Mar 22, 2006 5:47 PM

New Face of the Fighting Dems

Move over Paul Hackett; say hello to major Tammy Duckworth.

Duckworth is an Iraq veteran who just won a Democratic primary in Illinois, earning the right to contend for the seat vacated by outgoing paleo-con Henry Hyde. This makes Duckworth the first of the so-called Fighting Dems to actually win an election. (Hackett, for all the Democratic dreams that were heaped upon him, was most famous for losing out to Jean Schmidt.)

But Duckworth isn't just the next Hackett -- a charismatic face, leading the charge of the Iraq veterans who have come back home to fight for a seat in Congress as Democrats -- she's the next Max Cleland.

The badass thirty-six-year-old, who served as a Blackhawk helicopter combat pilot in Iraq, lost both of her legs -- one at the shin, the other almost at the hip -- in an rocket attack in November 2004 during the post-election assault on Fallujah. (Not that she's bitter: "It's really hard to use a laptop when you only have half a lap," she joshed in a WaPo article last month.)

Whatever your political inclinations it's impossible not to root for a woman who is still an active member of the National Guard and who can represent, both politically and physically, the more than 16,000 Americans who have been wounded in this war.

Just check out this photo of the candidate standing at a podium on two prosthetic limbs and you'll see what I mean.

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