Apparently, Democratic Senator Jim Webb was the honored guest of University of Virginia Professor (and longtime political pundit) Larry Sabato yesterday. We know this because Sabato discussed Webb's visit on his Twitter account. In doing so, he made quite a fool of himself in the process.
After lauding Webb for criticizing the health care bill (not for its content, but rather for it's process), Sabato makes one of the more moronic statements in recent memory:
BTW, Webb's no liberal caricature. Ever met a liberal who's won a Navy Cross for heroism, a Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, 2 Purple Hearts?
Ironically, he had just finished lauding Webb for being the kind of Senator who could "tame polarization & get more done."
And what better judge can we have for getting past polarization than Larry Sabato, who uses a discussion on health care votes to burp up one of the most shopworn and absurd memes about political liberals?
To say nothing, of course, of inaccurate.
Or perhaps the Professor has never heard of folks like Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii:
Dan received the [Medal of Honor] as a result of bravery he demonstrated on April 21st, 1945, near the town of San Terenzo, Italy, on the day he was seriously injured.
Dan crawled up a slope to within five yards of the nearest machine gun and hurled two grenades, destroying the emplacement. Although already wounded by a sniper’s bullet, Dan kept fighting. Before the enemy could retaliate, he neutralized a second machine gun nest. Then the grenade hit. Its blast rendered Dan’s right arm dead. He looked down at horror at the exposed bone, muscle and tissue dangling from his shoulder joint. In his right fist was clinched a grenade. His fingers—gripped fiercely around the grenade and no longer taking orders from his brain—refused to budge. With life and death literally a fraction of a second away, Dan used this left hand to pry from the palm of his right the live grenade and tossed it away. And Dan kept fighting. Despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation and continued to direct his platoon until enemy resistance was broken. Second Lieutenant Inouye and his platoon captured the ridge.
Or perhaps Senator John Kerry, the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and a trio of Purple Hearts.
Or the late Rep. Jack Murtha, who received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.
Or...well, you get the idea.
Having taken a little heat about the comment on Twitter (including some from a military veteran name of Markos Moulitsas), Sabato dug in at first, arguing that those criticizing the comment were not properly appreciating the context of the comment.
Eventually, he apologized for the tweet, conceding that the original tweet was "poorly worded".