Appearing in Virginia with Barack Obama, Sen. Jim Webb was characteristically blunt, taking a few shots today at Sarah Palin and defending Barack Obama against attempts to cast him as an outsider, saying voters in more conservative southwest Virginia could trust him, Carrie Budoff Brown reports.

"Do you really think Sarah Palin is the most qualified person in the Republican Party?" Webb asked as he introduced Obama in Roanoke.

The crowd yelled "no" at the mention of her name and booed.

"I don't know how many people here like country music," Webb continued. "I like country music. There was a song about two years ago, 'I know what I was doing, but what was I was thinking?' John McCain is probably singing that song right now."

Webb moved onto the vice presidential debate. "Gov. Palin turned around and said, 'Nice to meet you, can I call you Joe?' I was thinking, Joe, what you really outta do is say, 'Yeah, you can call me whatever you want. In two months, you're gonna be calling me Mr. Vice President.'"

In making the case for Obama, Webb said the Illinois senator has ties to the region — a fact that one Obama aide had not known about.

"There's a lot of comments that have been made about certain ethnic issues in this campaign," Webb said. "I would like to say we know Barack Obama's father was born in Kenya. Barack Obama's mother was born in Kansas by way of Kentucky. We are going to see on Election Day the election of the fourteenth president of the United States whose ancestry, family line goes back to mountains of this area.

"Barack Obama understands you. The first place he visited after he was officially nominated — he came here to southwest Virginia. This will be his seventh trip to southwest Virginia. And you can trust him — I trust him."