Webb's wise words

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Jim Webb: "Since 2003, President Bush has laid out nine different plans for victory in Iraq, none of them serious and none of them workable. And most seriously, this incompetence has hindered our ability to fight international terror."

-- "It gives me no great pleasure today to be saying `I told you so.' It pains me as an American that our casualties are again escalating while this president and his followers are still incapable of bringing forward an intelligent, commonsense approach to ending our involvement there."

-- "Over the past several weeks a few realists in the Republican Party, such as Sen. John Warner and former Secretary of State Jim Baker, have begun to make their voices heard. They are moving away from the fantasy world of this administration, toward real solutions."

-- "A Democratic Congress will demand from day one that the president find a real way forward in Iraq. We'll work with the administration and other Republicans to develop a concrete plan, but none of us are ready to settle for empty rhetoric, or the same old unacceptable results."

All of which is right on the mark. Which is why Democrats deserve to take control of Congress. And why Webb deserves to be elected senator from the state of Virginia.