Taking a cue from Ross Perot with show-and-tell. “Here, lookee!”

Alter: A Powerful Response – Newsweek Between the Lines – MSNBC.com — So apparently this Jim Webb character wowed them after Bush’s speech. The Webb rebuttal must have been watched by 7 people total. I mean how many of us can even get through the uninspired Bush speech in the first place? I couldn’t keep my eyes open. This article is a good read since Webb is now the rare Democrat that speaks his mind and doesn’t sound like a ball-less wonder the way the rest of them do. That said I suspect he’s the go-to guy to knock both Hillary and Obama out of the race on behalf of the Kennedy (aka Pelosi) side of the party. You watch how this works.

Webb is seen as a moderate or even conservative Democrat, but this was a populist speech that quoted Andrew Jackson, founder of the Democratic Party and champion of the common man. The speech represented a return to the tough-minded liberalism of Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey, but by quoting Republicans Teddy Roosevelt (on “improper corporate influence”) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (on ending the Korean War), he reinforced the argument that President Bush had taken the GOP away from its roots.

Webb was given a speech to read by the Democratic leadership. He threw it out and wrote his own. As a well-regarded novelist, Webb has a sense of narrative and human drama. He apparently felt that the boots his son wore in Iraq, which he used to great effect during his successful Senate campaign against Sen. George Allen, might be a bit hokey. So instead, he showed a picture of his father during the Berlin airlift. He then went on to describe taking the picture to bed every night and his family’s long record of military service.

As a highly decorated veteran of Vietnam and the Reagan administration (where he served as Navy secretary), Webb is the perfect instrument for rescuing Democrats from the image of wimpy, weak-kneed wussies that has so hampered them in recent national elections.

Also a prop comic on Saturdays at the Improv

Notice a resemblance?