigning) Oh yeah, let me show you why I think George Allen is a piece of shit.

*Campaigning for governor in 1993, he admitted to prominently displaying a Confederate flag in his living room

*When it was learned that he kept a noose hanging on a ficus tree in his law office, he said it was part of a Western memorabilia collection.

*In 1994, he said he would accept an honorary membership at a Richmond social club with a well-known history of discrimination--an invitation that the three previous governors had refused.

*He replaced the only black member of the University of Virginia (UVA) Board of Visitors with a white one

*He issued a proclamation drafted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans declaring April Confederate History and Heritage Month. The text celebrated Dixie's "four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights." There was no mention of slavery. After some of the early flaps, a headline in The Washington Post read, "governor seen leading va. back in time."

*In 1979 he ran a radio ad decrying a congressional redistricting plan whose main purpose was to elect Virginia's first post-Reconstruction black congressman.

*In 1984, he was one of 27 House members to vote against a state holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, "Allen said the state shouldn't honor a non-Virginian with his own holiday." He was also bothered by the fact that the proposed holiday would fall on the day set aside in Virginia to honor Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

*That same year, he did feel the urge to honor one of Virginia's own. He co-sponsored a resolution expressing "regret and sorrow upon the loss" of William Munford Tuck, a politician who opposed every piece of civil rights legislation while in Congress during the 1950s and 1960s and promised "massive resistance" to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning segregation.

So yeah, I voted for Jim Webb in the democratic primary to face George Allen, and it feels that I made the right choice. So, Good luck Jim, and be sure to tighten that "noose" around George Allen's neck come campaign time, of course I mean that figuratively.

*Reference: Ryan Lizza "George Allen's Race Problem" The New Republic Online