While Webb had made his sentiments perfectly clear some time ago, he made his refusal to be a VP candidate official today.  (Hat tip: Jim Antle)  This is good news for Virginia and for the Senate Democrats, and it’s probably good for Obama for reasons I have stated before.  This is also good news for the country, because Webb will be much more effective in advancing both foreign policy realist and economic populist causes in the Senate than he ever would have been able to do as Vice President. 

On a Webb-related note, Sen. Webb has an article in the 6/30 issue of TAC on foreign policy in the Near East (sorry, not online).  Here is an excerpt:

Journalism has its flaws, particularly when one comes to a situation with a preconceived political bias.  But good journalism, coming from honest, perceptive journalists, has a far better track record with respect to the challenges of the Middle East than do the policies of our political leaders.  Sometimes it is easier to comprehend harsh realities when one is able to observe them closely without direct involvement and without having to feel accountable for their end results.  And sometimes politicians are so blinded by their policy positions and by the filtering process through whicfh they receive their information that they will never fully understand the realities of the problems they are trying to fix.

In any event, I came away from this experience [in Beirut] with a strong feeling that the United States should tread softly in the Middle East, that it should never give up its military or diplomatic maneueverability by occupying territory in a region so fraught with multilayered conflicts.

There is much more in the article in addition to this.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I would much prefer to have an independent-minded Sen. Webb who can produce the insights in this article rather than see Jim Webb be obliged to defend the next dubious intervention in Sudan or God-knows-where as a member of the Obama administration. 

Update: I should note that the article in the magazine is an excerpt from Webb’s new book, Time to Fight.