James Webb has an appreciation of Cap Weinberger in today’s WSJ (no free link):

When Cap Weinberger took office as secretary of defense in 1981 our military was in a truly worrisome state. Its people were burnt out. Our ships, aircraft and weapons systems were depleted, on the verge of obsolescence. Our nation was demoralized by the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the humiliation of the failed attempt to rescue hostages in Iran, and worried sick about the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan. Nearly seven brutally demanding years later, he left behind a modernized, properly deployed military force filled with quality people. He had implemented a strategy that soon thereafter brought an end to the Soviet Union’s expansionist regime.

This is, of course, the Reaganite version of what happened in the 1980s–and certainly not the sort of thing you’d expect to hear from a Democrat running for the Senate. Yet that’s what Webb is doing. Although he served in the Reagan administration, he broke with the GOP over Iraq and is now a Democrat trying to capture his party’s nomination to take on Sen. George Allen in Virginia this fall. His obituary for Weinberger is heartfelt and well done, but also the sort of thing that will make many people in his new party vote for the other guy.